Suy Niệm Tin Mừng thứ Tư tuần thứ 10 Thường NIên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng thứ Tư tuần thứ 10 Thường NIên

Trong khi các đoạn Tin Mửng hôm qua (Mt.5: 13-16) Chúa Giêsu mô tả nhiệm vụ và bổn phận của các môn đệ, Bài Tin Mừng hôm nay chúng ta nghe Chúa Giêsu nói với chúng ta về sứ vụ của Chúa Giêsu liên quan đến các điều luật của Thiên Chúa. Nhiệm vụ của Ngài đến với Thế gian không phải là để tiêu diệt hoặc bãi bỏ lề luật của các tiên tri, nhưng Ngài đến để thực thi và làm những Luật này được nên trọn vẹn. Chúa Giêsu có ý Khi Ngài nói Ngài đến để thực thi luật của Chúa?

Chúa Giêsu đã đến để tỏ lộ cho chúng ta thấy rõ được ý nghĩa thực sự của Cựu Ước và do đó Ngài đã đến để hoàn thành. Nhưng thực thi theo Thánh Mathêu có nghĩa là phải triệt để và bén nhậy với những nhu cầu luật pháp , để phù hợp với việc loan báoTin Mừng Nước Thiên Chúa. Bằng cách này, mà Chúa Giêsu đã mời gọi tất cả mọi người phải nhận ra là tinh thần của luật pháp và không việc thực thi luật phái ckhông chỉ đơn thuần là việc thực thi những điểu được viết thành luật. Điều này cũng được khẳng định cho chúng ta thấy trong bài đọc thứ Nhất hôm nay (v. 6) trong đó nói và nhấn mạnh rằng là thật sự không phải là chữ viết của giao ước mới là vấn đề, nhưng là thần khí.

Nhửng ”chữ viết”' ở đây đồng nghĩa với pháp luật như một tiêu chuẩn bề ngoài mà đật trước tất cả mọi người, bởi vì con người là bộ phận hay phạm phạm hay phá luật pháp, một tội phạm bị kết án và bị kết án tử hình. Mặt khác, Thần khí (Chúa Thánh Thần) là Đấng ban sự sống là "Thần khí” của Thiên Chúa hằng sống, người mà đã đến để hoàn tất những ứng nghiệm lời hứa trong giao ước mới. Thần khí viết các lề luật tương tư như thế ngay trên bia đá trong tâm hồn của chúng ta " (v. 3). Đấy là Chúa Giêsu, bộ luật mới của chúng ta. Vì thế, chúng ta là, là những các môn đệ của Chúa Kitô, chúng ta phải biết tuân theo, vâng lời luật của Chúa mỗi ngày bằng cách là biết sống và làm theo ý muốn của Thiên Chúa, và sống theo cách của Chúa trong sự công bình, chínhtrực.

Lạy Chúa, xin giúp và ban chúng con có được ân sũng của Chúa ban mỗi ngày, để chúng con biết tuân giữ luật pháp của Thần Khí củă Chúa là luật biết yêu thương người. Tìm kiếm ý muốn củă Thiên Chúa trong tất cả mọi việc con làm, Và Ngài sẽ chỉ cho con lối mà con sẽ di.. đi hãy nhận ra Người trong mọi nẻo đường con đi và Người sẽ san phẳng các lối con theo.

Reflection SG

While the preceding passage (Mt.5:13-16) describes he mission to the disciples, today’s gospel talks about the mission of Jesus in relation to the law. His mission is not to destroy or abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them. What does Jesus mean by fulfillment of the law?

Jesus came to reveal the true meaning of the OT and thus bring it to fulfillment. But fulfillment, Matthew means radicalizing and sharpening the demands of the law in accordance with the proclamation of the Kingdom. By this he was inviting the people to realize the spirit of the law and not mere observance of the letter of the law. This is reiterated in the first reading (v. 6) wherein stated that it is not the letter of the new covenant that matters but the spirit.

The ‘letter’ here is synonymous with the law as an external standard before which all people, because they are law breakers, stood guilty and condemned to death. On the other hand, the spirit who gives life is the ‘spirit of the living God’s, who, in fulfillment of the promise of the new covenant, writes that the same law inwardly on tablets of human hearts’ (v. 3). This is Jesus — our new law. So, as disciples of Christ, we respond daily to the law by doing God’s will with righteousness and as a way of life. “Lord, grant us the grace to observe the spirit of the law of love.”

Opening Prayer: 

Jesus, I want to obey and teach your commandments. I want to glorify you by living as your disciple and proclaiming your law of love through my thoughts, words, and actions. Help me to hear and understand your word and live it out in my daily life.

