We are said to drink the blood of Christ not only when we receive it according to the right of the mysteries, but also when we receive his words, in which life dwells, as he said himself ‘:The words that I have spoken to you are a spirit and life’ (John 6.63).
ORIGEN Homilies on Numbers, 16,9
Today, in the United States there is so much controversy about who is an American citizen, and even about who can become an American citizen. It is a painful period in our history. In the time of St. Matthew, the evangelist of today’s gospel, there was tremendous controversy over who can become a Christian—was it only for Jews? What started as an all-Jewish movement of the Spirit after Pentecost quickly began to encounter non-Jews impelled by Jewish Christian preachers (such as Paul) and moved by the same Holy Spirit to become themselves followers of Christ. The Jewish Christians found the idea of eating, praying and associating with non-Jewish Christians repulsive as it was against their traditions to eat and voluntarily associate with the “unclean” gentiles—they still thought of themselves as Jews. This occurred even though all these people, Jews and gentiles alike, were saved by the same Lord Jesus into the Church, which was seen by Jewish Christians as the fulfillment of their Jewish religion. Today’s Gospel touches on what this “fulfillment” meant to Jewish Christians and the first gentile Christians.
All Jews of Christ’s time never associated with gentiles; so how could they now begin to do so at this turning point in their history as some of them became Christians and gentiles wished to join them without embracing Jewish practices, particularly male circumcision. To many Jewish Christians of the time this was no case of “much ado about nothing”: it was a matter of obedience to God and of their Jewish identity: the gentile converts must, in their opinion, embrace Jewish circumcision and the Torah with its 613 positive and negative commandments. They insisted that they become Jews in order to be fully Christians. Gentile converts to Christianity looked upon the Jewish practice of male circumcision as a horrible mutilation of the human body—as did all gentiles. You can see how heated the controversy between the Judaizing Christians and the gentile Christians was in the exasperation of St. Paul, who wanted the gentile converts to be free of the burden of circumcision and the Law of Moses. He wrote to his Galatian gentile converts who were being pressured by Judaizing Christians this egregious remark, “Would that those who are upsetting you might also castrate themselves!” Here he must have taken a deep breath. Paul calms down two verses after this outburst and writes that the “whole law is fulfilled in one statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
In the opening verses of today’s gospel, Jesus seems to hold to the opinion of the radical Judaizers. He says to his disciples (including us) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. Amen… until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter (a jot) or the smallest part of a letter (a tittle) will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” This passage has proven to be one of the most confusing in the Bible. It seems to put the teaching of Jesus in complete conflict with that of St. Paul about freedom from circumcision and the Law. However. both Jesus and Paul are correct.
Indeed, even as Jesus speaks with the authority of God himself in the Sermon on the Mount, the Law and the Prophets are being fulfilled in the very person, words and deeds of Jesus, the Son of God, the son of David, the Son of man, the Prophet of Prophets. Nothing of Genesis or the history of Israel, with its great prophet Moses and the reception of the Torah or Law, nothing of all the prophets and kings and men of wisdom, is forgotten, nothing; but all of it comes to a magnificent fulfillment that transcends, but does not disregard, the Old Covenant as we now in Jesus move on to the New. We know that salvation is from the Jews, namely, in Jesus Christ, a descendent of King David and Savior of the World. Time and time again leading up to today’s Sermon on the Mount (and throughout the Gospel of Matthew for that matter), the author shows how events in or surrounding the life of Jesus are the fulfillment of passages, prophecies in the Bible pointing towards him as the Messiah and King of the Jews. The gospel begins declaring Jesus to be the longed-for Messiah (in Greek, Christ) as well as the son of David the King and the son of Abraham the father of the Jewish people. A long genealogy roots Jesus in the entire history of Israel. The narrative of the virgin birth of Jesus is, for example, explained as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” A quote that makes explicit the divinity and humanity of Jesus. This is the pattern Matthew follows throughout to show that Jesus is solidly rooted in the salvation history of the Jews and fulfills it. In the temptation scene, Jesus himself quotes the last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, saying, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In the very next chapter of Matthew these words of Jesus take on a new and fuller meaning as we hear the word of God from the mouth of Jesus.
