Deacon Larry

 

Thursday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

Jer 11: 31-34; Math 16: 13-23

Dc. Larry Brockman

Is the law written upon your heart- Jesus law, the Christian way of life?  What does that even mean- to have the law written on your heart?   

For the covenant that the Lord gave to Moses, the Israeli’s were required to keep the Jewish Law.  The Law was embodied in the ten commandments, which were written in stone.  The whole law was derived from these commandments, and was taught to the people.  This still happens today- we are taught the written law.  We are taught the catechism, which draws on  the fullness of the written revelation of God, the Bible; and what has been revealed as the traditions of the Church.  And that is a good thing- to know the fullness of God’s law.  But all of this is knowledge of the law- to know what is right and wrong.  But a key to Jesus mission was to assure that the law was written within us, upon our hearts.  And that is different from knowledge of the law. 

Notice that in today’s Gospel, Peter “knows” who Jesus really is.  Peter says: “You are Christ, son of the living God”.  This is not something he could have learned from scholars of the Mosaic Law.  Rather, it was a “sense of knowing” that came from his heart.  It was something revealed to Peter by God,   It was a feeling within Peter that came to him as a result of all of the experiences he had with Jesus.  It became a “knowing” that was deep within him.   

When the law is written in your heart, it can be said that you have that “sense of knowing”.  It is the light that comes on within you when you recognize the truth, when everything makes sense; it is that little voice inside of you that then moves you in new directions; and it is what your conscience tells you should not do when you are tempted.   

Notice also that Jesus validated Peter’s “knowing” of the truth.  How wonderful that must have been for Peter!  But then something happened that contrasted strongly with that validation.  Because at the end of the Gospel, Jesus words are very stern, calling Peter a Satan.  Jesus accuses Peter of thinking as human beings do rather than as God does.  We can have the same problem.  Sometimes we have a “knowing” of God’s law, God’s will, in a situation.  But when it comes down to living in the real world, we think as human beings, and we can be an obstacle to God’s will.  We can have a problem putting what is written in our hearts into action: the call to a vocation; helping to meet the needs of a family member or friend; a sense of forgiveness for a wrong done to us; and the recognition and acceptance of suffering.  It is in those situations that we need to remember this advice from our Psalm:  “My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit, a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.”   Because that’s what it means to have the law written upon our hearts. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 5:24 am and is filed under Holy Family Weekday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.