UNTIL ALL THINGS HAVE TAKEN PLACE

1 Kings 18,20-39; Ps 15; Mt 5,17-19
13 JUNE
Jesus comes to stipulate the New Covenant with his people and with all humanity. In Jeremiah’s prophecy, the foundation of the covenant that is the obligation of every man who subscribes it to live according to the Law of the Lord does not change. We change the ways. The Law will not be written on the stone, but in the heart of each. The blood will no longer be that of bulls or calves, but it will be the very blood of the Son of God that will be drunk. The Law will be the Spirit of God himself who becomes the truth of the Christian, and transforms the disciple of Jesus into truth and light in order to produce fruits of light and truth.

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more (Jer 31,31-34).

What is the fulfilment that Jesus gives to the Law and to the Prophets? He gives his heart as perfect exemplarity to be imitated in obedience to the Father. He gives the Holy Spirit who enlightens all the Law and all the Prophets, giving them the highest truth according to the will of the Father. It is the Spirit that reveals us which norm is absolute and which transitory, which universal and which particular, which must still be observed and which must be abandoned. Here are two examples of intervention on the Ancient law.

When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile” (Mk 7,17-23). So we are sending Judas and Silas who will also convey this same message by word of mouth: ‘It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.'” (At 15,27-29).

Today, what Jesus teaches might never be either understood and or lived if the Holy Spirit does not become our perennial Master. Only He can reveal to us the truth of the Father placed in the letter of every precept. Only He can take away the letters of the ancient precept and give us the truth of it in all its splendour. If the Holy Spirit is not in us, we walk with a letter that kills. We lack the truth that vivifies.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

As Jesus was always moved, led, brought, enlightened and updated on the will of the Father by the Holy Spirit, so it must be for every one of his disciples. These must always be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is received, but it must be revived. The Spirit is revived, it is made strong in us. He, strong, leads us with all fortitude.

Always Virgin Mother, Angels and Saints, make strong in every gift of the Holy Spirit.