The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today underline the gift of the Law as a guide to our choices as we encounter people on our journey.
Law and Life
In the reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses commands obedience to the Law and cites advantages of fidelity.
Or what great nation has statutes and ordinances that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?1
Psalm 147 praises God’s Care for Jerusalem.
* [Psalm 147] The hymn is divided into three sections by the calls to praise in Ps 147:1, 7, 12. The first section praises the powerful creator who restores exiled Judah (Ps 147:1–6); the second section, the creator who provides food to animals and human beings; the third and climactic section exhorts the holy city to recognize it has been re-created and made the place of disclosure for God’s word, a word as life-giving as water.2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches about the Law and the Prophets during the Sermon on the Mount.
* [5:17–20] This statement of Jesus’ position concerning the Mosaic law is composed of traditional material from Matthew’s sermon documentation (see note on Mt 5:1–7:29), other Q material (cf. Mt 18; Lk 16:17), and the evangelist’s own editorial touches. To fulfill the law appears at first to mean a literal enforcement of the law in the least detail: until heaven and earth pass away nothing of the law will pass (Mt 5:18). Yet the “passing away” of heaven and earth is not necessarily the end of the world understood, as in much apocalyptic literature, as the dissolution of the existing universe. The “turning of the ages” comes with the apocalyptic event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and those to whom this gospel is addressed are living in the new and final age, prophesied by Isaiah as the time of “new heavens and a new earth” (Is 65:17; 66:22). Meanwhile, during Jesus’ ministry when the kingdom is already breaking in, his mission remains within the framework of the law, though with significant anticipation of the age to come, as the following antitheses (Mt 5:21–48) show.3
Eileen Burke-Sullivan comments that we humans are designed as creatures that God intends to become companions for each other.
The logic of God’s law – given in a verbal set of teachings to God’s people – is this. If we seek and follow God’s desire, we become our fullest and truest self as we are created to be. In that context we flourish, we love and are loved, we give life to all around us, we enable others to discover themselves, and mysteriously in this project God transfigures us into such intimate companionship that we are drawn into Trinitarian life and share the power and the joy of being Divinized, that is made Holy as God is Holy. That is the outcome of Easter for those who truly walk with God’s pilgrim people and discover God’s desire as expressed in the teaching or the law of love.4
Don Schwager quotes “Making daily progress towards God,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not ones who play truant. In this school we learn something every day. We learn something from the commandments, something from examples, and something from Sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and materials for our studies." (excerpt from Sermon 16A,1)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 5:17-19 comments that when we struggle to obey the Lord’s commandments, we can call on the power of the Holy Spirit who has been poured into us. This is the kingdom Jesus ushered in, and we are blessed to have been invited into it.
So when you struggle with living this law of love, remember that Jesus has already made a way for you. He has given you the Holy Spirit so that you can go beyond the letter of the law to the very heart of it—and change your own heart in the process. And when you fail, you can repent, be forgiven, and try again. All of this is possible because of Jesus’ sacrifice of love. Today, spend some time praising the Lord for all he has done for you! “Thank you, Jesus, for laying down your life for me so that I could live how you desire.”6
Friar Jude Winkler shares the sense of gift that the Law was to ancient people. Demographics impacted how the very Jewish approach of Matthew stands in contrast to the preaching of Paul. Friar Jude reminds us of the role of the Commandments to keep us from going off track.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Jesuit scholar Harvey Egan who views Paul as a mystic who gave himself fully to the love of God in Christ, and who believed others could do likewise. From the very depths of his being, Paul experienced and surrendered to the love of God in Christ. For him the Lord was the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17). Pauline mysticism is emphatically Christ-directed; “to live,” for Paul, “is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).
Paul considered it almost self-evident that all Christians, because of Christ and his Spirit, had relatively easy access to an experience of God in their lives. Although he spoke of the “mature” in faith (1 Corinthians 2:6) and the “spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:15), he expected mature faith of all Christians. The Holy Spirit granted all Christians a “surpassing knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19), the “fullness of knowledge” (Ephesians 1:17), and in this way proved to us that we are “[children] of God” (Romans 8:14) who can also call God, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). Christ’s Spirit would pray in us “with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Linked intimately to a loving knowledge of the crucified and risen Christ is a “secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7), a peace beyond all understanding (Philippians 4:7), and a supreme consolation (2 Corinthians 1:5). Those living in Christ’s Spirit experience a richer way of life (Ephesians 1:8–9) filled with love, joy, peace, self-control, gentleness, patience, and kindness (Galatians 5:22) that enables them to bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). As Paul said: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the [human] heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9–10). . . .Time and again, Paul spoke of being “in Christ.” For him, moreover, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). [2]7
As we journey, in Christ, we are grounded in the ancient Commandments that provide sign posts to fuller life along our path.
References
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