2 March 2016 - he has proclaimed his word to jacob

[ Today's Readings ]

For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?

Help us to be grateful for the wisdom you give us in your law, LORD. Your law is not distance between you are your people. It is rather your closeness. Because we have your law we have a good thing which other people don't have.

He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them.

They might figure it out. Everyone desires happiness, after all. And your law tells us how we can achieve true happiness and lasting joy by choosing the good.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law (see Romans 2:14).

The Gentiles also have access to the natural law. And all law is a response to the human desire for happiness. But we have more. We have the revealed law because otherwise truths like this "would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors" (see Summa Theologica Part 1 Question 1 by Saint Thomas Aquinas). God does not leave us to stumble in the darkness for the way to be happy. He responds to the desire he himself places in our hearts by giving us the law.

Yet we often treat it like an imposition. When it would be easier to just download something rather than pay for it, when it would be easier to tell a little white lie rather than the truth, when it would be easier to forget a promise we made, and at many other times the law begins to feel like more burden than blessing. But this is a mistake.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world (see First John 5:3-4).

Yet the commandments of Moses are not enough. They reveal the way but do not give the strength to follow it. Without this strength we find ourselves constantly failing. The law at this stage can only reveal our faults.

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith (see Galatians 3:24).

The commandments are not burdensome for us precisely because Jesus fulfills the law.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Jesus help us to turn to you so that we do not experience the law as a burden. 

And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (see First John 5:4-5).

Help us believe that you are the Son of God so that we can share in your victory.

Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.