June 11, 2014
Jesus Christ is the summary of the Old and New Testament. He came to perfect the law, and his new perfect law is love. The purpose of life is to complete the plan of salvation of God for man. Man was created in the image of God and in his innermost being, God engraved the need to love. All the laws and commandments in fact has been summarized into two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Today’s Gospel reading is taken from the Sermon on the Mount which is like the constitution of the Christian to be a good citizen of heaven. It describes what a Christian is, what kind of person merits being called a disciple of Christ. It goes even further that a Christian not only follows the commandments, not only lives the commandments, but also as important, teaches the commandments. This is made possible with the arrival of Jesus Christ who resurrected from the dead and sent his Holy Spirit to give us sanctifying grace that will help fulfill the commandments of God. By sheer human effort, we cannot fulfill even one commandment. We need the grace of God to be able to do it. This is important for us to realize, that even with the best intentions, without the Holy Spirit, nothing is possible. That is why faith and the Holy Spirit are precisely gift and not reward. We cannot say we deserve grace, nor merit this gift of faith in our Baptism, but it has been given to us free, out of pure love of God for man.
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