After the temptation scene, Jesus selects his first disciples and then goes up the mountain to deliver the famous sermon in which he does indeed modify the jots and tittles and even corrects passages of the Torah or fulfills their meaning. He does so with the authority of God Himself who gave the first Torah to the Jews through Moses. What comes forth from Jesus has the authority of what comes forth from the mouth of God. We are being called in the Sermon on the Mount to live by his every word, but not in a legalistic way as it was understood by the contemporaries of Jesus, but rather in a way that involves personal union with Jesus who is more than someone who gives a new Torah—he gives us a new life in Him. Pope Benedict XVI remarks on this that in the case of Jesus, “It is not the universally binding adherence to the Torah that forms the new family. Rather, it is adherence to Jesus himself and his Torah. …If Jesus is God, then he is entitled and able to handle the Torah as he does--universalizing the essential content of the Torah and thus truly ‘fulfilling’ it.” ( Jesus of Nazareth)
In the examples given today we see the way he rewrites the Torah, making it a matter of the heart, not the written law. If the Torah mediated by Moses says DO NOT KILL, that of Jesus says OVERCOME YOUR ANGER WITH RECONCILIATION impelled by the heartfelt beatitudes of meekness and love of justice. Furthermore, he says that reconciliation and true worship go hand in hand: a teaching of Jesus dear to the heart of our father St. Benedict. Where the Torah of Moses says YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, Jesus says OVERCOME YOUR LUST WITH GOD’S GIFT OF PURITY OF HEART. Where the Torah of Moses allows for divorce for even paltry matters, Jesus establishes marriage as a lifelong bond of love and fidelity between husband and wife in which THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. In this Jesus hearkens back to the original Torah teaching about marriage as found in the Book of Genesis. It is not a male dominated institution in which the wife can be sent away like a servant fired for burning the roast. Again, it is through the purity of heart, the humility and love that are the gifts of the Holy Spirit of the Risen Jesus that marriages can succeed. Where the Torah of Moses says MAKE GOOD TO THE LORD ALL THAT YOU VOW, Jesus says DO NOT SWEAR AT ALL. His point is that if you truly follow him, you will become a person of such integrity that YOUR YES WILL MEAN YES AND YOUR NO WILL MEAN NO. Swearing to High Heaven is from the evil one.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes that the New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out into our hearts. This New Law is a Law of Freedom, but not a freedom that gives license to the impulses of the flesh, but one that gives us the power to become other Christs. After the Council of Jerusalem which ended the requirements of circumcision and of the acceptance of the Torah, and as Jewish Christians grew in Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit, and as many new gentile converts came to be seen not as barbarous invaders, but as brothers and sisters in the Lord, in time more and more Christian synagogues matured as Christian Churches in which there were no longer gentiles and Jews at odds with each other, but one body in Christ.
Our monastic community here on this little mount is composed of monks from every inhabited continent in the world, except for Australia, composed of every age group from the early thirties to the high nineties, composed of every ethnic and cultural background—yet we live together in Christ as one. This is a gift, a witness, we give in the Church and to our divided nation—may our country become once again through the work of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of our patroness Immaculate Mary what we pledged about every morning as little children: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yes, withliberty and justice for all! Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Let us now receive the King of the Kingdom in our reception of the Eucharist, the first fruit of which is the unity of the Body of Christ.
Be the doorkeeper of your heart and do not let any thought come in without questioning it. Question each thought individually: ‘Are you on our side or the side of our foes?’ And if it is one of ours, it will fill you with tranquility.
EVAGRIUS OF PONTUS Letter 11
What is it then to be a fool for Christ? It is to control one’s thoughts when they stray out of line. It is to make the mind empty and free so as to be able to offer it in a state of readiness when Christ’s teachings are to be assimilated, swept clean for the words of God that it needs to welcome.
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM On the Incomprehensibility of God, Sermon 5
We have to take particular care to follow the Gospel precept that bids us go into our inner room and shut the door to pray to our Father. This is how to do it.
We are praying in our inner room when we withdraw our heart completely from the clamor of our thoughts and preoccupations, and in a kind of secret dialogue, as between intimate friends, we lay bear our desires before the Lord.
We are praying with our door shut when, without opening our mouth, we call on the One who takes no account of words but considers the heart.
We are praying in secret when we speak to God with the heart alone and with concentration of the soul, and make known our state of mind to him alone, in such a way that even the enemy powers themselves cannot guess their nature. Such is the reason for the deep silence that it behoves us to keep in prayer…
Thus our prayers should be frequent but short, for fear that if they are prolonged the enemy might have an opportunity to insinuate distraction into them. This is true sacrifice: ‘A broken and contrite heart, oh God, thou will not despise’ (Psalm 51.17).
