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September 2, 2024The word of God this Sunday reminds us of the true value of God's law. First of all, the law is presented to us by the sacred scriptures as a gift from God to be welcomed and not as a burden to be avoided.
In particular, it is the first reading, taken from the book of Deuteronomy, that speaks to us of the law and the commandments of God as a powerful sign of God's closeness to his people. The commandments help us live our daily lives well. The law communicates the wisdom of God to us.
It is not a burden to be avoided but a gift of God's wisdom to live well every day, trying to realize God's will in all our actions.
And what is God's will for our life? that we can be happy and realize God's plan in us! We were not born by chance. We were not thrown into the world without a meaning. We are wanted by God. We are in the world because of his singular gift. He calls us to be his children. For this reason, the law that God has given us, is deeply connected to our heart, to the desire for happiness and love that dwell within us.
The life of each of us is a gift that must bear fruit. The greatest danger for all of us is to throw away the gift of life, to waste our time and energy on empty and meaningless things, and not to bear fruits of justice and good life. We must not hide the gifts of God and talents that we have received from him. Sometimes we are afraid to live life intensely and we risk living an insignificant life, hiding the gifts that God has given us. We are afraid to make important choices and we risk remaining passive in life.
For this reason, God calls us to friendship with him and gives us his law: so that we can realize our life according to his plan of love. The law of God, therefore, does not oppose our desire for happiness and love: on the contrary, the law of God is given to us so that we can always live intensely, and that we can bear fruits of eternal life.
In fact, our deepest desires need a law to be able to grow and express themselves and reach fulfillment. Without the wisdom of God's law, even our most beautiful desires remain unfulfilled.
We can compare God's law to the banks of a river that help the water to reach the sea and not get lost in small streams that eventually dry up. If the river is left without banks, it does not reach its destination, the water disperses. God instead has given a law because of our desire for life, so that we can truly love and be loved and live the good life of the gospel.
For this reason, Jesus in the gospel rebukes the Pharisees because for them the observance of the law is only external, a formalistic and inauthentic observance. They have even changed God's law and replaced God's commandments with human precepts and traditions.
The Pharisees were very careful about what enters into man. Jesus instead draws attention to what comes out of the heart of man. What enters our body follows its physiological path. What comes out of the heart of man can hurt others, for example when we speak badly using hard words about others, especially when we talk behind others' back to seek our own interests instead of those of the community, it hurt others but at the same time destroys our own personality.
Therefore, Jesus invites us not to obey the law only as an external observance but to welcome it as the will of God with a sincere heart. Furthermore, he invites us not to confuse the law of God with precepts that are only human.
Let us accept the invitation of the apostle James who in his letter invites us to listen and put into practice the word of God. Do not be just distracted listeners who hears and then forget what they have heard. The word of God is given to us so that we not only accept it but also implement it in our lives. God’s word is always a word of covenant, of love, a word of forgiveness and reconciliation; it is a word that invites us to communion and brotherhood that opens us to sharing.
For this reason, we can say that the first law that Jesus gave us is that of belonging to the Church, to be members of the people of God, to walk together, praying together. It is in the life of the Church as a communion of brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus that we learn to know, we learn love and put into practice the law of God. Alone we are fragile. Together we follow the Lord and support each other on the journey.
May the Mother of God keep us close to Jesus and Saint Arethas and his fellow martyrs support us on our journey in putting into practice the word of the Lord as they were able to do with the gift of their own lives.
