Daily Reading

First Reading

Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9

So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.

Psalm

Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
    Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
    he blesses your children within you.

He sends out his command to the earth;
    his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
    he scatters frost like ashes.

He declares his word to Jacob,
    his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
    they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!

Gospel Reading

Matthew 5:17-19

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that he has not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Matthew says that Jesus went up a mountain, sat down, and commenced to teach, calling to mind Moses, who went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God. 

Therefore, Jesus is being presented here as the New Moses who will promulgate from this Galilean mountain the definitive Law. I realize that this immediately poses a problem for contemporary readers, who are put off by a religion that leads with laws, rules, and prohibitions. An Irish wag once summed up the Catholicism that he was taught with this phrase: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was no!”

Since the Ten Commandments have been honored mostly in the breach, why should anyone think it a good idea to introduce new and even more stringent laws? But then we attend to the first word out of the mouth of the lawgiver: “Blessed,” “Happy.” The law that the New Moses offers is a pattern of life that promises to make us happy.