Daily Gospel Reflection – Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2023
Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 5:17-19
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that he has not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Matthew says that Jesus went up a mountain, sat down, and commenced to teach, calling to mind Moses, who went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God.
Therefore, Jesus is being presented here as the New Moses who will promulgate from this Galilean mountain the definitive Law. I realize that this immediately poses a problem for contemporary readers, who are put off by a religion that leads with laws, rules, and prohibitions. An Irish wag once summed up the Catholicism that he was taught with this phrase: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was no!”
Since the Ten Commandments have been honored mostly in the breach, why should anyone think it a good idea to introduce new and even more stringent laws? But then we attend to the first word out of the mouth of the lawgiver: “Blessed,” “Happy.” The law that the New Moses offers is a pattern of life that promises to make us happy.
COMMENTS