Dear brothers and sisters: In our continuing catechesis on the Ten Commandments, we turn now to the fifth: “You shall not kill”, which reveals how precious human life is in God’s eyes; we are made in his image out of his infinitive love for us. But we learn that there are other ways of “killing” a person: anger, insult, scorn and indifference towards others can kill, perhaps not their physical bodies, but rather the unseen spirit within them. Although the opposite of killing might seem to be not killing, that is only a first step towards loving. We need to do the opposite of what Cain did to Abel: we are each other’s keepers, protectors and guardians. For this we need Christ’s love and mercy. The commandment not to kill is a call to love and to mercy, a call to live according to the life of the Lord Jesus, who gave us life by rising to life; this life is the Father’s gift to each of us.