JOHN CASSIAN Conferences IX
There are three stages in the life of those who are converted: the beginning, the middle, and perfection. At the beginning, those converted encounter the enticements of sweetness; in the middle, battles against temptation; at the end, the perfection of fullness. Sweetness at first to strengthen them; then bitterness to test them; finally the delight of the ultimate joy to establish them.
GREGORY THE GREAT Commentary on Job
It is not by fighting against the passions that one prevents them entering the heart. That is achieved rather by the gratification of conscience, by the knowledge with which the soul is filled, and by the desire for its own acts of contemplation.
ISAAC OF NINEVEH Ascestic Treatises, 38
To see visible objects we need the eyes of the body. To understand intelligible truths we need the eyes of the mind. To have the vision of divine things we cannot do without faith. What the eye is for the body, faith is for reason. To be more precise; the eye needs the light which puts it in contact with visible things; reason needs faith to show it divine things.
THEODORET The Cure of Pagan Diseases
Some people live to eat, just as the animals do ‘whose life is no more than feeding their stomachs’. But our Teacher exhorts us to eat in order to live. Nourishment is not what we are here for, nor is pleasure our purpose in life. We only use them during our sojourning here as the Word instructs us, and he chooses our nourishment with immortality in view.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA The Teacher
If our Savior himself has declared: “By your endurance you will gain your souls,” should it not be a man's great happiness to possess his soul? The more perfect our patience, the more absolutely do we possess it. Let us frequently call to mind that as our Lord has saved us by patient suffering, so we also ought to work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions; enduring injuries and contradictions with all possible meekness.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
Many appear full of mildness and sweetness as long as everything goes their own way; but the moment any contradiction or adversity arises, they are in a flame, and begin to rage like a burning mountain. Such people as these are like red-hot coals hidden under ashes. This is not the mildness which Our Lord undertook to teach us in order to make us like unto Himself.
ST. BERNARD
It is not those who commit the least faults who are the most holy, but those who have the greatest courage, the greatest generosity, the greatest love, who make the boldest efforts to overcome themselves, and are not immoderately apprehensive of tripping.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
A person who governs his passions is master of the world. We must either rule them, or be ruled by them. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
ST. DOMINIC
As the world needs poets, priests, dancers, dreamers, artists, singers, prophets—all of them devotees of sign and symbol—so too [it needs] monks who live in touch with reality. This in turn becomes both model and inspiration for all caught in the materiality of the material, out of touch with the hidden glory that is all around us.
MATTHEW KELTY My Song is of Mercy
True virtue has no limits, but goes on and on, and especially holy charity, which is the virtue of virtues, and which having a definite object, would become infinite if it could meet with a heart capable of infinity.
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
Some no doubt have come to the Jordan to gawk or ridicule or even spy on John; but very many others convinced by his impassioned appeal for repentance and conversion of heart have come to seek his baptism. They will remove their outer garments first of all. John will then immerse them; holding them firmly by the shoulders and drawing them down into the cool water, perhaps calling out a prayer as he does so. People are coming up from the water, splashing and gasping for air. Maybe they too murmur prayers and promises to God; maybe there are tears. Probably it is all a bit chaotic.
Jesus too has been deeply moved, captivated by the Baptist’s call to repentance and renewal, and he senses that something crucial is occurring for Israel. And so he wants to be with his people for the unprecedented covenantal gathering which he perceives is being enacted here at the Jordan. For in response to John’s preaching, the people of Israel have become conscious of their sinfulness and conscious of their need for God as never before.
Now John has been so busy lowering people into the water that he hasn’t noticed the next person in line. Quietly Jesus steps forward to be baptized, John’s cousin. Jesus smiles shyly. John stops, looks around then comes close to Jesus and whispers, “Ah, what are you doing here? Please don’t do this. Go. I’m not doing it; I’m not baptizing you. If anything, you should be baptizing me.” We can well imagine John’s astonishment.
Why is Jesus here of all places? He has nothing to repent of. Why would he choose to do this? Somehow he knows he has to be there. Indeed, it would seem that all through today’s Gospel, we are witness to Jesus’ growing self-understanding. Jesus goes down into the cool waters of the River Jordan to mark God’s absolute bond with us in all things. Only the passion of his love can explain this-- his desire for baptism, or his desire to take our flesh in the first place. Love defers; love lowers itself. God in Christ has plunged into the dark waters of our humanness, to embrace our truth in all its soggy embarrassing reality.
