Moving ahead with the spirit of the Law.
It is14th June 2017. The readings are from 2 Cor. 3:4-11; and the Gospel from Matthew 5:17-19. In the first readings, St. Paul tries to address the tension between the old and the new; the progressive and the conservative; the spirit of the law and the letter of the law; writings on the tablets of stone and the writings of the Spirit in our hearts. Law becomes complete and followed to the core when there is love. Law always remains as the educator while love rules as the presider of our existence. Law makes us to feel guilty of what we have observed or failed to while the Spirit sets us free. St. Paul recognizes the new order in place after the incarnation and the supreme sacrifice of love of Jesus. God is very much interested in our hearts and therefore God has written the precepts in our hearts and eventually we are guided by the Holy Spirit. The fear of the law does not add anything to our existence while the love of the law changes our way of behavior and attitude with God and one another. The competency to respond to the call of God comes by the obedience to God’s law in the uncontaminated love that is poured into our being. Our salvation comes through loving God not just by mere adherence of the law for the sake of following. Law is only a pointer to the reality. Love is our goal and destination in the journey. Law merely shows the possibility of our being. But the love of God expresses the full potentiality of what we can become. We are forgiven through the grace and mercy of Christ. And therefore, let our genuine search for God and the reverential fear for God must emanate from the same love and the spirit that guides us from within. “In fact, compared with this greater glory, the thing that used to have such splendor now seems to have none; and if what was so temporary had any glory, there must be much more in what is going to last forever.” (2 Cor. 3:11). The responsorial Psalm praises, “You are holy, O Lord our God.” (Ps.98:9). Jesus points out in the Gospel that the law has the purpose to lead us to God but the fulfilment of the law comes through the faith and obedience in responding to the spirit of the law not by the explanations of law to the others. When we love God whole-heartedly, we do not consider the laws as the burden rather as the means of salvation. May God help us to adhere the spirit of the law over the letter of the law.