Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
(Deuteronomy 4:1.5-9; Matthew 5:17-19)
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus tells the Pharisees, “The law was
made for man, not man for the Law’” (2:27).
This statement is readily misunderstood.
Jesus does not mean that the law is endlessly malleable such that humans
might do whatever they want. Rather,
Jesus wants to assure his disciples that the law is meant for human development. They are fulfilled when they follow it. In today’s gospel from Matthew’s Sermon on
the Mount Jesus tells his disciples that he has come to fulfill the law. His disciples should see in him how the law
is to be lived so that they might live their humanity to the fullest.
Jesus shows himself the law’s fulfilment in two ways. First, he teaches that the law is best
expressed by two commandments very much related to each other. Humans are to love God above all and to love
their neighbor as themselves. In loving God and neighbor and in accepting the
love of God and others, humans achieve full realization of what being human
means.
Severely limited by pride, we find it difficult to
love. This is so because God cannot be
readily seen and touched. Also, it is
true that human faults can repel as much as they draw us to one another. But we have access to the grace of the Holy
Spirit which enables us to transcend these difficulties. The Spirit moves close to God in prayer. Likewise, the Spirit moves us to make
sacrifices for one another which fosters the growth of our love.
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