Jesus, the Law of God made flesh, does not demand of us, his followers, more than the Law of Moses did; he demands something entirely new and wildly different, something really impossible to perceive (much less enact) unless we put on the mind of Christ and begin to see the world through the eyes of a Redeemer who is incarnate Love. As far as our Lord is concerned, deliberately holding on to a grudge or harboring hatred in our heart has the same weight as out-and-out murder!
To our conventional reason, this is something preposterous, unbearable; and yet it cannot be otherwise if it is true that God is Love, if God is indeed our common Father and has given us all rebirth to his own life in the Spirit, and if all my fellow human beings are, therefore, my very own sisters and brothers.
And notice how far Jesus’ demands to his disciples go. He does not say, ‘If you have offended your brother or sister, go first and ask for their forgiveness and then offer your gift at the altar.’ Such a thing goes without saying in any moral code. What Jesus says, rather, is: “If you recall that your brother has anything against you …, go first and be reconciled with him.”
The crucial point here is that
the burden of seeking reconciliation falls always on me, whether my sister’s complaint
against me is justified or not in my own eyes. On this issue, in fact, and on my willingness always to take the
initiative toward reconciliation, depend on the very acceptability and
well-pleasing fragrance of my sacrifice of praise to God, the Father of us all.
Here is the kind of “justice” that flows from the Heart of a crucified
Lover.
Crucifixion by Diego Velasquez. Reflection by Father Simeon.