First Reading: Romans 13: 8-10

Gospel: Luke 14: 25-33

                                             “Love is the fulfillment of the law”. 

 

The doctors of the law were locked up in their commandments, in their rules. So much that Saint Paul, speaking about them, tells us that before faith came — that is, Jesus — we were all held as prisoners under the law. Israel had the law that Moses had given. And then so many of these customs and little laws that the experts and theologians had decreed. Thus, the law held them, but as prisoners. And they were waiting for freedom, for the definitive freedom that God would give to his people through his Son. 

 

Saint Paul tells us, when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem. The newness of the Gospel is this: it is for redemption from the law. 

 

And Jesus said: “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfil it”. And the fullness of the law is the Beatitudes, the law of love, total love, as He, Jesus, has loved us.  He brings us freedom with the new law, the law that he had sanctioned, sealed with his blood

 

This then is the newness of the Gospel, which is a feast, it is joy, it is freedom, it is that very redemption that the whole of mankind was waiting for. 

 

May the Lord give us the grace of not being prisoners, but may he give us the grace of joy and of the freedom which brings us the newness of the Gospel.