Fulfilling The Eternal Law

Was the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? Did the God Who gave us Jesus and His laws of love also give us The Ten Commandments and all of the complicated laws the Jews had to follow? When Jesus came, did we leave all that behind?

There is only one God. The triune God is not a dysfunctional family. The God who spoke like thunder on Mount Zion and gave us the Ten Commandments is the same God who sent His Son into the world to teach us the laws of loving God and loving neighbor, He wanted us to understand Him definitively a the God who loves us.

Train tracks don’t hinder the freedom of a train, they are necessary for the train to reach its destination. The Ten Commandments and the law of loving God and neighbor are the same for us as train tracks are for a train. They are the road that will bring us to our final destination. There is only one road that leads to God, and God’s laws will lead us along that road.

by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG AS YOU LISTEN:

This reading that Jesus has come not to replace the law but to fulfill it, and that we are to follow the commandments, is a reading that gives a lot of scriptural scholars a lot of trouble.

It doesn't make any sense. Wait a minute, He came along and He replaced the law. He gave us the two great commandments.

And how can He say that He's not coming to replace it because by His death and resurrection, by His preaching, He did exactly that.

Well that leads you to something else then. Well, if Jesus says something that doesn't make any sense is it our limitation that makes it so that it doesn't make any sense, or is Jesus wrong? That, in fact, He is saying something that's not true.

And it requires us to look at the faith in Christ to see what He means. Through the parables that he gives, His statements, Jesus is constantly telling us to think.

Our faith is not a static thing. I do not hand to you... I don't know if they warned you or not, David, but you have to watch out if you sit over there... I don't hand you a book when you receive First Communion and say, "Here it is, that's all you need. You’re all set. When you get to be an old man of 93 years old like John… it's right there."

That's not how it works. What it does is it requires you to think.

Now, let's discuss this example of the law. Well, if Jesus is saying that the law is not going to pass away, but it's going to be fulfilled, what is He talking about? What has He just done?

What He has done is redefine the law. And He gives us in the context of Jesus Christ what God meant to accomplish through the commandments He gave us.

The commandments were not designed to make us do bad things. The commandments were designed to lead us to a way of life that would lead us to God, and, if fact, there is nothing in the great commandments that He gives, the Ten Commandments, that is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

And in fact, what Jesus did is He says, "Look, you're not sure who your neighbor's wife is, you're not sure who that property belongs to, you're not sure about this, let's make it easy. I'll tell you what God was talking about. Don't do something that is contrary to your loving your neighbor.” It doesn't matter... It all comes down to how do I treat a 21 year old and an 88 year old, and someone who's in between the two of them, how do I treat them?

Well, I go to the Ten Commandments and say, "Whew, she's a real cutie. Whoops, commandment number six, I got to watch out for that one." No. No. I'm going to look at them and say, "They are a child of God. They are my neighbor." That defines how I treat them.

It's so much more than a specific thing about what you're supposed to do. Same thing with loving God.

And in fact, if you look at it logically… it's a good exercise, a number of theologians have done it… if you look at it logically, we only need one commandment. Because the second commandment really is subsumed in the first. If you love God, how are you going to not love His creation? His people made in His own image.

So that requires us to think.

We see also in the responsorial psalm, "Lord, teach me your statues." We say similar things in Romans. But the point is that St. Alphonsus Ligouri brought this to our attention, and what is brought to our attention in our lives, is there is incumbent on us as a follower of Christ, [the duty] of teaching the faith. Catechesis.

If you look at the things that go along in Mary Immaculate Church, probably 90% of the activities are catechesis. For the simple reason that Jesus teaches us, in the reading today, and many, many other times, that our faith is not static, and He doesn't come in and say, "Look guys, here's your neighbor. Look at the Samaritan there. The Samaritan man came along. His neighbor was the victim." He doesn't come in and say that.

What He does is He forces us to think about it. And so in catechesis, it's very easy, and I've said this to you countless times, everyone is our neighbor. But part of catechesis is trying to understand how do you come to the definition of neighbor? How do you get to the point with someone who is a child or unschooled in the faith, to understand that the incredibly obnoxious person that they know, the most incredibly obnoxious person they know is, in fact, their neighbor.

It doesn't matter... it doesn't matter if that obnoxious person is also an engineer. You cannot change your definition to exclude engineers. Or for that matter, engineers can't change their definition to exclude lawyers. It doesn't work that way.

[Deacon Michael was always teasing engineers. He had had some as his law clients, and could not understand their way of thinking.]

But to get to that point, you have to think. To be able to think, you have to be taught about the faith. And that's what Alfonsus Ligouri does.

The Redemptorists, all these little pamphlets that you see, are all there for that purpose.

We go out there, well not so much today, but even those cards of the saints, we many times get all of these little brochures. They are designed to teach you how to think. To teach you how to think about the faith and apply it.

Because it is through the thought process and the application of our faith that we bring ourselves to sanctification. We live our lives as God wants us to live… as Jesus. And in that process of sanctification, we change. Metanoia, by definition, is change.

We change the way that we live our lives, and in that process of change, we change in such a way that God looks upon us and says, "My child, I want you to spend all eternity with me in Heaven." The greatest transformation of it all.

But the transformation doesn't come with a ZAP. Once saved, always saved. It doesn't work that way.

So the question is, "Are you saved?" The Catholic answer is, "I'm working on it."

And to work on it, you have to understand it. To understand it, you have to receive catechesis. And one of the things, quite frankly, in the twentieth century, in the second half of the twentieth century, actually probably all of the twentieth century, and probably countless years before that, one of the hardest things for the Church, if for the clerics stand around and say, "We've got to do better on catechesis."

Because it is through the catechesis that we prepare people to allow them to go through the change necessary to become a saint.

And this is one of the things that is so central to St. Alphonsus Ligouri, a Doctor of the Church. This understanding of the teaching. That's how he became a doctor. His understanding and discussion of theology, so that people can understand it, so that in their understanding they can be transformed to become a saint for all eternity.

August 1, 2019 2