Luke 16: 19-31:
“There was a rich man who used to dress in purple and fine linen and feast magnificently every day. And at his gate there lay a poor man called Lazarus covered in sores, who longed to fill himself with the scrapes that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even came and licked his sores”.
The rich man of today’s Gospel is deprived of the glory of heaven not for what he did but for what he failed to do.
Directly, he did not harm Lazarus. He didn’t throw him outside his gate, he didn’t tell his servants to get rid of him, he didn’t call the police…
The sin of the rich man is his ignorance and indifference to the suffering of his poor brother.
Many times we say: “I do not do evil to anyone”.
But we should also ask: Do I do to others all the good that Ican?.
Because there is a sin that is called the “sin of omission”. And don’t doubt that this sin is more frequent in our life than it would seem to us.
Try to make today an examination of conscience and examine yourself regarding your “sins of omission”.
Good day.
Antonio Sanjuan Marin, cmf
