Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray.
The Liturgy and the Law Share the Same Source and Purpose
The First Reading for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, is from the Book of Sirach 15:15-20, but should have begun in verse 14, because it is in that verse, where the author Ben Sira sets forth his interpretation of Genesis, writing, “God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice.” Here, some scholars of the sacred text tell us that Ben Sira is having an argument with other Old Testament texts, such as Exodus 11:10, where it says that Pharoah sinned because God had hardened his heart against Moses and Israelites, and that David sinned against God by taking census, because God had incited him against the Israelites. Yet, Ben Sira rejects the notion that God has a role in making us sin; rather, every human being has within their own capacity the free choice of disposition and the ability to determine their own fate. According to Ben Sira, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.” Here Ben Sira keeps good company with other texts of sacred Scripture, such as Matthew 5:19 in today’s Gospel Reading where Jesus says, “. . . Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” which sounds nearly identical to Ben Sira writing, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you.” Ben Sira is also keeping good company with the Book of Wisdom 11:24, which says, “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for you would not fashion what you hate.” Ben Sira is also of the same mind of James in 1:13, saying, “No one experiencing temptation should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one,” and also Romans 1:18-32, where the Apostle Paul credits God for allowing those who desired impurity, lusts, and degraded passions, to continue on in their free choice of the death they deserve.
It would have been terribly cruel of God to give us freewill, but not give us guidance, standards, and helps to always make the objective right choice; the choice that glorifies God rather than ourselves. Here, Christianity makes it clear, that God give us aid us in journey, by setting in our heart the natural law, which is our innate knowledge of good verse evil, by giving us commands, such as the one from the beginning to be fruitful and multiple, the perpetual command to celebrate the Passover, which was first given us to on the night of the Exodus from bondage to Egypt and renewed by Christ Jesus on the night of the New Covenant Exodus from sin and death, by the ten commandments written by finger of God and communicated to us by Moses on Mount Horeb and again by God Himself on the Sermon in the Mount, and the greatest aid that we could have ever been given, which was the indwelling of God Himself, the Holy Spirit, who the Apostle Paul informs the Church at Corinth in today’s Second Reading from First Corinthians 2:6-10, it is Holy Spirit who “scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.” According to Paul here, it is because we have the breath of God Himself dwelling in us, is why we are able to “speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for, if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
In the Gospel Reading today from Matthew 5:17-37, a great deal of our attention is often given to the “But I say to you” statements from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, it is powerful how God who had come in the flesh takes His very own commands given in the Old Covenant and now raises them to a higher standard; a higher standard that we, as the People of God, were ready for and a higher standard that the Holy Spirit, now dwelling in us, is able to help us reach. It is beautiful and good that we serve a God who sets high expectations for us, rather than a God who accepts the bear minimum; a God who wants us to be great in Him. There is a strange belief amongst some in the Church today that we need to make the Catholic faith practice easier and more accommodating; we should require fewer days of fasting, encourage more casual dress at Mass and among the religious, require less penance, that we should accompany people in their sin and talk less about sin and obeying the commandments and talk more about inclusion and making the Church more accepting. This Church of the bare minimum and the lackadaisical approach to holiness is antithetical to teaching of Christ Jesus that “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, and whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”
So, what is the relationship between the law and the liturgy. Of course, we could point to the fact of how the liturgy forms us to obey the law. That is true but let us move to the end goal of the purpose of the law and the liturgy. Because the law and the liturgy share the same source, which is the Holy Trinity, therefore they share the same ends, which is our good. As evident in the blessing attached to the Fourth Commandment; that if we obey our father and mother, our days will be long, the words of Psalm 119 that sings of all the blessings of the law, the blessings that Jesus attached to the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount that we called the beatitudes – the “blessed are you” statements, and the blessings attached to following all of the commandments, such as from our First Reading today, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you,” it proves that God gave us the law, so that we will obey it and by obeying it, we will be blessed. Similarly, the Church teaches in paragraph 1082 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that “in the Church’s liturgy the divine blessing is fully revealed and communicated. The Father is acknowledged and adored as the source and the end of all the blessings of creation and salvation. In his Word who became incarnate, died, and rose for us, he fills us with his blessings. Through his Word, he pours into our hearts the Gift that contains all gifts, the Holy Spirit.” Even James in 1:17 speaks of the law which cannot change in the same way as the liturgy, which the Church teaches that we cannot change in the same way, writing, “. . . all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.”
There is a final point I would like to offer you. If the law and the liturgy have been given to us to be our blessings, then it, therefore follows, that the further the world gets away from the divine law and the further it gets away from living the liturgy, the less blessed it will be. Truly, we have more work to do in this world to show it the beauty and the blessedness of God, and that work always begins with us becoming a liturgical people.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
