Jesus said to his disciples:
‘Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets.
I have come not to abolish
them but to complete them.
I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one
dot, one little stroke,
shall disappear from the Law
until its purpose is achieved.
Matthew 5:17f
Welcome to a new school year, and in particular those
who join our faith and learning community for the first time.
There are public servants whose role it is to comb
through old and not so old legislation that needs to be reviewed, updated, repealed
or once expired removed from the statute books. It’s a reflection of the
changing needs of the community in which we live. Even the law cannot remain
static, it is not immutable. The law is dynamic, it responds to whatever
concerns are paramount at a given time. We’ve had to accommodate automobiles on
our roads, insisted on helmets for cyclists, defended the disabled, legalized
abortion, protected great swathes of ancient rainforest. On the other hand,
just because we have legislated, of course doesn’t mean the legislation is
supported by the entire population, and that it reflects some moral
superiority. It doesn’t.
From Matthew’s Sermon
on the Mount we hear of Jesus’ affirmation of the validity of the (Mosaic) Law.
For the Jews the Law possessed a sacredness which was seen as a sacramental
assurance of good relationship with God. The greater the fidelity and
attentiveness to the Law, the closer the relationship. Jesus provokes his listeners
by suggesting – quite contrarily – that while he had no intention of changing
the Law – that the Law was not perfect. Indeed, it was to be him who would
bring it to perfection, to fulfillment.
Once, the Christian life for Catholics was governed by
a myriad of laws and customs, many of which fell away or at least fell into
disuse following the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965) and many of its mores
challenged by the apparent and surprising populist rejection of Paul VI’s Humanae vitae in 1968. The modern
Catholic wants to make sense of the rules, many find the exclusion of divorcés
from the Eucharistic table and the often painful indissolubility of marriage
the final chapter of their membership of the church.
We have returned to the scriptures and to the sacred
stories and learnings of the earliest Christian communities and we continue to
explore what it means to be a Christian in the modern world, what it means to
be faithful – but constantly and deeply aware that it is in Jesus that our
lives, our world and hope are made perfect in him.
