Word to the Wise
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
[Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9 and Matthew 5:17-19]Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the "new law of Christ" is "nothing other than the Holy Spirit working in our hearts through faith in Christ." Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Law because he personifies the reason why that law was enacted. Thus he is the fulfillment of that law. OK. Does that mean we can do anything we want, free of all "rules, statutes, laws, regulations, ordinances, etc. etc.?" The answer to that is NO. It does mean that any of those ways of guiding or regulating human conduct must be an expression of the reason for the law in the first place - i.e. to enable persons to reach the ultimate goal of eternal life with Christ. St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians are an example of a response to a community who thought that once they were committed through baptism there was no need to observe an ordered way of life as witnessed by the Mosaic Law. In fact, in the Letter to the Romans, he also takes pagans to task for failing to follow the natural law as it may be discovered through reason in God's creation (Rom. 1:20). In short, Jesus did not come to establish moral anarchy or to do away with the role of order in Christian life. He did come to focus our attention on the ultimate goal of eternal life with him. To the extent that the Mosaic Law facilitated that, there was no problem with its observance. But the Mosaic Law was not appropriate to those who were not Jews. Eventually the Christian community had to gradually develop its own approach which combined a continuity with the Jewish roots and a recognition that God's law was recognizable from other sources as well - and all of this was to be subordinated to faith in Christ and be shaped by it. That's something our own church should pay a bit more attention to before surrounding parishioners with too many guidelines, regulations, etc. How do these help us in our faith? should be the question. Not how does this empty the parking lot or fill the collection basket? AMEN
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