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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
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Gospel text (Mt 5:17-37): Jesus said to his disciples: “... You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart..."

Male and female: identical dignity in complementarity

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, we consider that the Bible reveals the "existential equality" between man and woman: both are "a" creature and both have “a” human dignity. Concurrently, another aspect is the "mutual reference": the person has been created to require the other party in order to transcend; each one craves for its counterpart. The person has not been created to be alone; what is good for the person is not the solitude, but the community. We have to search for and discover the other party.

Female and male: both are the same human being. And as the body is not only an external addition to the person, the physical difference is a difference which penetrates through the entire person and determines two ways of being that person. In this sense, whatever exaggerations on both the egalitarian and the differential theories should be moderated.

—Men and women belong to each other. They possess gifts they have to deploy so they can make the human being emerge and mature in all its amplitude. All this implies a challenge: love is a demand that does not leave me intact.