For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me

14 MARCH (Jn 5,31-47)

The Jews do not see God. Their eyes are too closed to get into an eternal vision of the Father. Not knowing what the Father does today they do not even know if what Jesus says can correspond to truth. All of us could appeal to a personal vision of God and abolish the Law, or give it a different interpretation. Is it possible to have recourse to an objective and not merely subjective norm in order to know whether a person is in the truth of God or lives a moment of pure exaltation of his mind and his heart? When can subjectivity put aside objectivity?

Objectivity is always necessary to subjectivity. No subjective experience with God is true if the objectivity of experience with Him is repealed. Now objectivity is given by a straight, holy, true and pure knowledge of the Law given by God and contained entirely in the Holy Scripture. Who reads the Scriptures with the Spirit of God, according to whom it was donated, will always understand if a subjective experience is also objective. That is, he will understand if in a man of God, God is truly the one to act and not the fantasy or the exaltation of a man. The objective norm is the sole criterion of discernment.

Nicodemus had a good, true and saint reading of the Old Testament, and when he saw Jesus Christ act, confessed that the Father was the one to act in Him: “No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” “God is with you, Jesus of Nazareth. This is demonstrated by your signs, the works that you do, every day.” Why do not the Jews come to the same results, that is to confess that only who is with God can give health to the paralytic, that perhaps they have for years seen at the pool and never thought to give him health?

“If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony cannot be verified. But there is another  who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true. You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept testimony from a human being, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You search the scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life. “I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The Jews do not come to these conclusions, because their hearts are hardened in sin, and their minds are numb, hardened, calcified in the transgression of the Law of the Lord. Never might who is not a true observer of the Law of God, be its true interpreter. The Jews are not loyal to the Law in their lives and in no way might they be its true interpreters. They boast of knowing Moses, the Law and the prophets. In truth, of the Law, of Moses and of the prophets they only know their thoughts.

This is the true sadness of religion. It is always its many interpreters who teach the Law of God, but they themselves do not even touch it with a finger. They speak to others of high and true morality, but they are the most immoral among men. Jesus can speak of the Law because he is the very law lived to perfection, to the utmost of its truth. He really knows Moses in his purest truth because He is always in the will of the Father. He lives to do the will of the Father and making it he truly knows, truly teaches and truly interprets it.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true observant of the Law.