Commandments: Getting to the Heart of the Matter

From the Catholic Liturgy for the 6^th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Matthew 5:17-37  This Sunday Jesus continues his famous Sermon on the Mount.   At the time of Jesus the "holy" religious leaders were known for observing the eternals (the law) of the Commandments but ignoring what they really intended to do: to turn us more and more to God and have compassion for his suffering people.  The leaders were satisfied with fulfilling the obligations of the letter of the law, with no real commitment to its purpose and meaning. They had even fine-tuned the 10 commandments into over 600 rule and regulations to be observed in everyday life!

This attitude is easy for any of us to fall into if we tend to view our religion primarily as a "Sunday thing" which has no real daily-life bearing on what we do Monday-Saturday.  It’s also easy for us Catholics to think we are being “righteous” in our Lenten Friday abstinence, for example, when we give up meat…but have lobster or gourmet pizza instead! Then we, too, become like the Scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus is calling us to live the Commandments from the inside out, from the heart, which then are manifested in our actions. True holiness, which means being a reflection of God who is love, is found in those who are one with God in body, mind and spirit, and who show love in their actions towards others. As challenging - or even impossible -  as all this sounds, the saints are living proof that is indeed possible to us by grace.  This is why the Church has the tradition of canonizing people, of declaring their sainthood and holding them up as real-life flesh and blood examples for us. It is also why many Catholics find a particular saint or two to whom they especially relate. We ask their prayers, remember their example, and strengthened by grace we seek to do the same.  

We must never forget that God's grace given to us through a dynamic personal relationship with Christ, daily prayer from the heart, reading and reflecting on the Gospels, receiving the Sacraments of Eucharist and Confession regularly, make such a super-human commitment to the commandments possible.