WE NEED THE HEAVENLY PHYSICIAN


WEDNESDAY, TWENTY EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIMEE

Gal 5:18-25; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 11:42-46

Wounded Nature cannot bear the Law

According to Saint Paul, the Law is spiritual, but our nature has lost its spiritual vitality. This makes it practically impossible for us to obey God's Law with our natural abilities or endowments. God, who knows all things and is infinitely wise, gave us the Law despite our disability. This means that he never intended us to keep the Law in our current state. Paul explains that the Law shows us the evil nature of sin, the corrupt state of our souls, and finally leads us to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and the gift of a new spiritual life. The sick who is unaware of his sickness will cause more harm to himself and would not want to see a physician. The absence of interior peace and fulfilment, necessary for true happiness in life, reveals how impotent the Law is at bringing us peace. Its true worth is pointing us to the Law-Giver, who alone is immortal and infinite in every perfection. The Son must admit us into the interior life of the spirit for us to live spiritually. Unless we enter into the sheepfold of Jesus Christ, we cannot bear spiritual fruits of holiness.

Without true commitment to Christ, all the façades of religiosity will fade with time. Paul lists the fruits of self-seeking in our religious life: “fornication, gross indecency and sexual irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; feuds and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels; disagreements, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies and similar things.” What germinates and grows is what we have sown within our minds and hearts. If we sow the seed of self, we will harvest corruption from within with time. But if we genuinely plant the seed of the Gospel by seeking the face of Jesus Christ, holiness will gradually grow to produce holy fruits. “What the Spirit brings is very different: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. There can be no law against things like that, of course.” If, on the other hand, we remain with external practice of religion, we live blinded by shapely form as we wander about in the midst of the beautiful and shapely things God has created for our appreciation and guidance into the interior life. Devoting time to the exterior makes us develop a distaste for grace and misjudge it as sinful, as the Pharisee’s preference for externalities caused him to misjudge our Lord as a sinner in his house.

Our sustained search for God’s face and peace within safeguards us against devilish illusions. The Pharisees failed to walk this path of justice and got lost in the darkness of evil. “Alas for you Pharisees! You who pay your tithe of mint and rue and all sorts of garden herbs and overlook justice and the love of God! These you should have practised, without leaving the others undone.” The Law attains its loftiest end when it becomes a means of our self-immolation or holocaust unto God. We learn to offer this sweet-smelling sacrifice unto our God in the company of Jesus Christ, our Eternal High Priest. As Christians, we must set the humanity of the Son of Man before us always as our New Law. His self-oblation to the Father washes away our sins, liberates us from the bondage of evil and demonic forces, and sends the Holy Spirit into us to call God our Father. Only Jesus Christ is our Law-Giver, for he gives himself as a pattern for our lives, and his Spirit enables us to offer the same sacrifice to the Father as he offers for us. So he criticises the lawyers for burdening the people with the load they couldn’t bear. “Alas for you lawyers also, because you load on men burdens that are unendurable, burdens that you yourselves do not move a finger to lift.” Let us allow the Lord to give the Law to his children, for he accompanies it with sufficient grace.

Let us pray: May your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works. 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.           

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