Follow The Law: The Motive of Love

My Dear Parishioners,

Last week, I asked you to do something for yourself and read the entire Sermon on the Mount. Did you? If you did, I bet that you are thanking me right now. If you haven’t yet, please do this for yourself.

The Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes and then continues through Chapters 5, 6, and 7 in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Scripture Scholars agree that this was an actual event. Scripture Scholars also agree that anyone who heard Jesus’s major teachings would have heard a very similar and consistent message in those teachings. So, we can say that the Sermon on the Mount was both an actual event and also a summary of the teachings of Our Blessed Savior.

At the Sermon on the Mount, Our Blessed Savior took the seat of authority. That is, Jesus took the seat of Moses. Yet, Jesus doesn’t present Himself as Moses but as the New Moses. Moses was the Lawgiver and Judge of old. On that mountain, Jesus affirmed that He is the New Lawgiver and New Judge of a New Covenant.

He then gives us a new motive to follow the Law: the motive of Love. By doing so, He calls us to cleanse our hearts. He calls us to abandon all thoughts of jealousy, pride, hatred, and vengeance. He calls us to instead make ourselves into the humble, the meek, the just.

Jesus wants us to move beyond simply avoiding evil, and move to the higher road of “do’s:” to do everything in love and out of love, to do good for the glory of God and to do good for the good of souls. We then, through His Grace, truly become salt of this earth and lights of this world: Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father.

How beautiful! He wills us to become instruments of His Grace and co-workers in the Vineyard with a promise to share in His Glory. We rejoice in this weekend in the power that He has given us. We rejoice in the trust that He has placed in us. In our Prayer after Communion this weekend, we give this thanks and praise: O God, who have willed that we be partakers in the one Bread and one Chalice, grant us, we pray, so to live that, made one in Christ, we may joyfully bear fruit for the salvation of the world. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen!!!!!!

When we not only do good, but assign that good to God and His Grace, we really do give praise to God, and we really do grow in His Grace and His Merit. We then really do bear much good fruit for our own salvation and the salvation of the world. We then become the “blessed” of the Beatitudes.

How “fortunate” it is to be considered “blessed “in the eyes of God. The Greek word used in the Beatitudes for “blessed” is makarios, and it means fortunate. It remains, then, for us to examine why the people described in the Beatitudes are fortunate, lucky. Given the richness of the text, I shall content myself with considering only one of them, the sixth: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The reward—“to see God”—should excite in us a desire to be so fortunate. Purity of heart essentially means singleness of purpose. We are to pursue our goal without distraction, directing all we say and do ultimately to the glory of God. Such a life has the beauty of integrity in that short-term goals—good health, work, family, etc.—are means by which we grow in virtue and in the love of God. For partial goods, to the extent that they are goods, remind us their source in God. (An Excerpt from Blessedness and Lectio Divina, By Fr. Daniel Callam – January 28, 2023)

Let us continue to live and pray as a people fortunate enough to know and love God. Let us continue doing good for His Glory and for the good of souls. Let us continue with our support of our food drive, our baby diaper and wipes drive, our support of SVDP, and with our prayers for Life, for traditional family values, for our nation, for our parish, for first responders, for an increase in vocations to the sacred priesthood and religious life, for a return to chastity and purity, for the sick, for the dead, and, most importantly, in thanksgiving to God for His Love and Goodness. So that we may always be called “fortunate.”

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church and our Patron, pray for us!

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor