June 12, 2013
Wednesday
10th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: 2 Cor 3;4-11 Gospel: Matthew 5:17-19
Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not think that I have come to remove the Law and the Prophets. I have not come to remove but to fulfill them. I tell you this: as long as heaven and earth last, not the smallest letter or stroke of the Law will change until all is fulfilled.
“So then, whoever breaks the least important of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys them and teaches others to do the same will be great in the kingdom of heaven.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel
in the Assimilated
Life Experience)
Jonathan Swift wrote in his Essay ‘The Faculties of the Mind’: “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through”. Swift’s maxim is not without basis, for experience points to many instances where laws are manipulated to favor the elite. A reaction to this anomaly is the President Ramon Magsaysay axiom that those who have less in life should have more in law. Both are poles apart. Siding with either is veering away from the middle ground.
Observance of the law, therefore, contemplates of three possibilities, namely, the middle ground, and the two extremes consisting of Swift’s maxim and Magsaysay’s axiom. Following Aristotle’s truism that virtue stands in the middle (“in medio stat virtus”), the middle ground is where true obedience of the law lies. Surprisingly, there were times when Jesus did not observe the middle ground, such as when he preached against the provision of the Mosaic Law that allowed divorce, and when he openly violated the Sabbath Law. This notwithstanding, he declared in today’s Gospel reading his uncompromising respect for even the smallest letter of the law.
The key to the understanding of this apparent inconsistency is the New Law of Love Jesus was advocating. The phrase “as long as heaven and earth last”, refers to a period that was then ending. Until that last and final age was over, Jesus’ teachings were to remain within the framework of the law. That’s why he said “As long as heaven and earth last, not the smallest letter or stroke of the Law will change…” His Death was to signal the end of that age that would give way to a new age governed by the Law of Love.
Today’s Gospel reading therefore focuses not on middle ground compliance of the Jewish laws then in force many of which were crafted to enslave people. (Jesus could never advocate middle ground compliance of such laws). The greater concern of Jesus was the dawning of the New Law of Love. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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