And as the heavens are opened, the Father’s voice and the Spirit’s hovering confirm who Jesus is: the Beloved Son who always does what the Father wants. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This Gospel passage thus establishes Jesus’ identity as his ministry begins- his credentials as Savior. He is confirmed as God’s Mercy and Compassion in Person. He the Beloved Son has descended into the watery depths of our human misery to mercy it into new life. This is why Jesus has come - to reconcile the world to Godself, not to count our transgressions against us. No. For our freedom and redemption, God has made Him who did not know sin, to be sin, so that through him we might become with him, like him the beloved ones of God. And so his response to John’s resistance is tender but insistent, “Allow it now, please let it happen. Baptize me. It is right and just in the Father’s eyes.”
Here at the Jordan Jesus understands his vocation as never before, his mission to accomplish a new exodus for his people. Jesus himself as Redeemer will be the pillar of cloud and fire leading his people to freedom, redeeming them forever from the bondage of sin. As he steps into the Jordan River, Jesus steps into his vocation as Messiah.
Jesus is ever and always here with us in the murky water that is our humanity. He waits for us down there- in all that embarrasses and burdens us, our regrets and our failures and foolishness, all of our soggy sad truth. Jesus has immersed himself in all of it, descended into the reality of it all. But like John we may ask, “What are you doing there of all places?” That is why that word: allow is so momentous. Jesus asks John to allow him to be baptized. Jesus asks each of us, “Please allow me to be who I am for you. I have become your sin to rescue you from it. I bear all your burdens with you. Please allow it.” Do we hesitate? Can we allow him to meet us there in all the places that seem most unlikely, most unresolved, messy, and even sinful? Do I have the humility to take my humanity seriously as sacred place of encounter with him? The way up is down. Saint Benedict got it right.
My sisters and brothers, God in Christ has come down to “share unreservedly” in our reality at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, today in the Jordan, and very soon on the cross. And his descent into the water is a kind of prelude to the dereliction of the cross, where he will be totally drenched in our sinfulness and bear it unto death and resurrected life. And this morning as Jesus our Lord wipes his face, drags his hands over the dripping ringlets of his dark hair and strides out of the water soaking wet, we have a glimpse of Easter morning.
In a few moments at this altar we will hear an echo of the Father’s voice, “This is my Son, my beloved” in the words of consecration: “This is my body, given for you.” All his grace, all this underserved divine favor, the totality of our invincible reconciliation with God, this gift that Jesus is for us becomes tangible, edible reality in this Most Blessed Sacrament that we will receive together.
We cannot live the Christian life without a certain measure of mortification. If our conduct is to be in harmony with the spirit of the Gospel we must be able to say “no" at times to our natural inclinations, and to develop constantly in ourselves the capacity for effort. When Saint Benedict tells his disciples to deny themselves so that they may follow Christ, he is propounding not merely a principle of gymnastic asceticism but a law which is essential for every form of Christian life.
DOM IDESBALD RYELANDT, O.S.B. Union With Christ
No pilgrim soul can worthily love God. But when a soul does everything possible and trusts in divine mercy, why would Jesus reject such a spirit? Has he not commanded us to love God according to our strength? If you have given and consecrated everything to God, why be afraid?
ST. PADRE PIO
Holiness cannot grow simply in precise fidelity to the duties of our state: that is only the preparation we must provide. If God does us the favor of desiring to lead us further, he brings about circumstances that oblige us to be more generous in our fidelity. "It is circumstances that make saints, it is not saints that make circumstances.” That was the profound way our great Father Abbot used to put it.
CÉCILE BRUYÈRE The Spirit of Solesmes
The Magi found three things in Christ— namely, royal dignity: "he shall rain as king and deal wisely” (Jer. 23:5); and therefore, they offered gold in tribute. The greatness of the priesthood: and, therefore, frankincense, as a sacrifice. Man's mortality: and therefore, myrrh.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Commentary on Matthew
Before the time of prayer we must put ourselves in the state of mind we would wish to have in us when we actually pray. It is an inexorable fact that the condition of the soul at the time of prayer depends upon what shaped it beforehand.
JOHN CASSIAN Conferences 10.14