WED, THIRD WEEK OF LENT
Deu. 4:1,5-9
Psalm 147
Mtt 5:17-19
Dear friends, there is a natural instinct in human beings of not wanting to be great and famous alone, but also being considered so. But Jesus tells us where the real greatness of the Christian lies: It is in keeping God's commandments and teaching others to do the same. Our obedience to God's commands makes us great and famous especially in the sight of God. This is what will lead us to spend eternal life with God.
It is obvious from today’s gospel reading that Jesus loved and appreciated his own religious tradition acknowledging great good in the teachings of his Jewish faith, for he says that he has come to complete the Law and the prophets, not to abolish them. He wasn’t making a completely new and different start. He was building on what was best in his own religious tradition. We see that in today's first reading, Moses puts before the people of Israel laws and customs which, if followed, will lead to life, neglect of these laws will lead to death. Jesus too wanted to lead people to life, to eternal life beyond this earthly life to the fullness of life. Like Moses, Jesus was saying, ‘Look, this is the path of life, which you should follow that will be life-giving for you’. Yet, Jesus was also aware that his teaching, while in continuity with the teaching of Moses and the prophets, also went beyond them. Jesus had a fuller insight into God and God’s will for our lives than Moses or the prophets had, and that was because he had a unique relationship with God as God’s beloved Son. That is why God echoed from the heavens during Jesus' transformation: "This is beloved Son in who I am well pleased. Listen to him".
Jesus was able to highlight what was really important in the teaching of the Law and the prophets and what was less important. That is why as Christians we pay more attention to Jesus than to Moses or the prophets, (not by any means undermining Moses and the prophets), and we interpret the teaching of Moses and the prophets in the light of all that Jesus said and did. He celebrated what was good there and brought it to perfection. In the same way, he would want us to celebrate what is good in our own Christian tradition and to live by it so that we may have life to the full. Celebrate what is good in others and humbly and fraternally correct what is perceived as wrong. People can turn against their Christian faith because of the failings they see in the leaders of the church or in those who try to practice it. Yet, there is a tremendous richness in our Christian tradition which the Lord continues to put before us. It is especially in the church, the community of believers, that we meet Jesus as our Way, our Truth and our Life.
We have gone more than half of the 40 days of our Season of Grace- Lent and there is need for us to reexamine our lives, especially how we have lived the past 21 days of Lent. How well we have kept our Lenten resolutions and promises, how great we have been in keeping God's commandments.
-PadreCharlesLwanga -
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