THE WORD WITHIN OUR HEARTS

SUNDAY, FIFTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Deut 30: 10-14; Ps 19:8-11; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37

Jesus Christ is the Law within Us

God delivered the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt and took them through the desert for a purpose. It was not beyond the power of God to resettle them immediately in the land of Canaan, which he promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their forefathers. But he took them into the wilderness or desert to train them in his ways and accustom them to listening and obeying his word. God’s choice of the desert or wilderness was to help them to focus their attention on the Lord, who was present among them. The wilderness lacked the common sources of distraction for the human mind. God treats us the same way by removing the sources of distractions from us. He does this through various means to have us focus on his word. God, in his infinite knowledge and wisdom, knows us completely. He knows what to remove from our lives to create a wilderness around us. We should understand that our lacks are not accidental; God planned them for our good. He deprives us of these things so that we may pay attention to his word. Our attention to the word of God is crucial for our salvation, which consists in our communion with the Trinity of God.

God gave the children of Israel the Law in the wilderness to promote the desired communion between him and them. To be the people of God, they must know his will and live by the same divine will daily. We cannot know his will unless we pay attention to his word, which gives life and light. The word of God is therefore like a door that is open before them to enter communion with God. Moses explained these things to them. “Obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping those commandments and laws of his that are written in the Book of this Law, and you shall return to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.” Without the word of God, we are all lost like sheep without a shepherd. God locates us in our wilderness and death due to sins, and brings us back to his communion through his word. To receive the life of God which he confers on us through his word, we must acknowledge the fact of our death and corruption. The acknowledgment opens us to receiving a new and spiritual life from the word of God. The word keeps us, and not we the word of God. For the word of God to keep us, we must first acknowledge our sinful state, to receive spiritual life and light from the word of God. “No, the Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and your heart for your observance.” Without the acknowledgement of our sinfulness, the word cannot be in our hearts and our mouths. It is the sick who need and receive a physician.

The Word of God comes to give life and light to the dead, as the Psalmist proclaims. “The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted, it gives wisdom to the simple.” The greatest mistake of many Jews, and many of us, is to think that we can have the word in our mouths alone to show off what we achieved by our strength. To be truly in our mouths, the word must first be in our hearts to give us spiritual life. Both our physical life and spiritual life are gifts from God. Saint Paul makes this clear. “Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers—all things were created through him and for him.” If we received all from him, then we are to use all for his purpose. So, what we receive in our hearts, we cooperate by proclaiming with our mouths. The sequence preserves the divine life and communion among us. “Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity.” This unity is the communion God desires for all of us.

Our Lord confirms all these in his interaction with the lawyer who wanted to disconcert him. The lawyer answered the Lord’s question on the Commandments and how to enter eternal life by pointing out the necessity of what we have noted above, namely, starting with the Word in our hearts. “He replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’” When we have inner conversion to God the Father, we receive His Word that gives us life and light, and become that Word by our proclamation of the will of the Father in words and deeds. For this is the true meaning of having the Word in our mouths. Our Lord educated us on this when he directed us to proclaim what we heard in the dark in the daylight, and from the housetop we should announce what we heard in whispers. What the Word reveals to our faith is what is given to us in the dark, for things of faith are dark to the senses. What the Holy Spirit inspires in our spirit is what the Lord whispered to us; we are to proclaim and live it out authoritatively. Hence, we see that the conduct of the good Samaritan was not dictated by anything external but inwardly inspired by the Spirit of God. When we draw our actions from what is given to us inwardly, we cooperate with God in all things and preserve communion with him.

Let us pray:  O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honour. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.