by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI

Matters of law in the modern society is always seen as the domain of politics. This is different in the biblical culture when law is always bound up with God and good living. In other words, law in the biblical language, is tied up with religion and ethics.

Pope Benedict XVI explained this on his exegesis of the Book of Exodus. He said, that the proximate purpose of Israel’ freedom from Egypt is to offer God worship in the desert. But it is also in the same desert, specifically in Mount Sinai that God gave them code of conduct, the decalogue. For as the same Pope concluded, that in God’s mind, there is intrinsic relationship between good life (ethics) and true worship of God (religion) that are the basis of man’s true freedom (politics). Man can only be truly free if he observes God’s law and offer authentic worship to God. Is the United Nations listening?

Moses in the first reading today enjoined the people of God to obey God’s law. But history showed that they always failed and therefore were given to exile to other nations. The moment the people of God defied the divine ethics, the moment they loose their freedom and even their lives. To obey God’s commandments is to live.

Why the people of God failed to obey Him?

The answer was given by Paul in the New Testament. He said that the perfect fulfillment of the Law would be impossible without the aid of Christ’s grace that He merited by His passion. Eternal life, as St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, is a supernatural end that can only be achieved by supernatural means. Man, in observing the Law without the aid of grace (the supernatural means) is bound to fail from perfect observance. This is the reason why St. Paul taught that mere legalistic observance of the Law does not justify man without the aid of Christ’s merits. Christ, is the perfection of the Law.

St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians that it is Christ through whom, in whom and for whom all things are made. He is the agent, the means and the goal of creation. The laws of something is defined by the nature of things. Metaphysics is the basis of ethics. The real is the ground of the good. Since everything is created through and for Christ, things are defined through Him. But this definition is the basis of what is right and wrong (law) and good and bad (ethics). In Christ, therefore, the Law is personified.

The lawyer in the Gospel today asked a fundamental question that relates law and life: “Master, what must I DO (ethics-law) to inherit eternal life.” A parenthetical note is in order: one can not separate what one does from his destiny, and in this case, eternal life. Our Lord responded: “Love the Lord with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself...Do this and life is yours.” Eternal life is intrinsically tied up with religion and the social. St. Thomas said that love of God and love of neighbor form one species. We love God’s perfection in our neighbor. The tragedy is to divorce the social concern borne of love from observance of God’s law. Our Lord dispelled that tendency when he related in the Gospel the parable of the Good Samaritan who took care of a man on his way to Jericho after he suffered ill-fate in the hands of brigands. Contrary to what the pharisee and the scribe did, under the pretext of observing the law, the good samaritan took care of him. The soul of obedience to God’s law is love. Goodness is false without love.

All these converge on one whole truth that there is no eternal life, outside of God. To achieve it demands the inseparability between what one does (ethics-law) and how one worship God. Without God, mankind is doomed to annihilation.

+ May the Lord give you is peace!

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