The author of the Book of Sirach tells us, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you”. The sacred author makes keeping the commandments something easy to do.

At a recent meeting of priests with bishop Zarama, lunch was served. It happened that I was at the same table as the bishop. At the end of the meal, the waiter brough to the table a tray with assorted mini desserts. Each time the tray went in front of me I did not take any but simply passed it to the next person. That happened a couple of times. Here I need to explain that, for several years now, sugar has not been part of my food intake. I do not do it for a medical reason but simply by choice. I would eat dessert on occasions like when I visit families for dinner. That day at the table, at one of those moments the tray with desserts went in front of me, and commenting on my discipline with sugar, the bishop says: “In front of dessert, Arturo is like a statue; he does not blink”.

The Book of Sirach reminds us that the virtuous life is a choice that starts with a decision to will it. Going through some of the virtues the Lord talks about in today’s gospel, we may say: If we choose, we can respect life. If we choose, we can be gentle. If we choose, we can be chaste. If we choose, we can be truthful.

Listening to the Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, it seems to me as if the people of Israel in the Old Testament were better off than the people in the New Testament; better off in the sense that it was much easier for them to comply with the commandments than for us now. It seems as if the Lord came and raised the moral life to levels that are almost unreachable for the regular person.

We need to keep in mind that in the Old Testament people were under the power of sin, so they could not be asked to perform at the highest level of morality. When the Lord came and saved us from the power of sin, he equipped us with his power, which is called grace, to be able to perform at much higher levels in the virtuous life. The Saints believed in the Lord’s words and power. They are our greatest example in virtue second only after the Lord and his dear mother.

Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us his grace to choose water rather than fire, life rather than death, good rather than evil, virtue rather than sin.