Everyone who listens to these words of mine

Is 26,1-6; Ps 117,1.8-9.19-21.25.27a; Mt 7,21.24-27.
6 DECEMBER

No Christian tomorrow, on the day of giving account, might find a reason of excuse with the end of justifying his non-faith in the Words of Jesus. The relationship with God is not in doing things nor is it in reciting prayers. It is full and perfect obedience to every Word that has come out of the mouth of Christ the Lord. This relationship of obedience does not come from Jesus. He solemnly confirms it. It comes from the Father. Never has God approved a cult that was not aimed at obedience.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Heap your holocausts upon your sacrifices; eat up the flesh! In speaking to your fathers on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I gave them no command concerning holocaust or sacrifice. This rather is what I commanded them: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper. But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed. They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me. From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day, I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets. Yet they have not obeyed me nor paid heed; they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers. When you speak all these words to them, they will not listen to you either; when you call to them, they will not answer you. Say to them: This is the nation which does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God, or take correction. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech (Jer 7,21-28). With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with holocausts, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God (Mi 6,6-8).

What changes in Jesus’ declaration regarding eternal salvation? From the Word of God according to the Old Covenant we pass to the Word of Christ the Lord, according to the Gospel. It is no longer the Ten Commandments or the ancient Law the way to access the eternal kingdom of the Lord, but the Word of the New Covenant, in which there is the whole ancient Word, but brought to fullness of obedience and revelation. We no longer love God and our neighbour according to the Law of Sinai or of Leviticus, but we love from the heart of Christ, from the thought of Christ, from the will of Christ. We love from the purity of the truth contained in the Gospel and made always alive for us by the Holy Spirit. The passage to Jesus is the essence of true faith. Conversion and faith in the Gospel is the true substance of the New Covenant with God. The whole Word of the Father must be lived according to the very pure updating effected by the Son. The Kingdom of Heaven is governed by the Law of Christ.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

Whoever wants his house to remain eternal is obliged to build it on the Word of Jesus. Then, every declaration of the disciples of Jesus aimed at putting aside all truth contained in his Word becomes incomprehensible, but also unjustifiable. This means an explicit invitation to build on the sand of the human word. But we know it well. Every spiritual house built on the word of the creature will collapse today, tomorrow and always. The human word does not give any stability. It’s sand. Only the Word of Christ is eternal rock that gives eternal stability to our house. Then,  not whoever tempts is foolish. He is foolish who lets himself be tempted. The house is his, not the tempter’s. If he wants his house not to collapse, he must build it only on the Word of Christ the Lord. There are no other words, either on earth, or in the heavens, or of the Father. The only one is that of Christ Jesus.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that we build our house on the Word of Jesus.