significant persons in our life

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

This is, for me, one of the most beautiful questions in the bible asked to Jesus by a young man eager to know the way to life. And it is a question we too must often ask as we travel along the path of life set out by Jesus, “Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The answer given by Jesus is quite unexpected as to its simplicity. In fact the answer is so simple that it has been learned by heart, if not by memory, by every Jew and every man for that matter. Jesus said, “if you would enter life, do the Commandments.”


What are these Ten Commandments, how must we interpret it, how do we view it? These are questions which we would like to answer beginning this issue and henceforth. And together with you we would like to intepret in in the light of the manifestations of Jesus our Lord who has called all of us, Gentiles and Jews to the path of life. Jesus after all is the way, the truth and the life and he leads the way towards salvation. Jesus is the ten commandments. His person is the sum of God’s will and following his person is fulfilling God’s law.

In life we know how our “significant persons” affect us. They serve as our models not just in the hairstyle or in the outfit we wear but also in our behavior. I have a “significant person” in my life once when I was too young and innocent to ever think of human frailty. I liked what he liked, I managed to talk the way he did and I organized my ideas the way he did his own. His behavior affected me and my affections and judgments were somehow affected following closely along his line. He was a superman, perfect and he possessed everything I wanted to be. Later however my eyes were opened to his weaknesses and failures. I was not so sure whether I readily believed them or justified them and dismissed them as nothing. But the last straw was when he went out of the ministry. I was devastated and my ideals came to nothing. Thinking about it now that I am older I could not believe myself that I have been so influenced by that person. But it led me to think that we could not really underestimate the impact of these significant persons in our personal lives and even in the moral fiber of our society.

All of us have significant persons in our life, and more or less, consciously or unconsciously they affect not just our hairstyle but also our moral growth and development - the way we act, our attitudes, our judgments, what is good and what is bad. 

Today in place of actors and actresses and in direct competition to them I would like to propose to you the person of Jesus, to make Him the most significant person of every Christian. Call it outdated or corny but for me this is the only way we could teach and influence the values of our society today. In a world slowly shedding off its moral fiber we need to make Jesus radically affect our persons and our attitudes. Like the magi we have to make his person affect us, to make his star move us in our journey. This is what the commandments are all about - they conform us to the person of Jesus. His person is the basis of all laws. He is our most significant other.