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Commentary of the Gospell
Read: Sirach teaches that we may choose the path we will follow. We can choose God’s way and find life or choose against God and find death. Paul assures us that the rewards for those who remain faithful will exceed our imaginations. Matthew challenges his listeners to not only observe the law but to go beyond its requirement s in love.
Reflect: Sometimes we treat God’s commandments and the Church’s laws as a guide to help us do the bare minimum. We ask exactly how much we can eat on a fast day or how late we can arrive at Mass and still have it “count.” We want to know exactly how generous and loving we need to be to make the grade. But Jesus’ preaching puts the lie to that way of thinking. Instead, he asks us to ask ourselves how much more we can do in love. Our standard is not the minimum we can do but the best way to share the abundance of God’s overwhelming, unconditional love.
Pray: Dear God, help me to love according to your laws, loving generously so that I may choose life and come to the joys of heaven.
Act: Be attentive to opportunities to perform acts of loving service that might be outside your comfort zone.
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«I have not come to put an end to it, but to give it meaning»
In this Gospel passage, Jesus wants to help those who listen to him to read the Mosaic law: what was said in the old covenant was true, but it was not everything. Jesus came to fulfil and to promulgate the law of God in a definitive way (cf. 18). He manifests the original purposes and fulfils the authentic aspects, and He does all this by His preaching and even more by offering Himself on the cross (cf. 18).
In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus tells us: «Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them, and I tell you the truth, not a letter or an accent of the law will pass away, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away» (Mt 5,17-18).
Jesus’ attitude towards the old law is more demanding, more radical, therefore it is not enough not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to swear false oaths. The ethics of Jesus is an ethics of interiority, which looks at the heart and does not only look at the external; it is an ethics of maximums and not of minimums, being permeated by the Spirit of God which He has given us: a spirit of love, which never calculates what it must do, because the one who truly loves, loves without limits or boundaries, because he seeks what is merely right, only the one who is not merely right because he loves is not satisfied with keeping the law, but aspires to perfection. The key to interpreting Christ’s words is to be found in the ideal he proposed to us at one point in his public preaching: «Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect».On the other hand, the Gospel message is extremely respectful.The Lord proposes but does not impose: «If you wish», he says to the rich young man.And in him to all of us.This is a splendid way of indicating how he respects our freedom.God has made us free, and this freedom, together with life, are the greatest gifts received from his hands. Freedom is an extraordinary gift that for Christians indicates God’s great respect for man.
Man is free and can make use of whatever ethics he wants, but an ethics that does not respect man as a subject is totally questionable, because it would be selfishness and is not worth the same as one that affirms the need to do good.
Perhaps we do not understand the wisdom of Jesus today, but we, his followers, should try to understand it and, more importantly, to live it, or at least tend towards this ideal.
Prayer: Help us Lord to live the true law: the law of love.
This Sunday «Manos Unidas» in Spain celebrates its «Campaign against Hunger».» MOTTO: «Stopping Inequality is in your hands».
Let’s be generous.
HAPPY SUNDAY TO ALL