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Pope Benedict XVI- Homilies |
"The Law, as Word of Love, Is Not a Contradiction to Freedom"
Homily during a Mass for Former Students
H.H. Benedict XVI
August 30, 2009
Dear brothers and sisters:
In the Gospel, we come across one of the essential topics of
humanity's religious history: the issue of man's purity before God.
Turning his gaze to God, man realizes he is "contaminated" and in a
condition that impedes his access to the Holy One. The question thus
arises as to how man can be pure, and free himself from the "filth"
that separates him from God. Therefore, in various religions,
purifying rites have arisen -- interior and exterior ways of
purification. We find in today's Gospel rites of purification that
are rooted in the tradition of the Old Testament, but which are
administered in a very unilateral way. Consequently, they no longer
serve as an opening of man to God, they are no longer ways of
purification and salvation, but have become elements of an
autonomous system of performances that, to be truly fulfilled in
plenitude, also calls for specialists. Man's heart is no longer
reached. Man, who moves within this system, either feels enslaved or
falls into the arrogance of being able to justify himself.
Liberal exegesis states that in this Gospel is revealed the fact
that Jesus substituted worship with morality -- that he put worship
aside with all its useless practices. The relationship between man
and God would now be based solely on morality. If that were true, it
would mean that Christianity, in its essence, is morality, that is,
that we ourselves make ourselves pure and good through our moral
actions. If we reflect deeply on this opinion, it is obvious that
this cannot be Jesus' complete answer to the question of purity. If
we wish to hear and understand fully the Lord's message, then we
must also listen fully, we cannot be content with a detail, but must
pay attention to his whole message. In other words, we must read the
Gospel entirely, all the New Testament and the Old together with it.
Today's first reading, taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us
an important aspect of an answer and makes us take a step forward.
Here we hear something that is perhaps surprising to us, that is,
that Israel itself is invited by God to be grateful to him and to
feel a humble pride in the fact of knowing the will of God and of
thus being wise. In fact, in that period of humanity, both the Greek
as well as the Semitic world sought wisdom: They sought to
understand what matters. Science tells us many things and is useful
to us in many aspects, but wisdom is knowledge of the essential --
knowledge of the reason of our existence and of how we must live so
that life is lived in the right way. The reading taken from
Deuteronomy points out the fact that wisdom, in the end, is
identical to the Torah -- to the Word of God that reveals to us what
is essential, for whose end and in whose way we must live. Hence the
Law does not appear as slavery, but is -- similar to what Psalm 119
says -- cause of great joy: We do not grope in darkness, we do not
wander in vain in search of what might be right, we are not like
sheep without a shepherd that do not know the right way. God has
manifested himself. He, himself, shows us the way. We know his will
and with it the truth that matters in our life. God says two things
to us: On one hand, that he has manifested himself and shows us the
right way; on the other, that God is a God who listens, who is close
to us, who answers us and guides us. With this we also touch the
subject of purity: His will purifies us, his closeness guides us.
I think it is worthwhile to reflect a moment on Israel's joy over
the fact of knowing the will of God and of having thus received the
gift of wisdom that heals us and that we cannot find on our own. Is
there among us, in the Church today, a similar feeling of joy over
God's closeness and the gift of his Word? Anyone who might wish to
show such a feeling would be immediately accused of triumphalism.
However, it is not, in fact, our ability which indicates to us the
real will of God. It is an unmerited gift that makes us at the same
time humble and happy. If we reflect on the perplexity of the world
in face of the great issues of the present and future, then there
should also arise in us again the joy over the fact that God has
freely shown us his face, his will, himself. If this joy arises in
us, it will also touch the heart of non-believers. Without this joy,
we are not convincing. However, where this joy is present it has,
though not wishing it, a missionary force. In fact, it arouses in
men this question: Is the way not, in fact, here -- does this joy
not in fact lead effectively to the traces of God himself?
All this is treated further in the passage taken from the Letter of
James, which the Church proposes to us today. I love the Letter of
James above all because, thanks to it, we can have an idea of the
devotion of Jesus' family. It was a religious family. Religious in
the sense that it lived the Deuteronomical joy because of God's
closeness, which is given to us in his Word and his commandment. It
is a kind of observance that is completely different from the one we
find in the Pharisees of the Gospel, who had made of it an
exteriorized and enslaving system. It is also a kind of observance
different from that of Paul, as rabbi, who had learned: That was --
as we see in his letters -- the observance by a specialist who knew
everything; who was proud of his knowledge and justice and who,
however, suffered under the weight of the prescriptions, so that the
Law no longer seemed to be the joyful guide to God, but rather an
exigency that, in the last analysis, could not be fulfilled.
In the Letter of James we find this observance that does not look at
itself, but that turns joyfully to the close God, who gives us his
closeness and shows us the right way. Hence the Letter of James
speaks of the perfect Law of freedom and means by that a new and
deeper understanding of the Law that the Lord has given us. For
James the Law is not an exigency that asks too much of us, that is
before us from outside and that can never be satisfied. He refers to
the point of view we find in a phrase in Jesus' farewell addresses:
"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know
what his master is doing; but I have called you friends for all that
I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).
He to whom everything has been revealed belongs to the family; he is
no longer a servant, but free because, in fact, he himself forms
part of the house. A similar initial introduction in the thought of
God himself happened to Israel on Mount Sinai. It happened in a
great and definitive way in the Cenacle and, in general, through the
work, life, passion and resurrection of Jesus; in him, God has given
us everything, he has manifested himself completely. We are no
longer servants, but friends. The Law is no longer a prescription
for persons who are not free, but is contact with the love of God --
being introduced to form part of the family, act that makes us free
and "perfect." It is in this sense that James tells us, in today's
reading, that the Lord has engendered us through his Word, that he
has planted his Word in our interior as force of life. Here there is
also talk of "pure religion" which consists in love of neighbor --
particularly of orphans and widows, of those who are in greatest
need of us -- and in freedom from the fashions of this world, which
contaminate us.
The Law, as word of love, is not a contradiction to freedom, but a
renewal from within through friendship with God. Something similar
is manifested when Jesus, in his address about the vine, says to his
disciples: "You are already made clean by the word which I have
spoken to you" (John 15:3). And the same appears again later in the
priestly prayer: You are sanctified in the truth (cf. John
17:17-19). Thus we now find the right structure of the process of
purification and of purity: We are not the ones who create what is
good -- this would be a simple moralism -- instead, it is Truth that
comes to meet us. He himself is the Truth, the Truth in person.
Purity is a dialogic event. It begins with the fact that he comes to
meet us -- he, who is Truth and Love -- takes us by the hand, and is
fused with our being. In the measure in which we allow ourselves to
be touched by him, in which the encounter becomes friendship and
love, we are, stemming from his purity, pure persons and then
persons who love with his love, persons who introduce others in his
purity and his love.
Augustine summarized all this process in this beautiful expression:
"Da quod iubes et iube quod vis" -- grant what you command and then
command what you will.
We now wish to take this petition to the Lord and to pray: Yes,
purify us in the truth. You be the Truth that purifies us. Through
our friendship with you, may we come to be free and thus truly
children of God, make us capable of sitting at your table and of
spreading in this world the light of your purity and goodness. Amen.
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
Look
at the One they Pierced!
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
