Faith-Law-Love

HOMILY WEEK 03 03 – Year II

Loving Intimacy and Fulfilling the Law of Love:

Optional Memorial of St. Cyril of Jerusalem

(Dt 4:1, 5-9; Ps 147; Mt 5:17-19)

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Two sentences sum up the message from today’s readings: “I have come, not to abolish but to fulfill” by Jesus in the gospel, and “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us?” by Moses in the first reading.

So how does Jesus fulfill the Law of the Old Testament? The readings suggest through humble obedience and loving intimacy, and invite us to follow Jesus along that path.

In the first reading, Moses reminds the Israelites that even though the Law blesses them with God’s wisdom, what really sets them apart is how close God is to them. That closeness is the key. God wants the people to know God’s thoughts and keep God’s prescriptions, but even more important, God wants them to know God’s heart.

That first reading is all about the law of God, or the commandments of God, as a grace, gift and blessing to the people of God, the chosen ones. If they obeyed that law of God, they would enter the land and enjoy life in the land.

The psalm reinforces the idea of the law of God as a blessing and privilege – no other nation on earth had any laws like they had been gifted with. Those laws were not an end in themselves, but were to draw the Israelites closer to God, into an intimate, covenant relationship with God, a close friendship, and it is this which would set them apart from the other nations.

Carol Lewis, in his commentary on the psalms, has a beautiful reflection on the law: he writes that the author was ravished with the moral code present in the law. That unique moral code was a vivid contrast to the immoral ways of the pagan nations surrounding the Israelites. It was to make them special, images of God in a dissolute world.

In Jesus, God has come radically close to us. By showing us, up close, what loving God and our neighbor looks like, Jesus reveals the heart of the law and perfectly fulfills it. In his person, he is the new law and the fulfillment of the law. He is the only one who obeyed the law perfectly, wanting only to do the Father’s will. He even states that the degree to which we keep the law and live the commandments here on earth, determines our status in the kingdom of heaven.

I like to summarize the law Jesus taught as follows: we are to love God with our whole being; love others as we love ourselves; love one another as Jesus himself has loved us (sacrificial love), and finally, to love our enemies by forgiving them from the heart (Matthew 18:35). So, the heart of the law is all about love. One very appropriate saying is to be close to God, be closer to people.

One of the best ways we have to love God and be close to God, is to “waste time” in contemplative prayer, the prayer of silence, the prayer of the heart. The less we do, the more God can do within us. Trying not to think or feel anything, we simply rest in God’s presence, like St. John leaning his head on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper, not saying anything, just listening to Jesus’ heartbeat, and soaking up his love.

Not only are we to love God and live out those commandments ourselves, we have the important responsibility of “making them know to our children and our children’s children.” We are to teach others and instruct others, to the best of our ability, this new way of life with our loving God that will set us apart from our own modern society that has is so many ways lost its faith and its way.

Today the church invites us to honor St. Cyril who was born in Jerusalem about 315. He became a biblical scholar and a cleric in the church of Jerusalem, a church troubled by many doctrinal controversies, including Arianism. Ordained about 342, he became bishop of Jerusalem in 350. His famous Lenten instructions, Catecheses, outline his beliefs and the theological traditions of the Jerusalem community. He died in Jerusalem in 387.

The Eucharist, as Ron Rolheiser OMI writes, is both an intimate meal, and our one great act of fidelity. Whenever we celebrate it with sincere faith, we not only fulfill the law of keeping holy the Lord’s day, but also enter more deeply into an intimate relationship with Jesus that becomes the relationship we have with the Father.

So let us remember, to see the law of God as a blessing and to keep the commandment to love as God loves, is to fulfill the law of love, through loving intimacy with our God.