original sin

daily meditation
friday / wk 5 / ord / feb 9

symbol
of eating

The snake said, "Eat the fruit,
you will be like God and know
what is good and what is evil"
As soon as they had eaten
it, they were given undertand-
ing and realized that they were
naked and they hid from God.
Genesis 3:4,7,8

If God created everything good,
where did evil come from?
The Book of Gensis answers
with a symbol story (similar to
the parable stories of Jesus).
The key to understanding it
is the symbolism of eating.

The snake told Eve that if she
ate the fruit she would be like
God and know good from evil.
To eat is a symbolic way of
saying that the couple learned
what was evil by becoming evil.

They tasted evil. Since they
were good, and became evil,
they now know good from evil.

How did evil invade the world?
Through the sin of the first
man and first woman,
who listened to the Tempter
rather than to their Creator?

How do I handle temptation?

True repentance hates the sin,
and not merely the penalty;
and it hates the sin most of all
because it has
discovered and felt God's love.
william m. taylor

-------------------------------------------------

I got temptations every day. The temptations of being distracted at work. The temptation of being someone that I was never born to be. The temptation of being rude to someone. The temptation of ignoring someone in need. I tried to resist these temptations. With God's help, I have resisted some of them. Although I have fell into some of them. As our Ch 6 also describes St. Paul's frustration. I did not do what I want and I did what I don't want. Dear God, please help all the people that are willing to do good, to follow You, to resist temptations, be an image of You. I asked this through Christ our Lord, Amen