Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - Wednesday in the 10th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Kgs 18:20-39 and Matt 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." [Matthew]
JUNE 13 ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA, ofm
The Gospel According to Matthew was originally composed for a predominately Jewish-Christian community that had to face considerable resistance from other Jews in regard to Jesus. They [Jewish-Christians] were a tiny minority, and what they were proclaiming seemed to be against all that most Jews considered God's revelation - the law and the prophets. Did Jesus mean to do away with those? Matthew presents Jesus as the whole purpose of the law and prophets - the fulfillment of all their promises.
This is in keeping with the way the Gospel According to Matthew viewed history. It is a very broad view. Jesus is the center of all history in this gospel. The law and the prophets led up to him. Jewish Christians could continue their observances but realize that these observances no longer had the same function. The insistence of some Jewish-Christians on circumcision for inclusion in the community led to a crisis because Gentile converts were refusing to agree to it. St. Paul became the "poster-child" of the movement away from the power of observances.
We Catholics have had our own version of this crisis. When I was just beginning my life as a Dominican friar, the Second Vatican Council was well underway (1962-65) but it was a far away event. It was only when I and my classmates heard about the liturgical changes on the way that we realized that something very BIG was happening. Things that our novice master had told us would always be part of our life were no longer to be part of our life. A simple example of that was the disappearance of Latin in our community prayer and in the Mass! For some Catholics it was too much, and there is still the group headed up by a rogue bishop in Switzerland! Yet, much of the aggiornamento [ updating] that Pope John XXIII sought to accomplish consisted of returning to ancient sources, a process called resourcement - a French word meaning a return to the sources. For awhile, many customs and prayers seemed to disappear only to reappear later on as people realized that these had not been abolished but rather given a "new" context.
Always at the center must be faith in Jesus. All observances must be given that context. Do they lead us to Jesus? AMEN