Encountering Christ:

1. The Old and the New: The Pharisees were always watching Jesus to see if he would break the Levitical laws. It seemed to them that he was constantly pushing the boundaries of the law. This is why Jesus pointed out to his disciples that he did not come to declare the Mosaic law obsolete. In fact, as the Word of God, Jesus is the embodiment of divine law. God gave the law to the Israelites in the form of his words communicated to Moses, then written in stone: “And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). Jesus is the Word made flesh (cf. John 1:14), spoken for all eternity by God the Father (John 1:1-2). Jesus is the living, breathing law of God. God’s divine law was not nullified by Christ’s coming; it was united and perfected in him. All the promises that God made to the Jewish people throughout salvation history and recorded in the Old Testament were accomplished in Christ: “For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

2. Training in Discipleship: God gave the Israelites the Levitical laws in order to help them learn how to be a people “of his own possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6). Before the Exodus, they had lived in Egypt for over four hundred years. They needed very specific, restrictive laws to keep them from falling back into the habits they had formed while living with the Egyptian people. They ate, learned, and worshipped as Egyptians. These laws were meant to teach them discipleship: how to love, worship, and follow the one true God. The Torah prepared God’s beloved people for the Christian life, specifically for discipleship. When Christ became man, he embodied the law and made it manifest in a new way. He also set us free from the demands of the Levitical laws in order to write the new law on our hearts, as Jeremiah prophesied: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:33-34). St. Paul taught us how the old law prepared the Jewish people for faith in Christ: “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:23-26). We can ask ourselves if we have truly allowed Christ to write his law on our hearts in order to be his faithful disciples. Daily Bible reading, including meditating on the readings for Mass (like praying with this reflection), is a wonderful way to allow God to write his law on your heart.

3. Love Fulfills the Law: Because Jesus himself is the new law that is written on our hearts, and because God is love, the new law is love. According to the Catechism, “Jesus acknowledged the Ten Commandments, but he also showed the power of the Spirit at work in their letter” (CCC 2054). Jesus added “grace and truth” (John 1:14) to the commandments when he instituted the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). St. Paul teaches, “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). We can ask ourselves if we try to fulfill God’s law each day by loving God above all things and loving our neighbors as God commands.

Conversing with Christ: Jesus, my heart is yours. Please write your law on my heart so that I can know, love, and serve you as you deserve. May your law be impressed upon me daily so that I carry it within me wherever I go. May I not only be a hearer of your law but a doer of it (cf. James 1:22-23), manifesting your love and mercy in the world.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will choose one Bible verse and memorize it in order to allow you to impress your law onto my heart.

Meditation: Great are those who teach and obey the commandments

Why do people tend to view the "law of God" negatively rather than positively? Jesus' attitude towards the law of God can be summed up in the great prayer of Psalm 119: "Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day."

For the people of Israel the "law" could refer to the ten commandments or to the five Books of Moses, called the Pentateuch or Torah, which explain the commandments and ordinances of God for his people. The "law" also referred to the whole teaching or way of life which God gave to his people. The Jews in Jesus' time also used it as a description of the oral or scribal law. Needless to say, the scribes added many more things to the law than God intended. That is why Jesus often condemned the scribal law because it placed burdens on people which God had not intended.

The essence of God's law

Jesus made it very clear that the essence of God's law - his commandments and way of life, must be fulfilled. God's law is true and righteous because it flows from his love, goodness, and holiness. It is a law of grace, love, and freedom for us. That is why God commands us to love him above all else and to follow in the way of his Son, the Lord Jesus who taught us how to love by laying down our lives for one another.

Reverence and respect

Jesus taught reverence for God’s law - reverence for God himself, reverence for the Lord's Day, reverence or respect for parents, respect for life, for property, for another person's good name, respect for oneself and for one's neighbor lest wrong or hurtful desires master and enslave us. Reverence and respect for God's commandments teach us the way of love - love of God and love of neighbor. What is impossible to humans is possible to God who gives generously of his gifts and the Holy Spirit to those who put their faith in him. God gives us the grace, help, and strength to love as he loves, to forgive as he forgives, to think and judge as he judges, and to act as he acts with mercy, loving-kindness, and goodness. The Lord loves righteousness and hates wickedness. As his followers we must love his commandments and hate every form of sin and wrong-doing. Do you seek to understand the intention of his law and to grow in wisdom of his ways?

Jesus promised his disciples that he would give them the gift of the Holy Spirit who writes God's law of love and truth on our hearts. The Spirit teaches us God's truth and gives us wisdom and understanding of God's ways. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, strengthens us in temptation, and transforms us, day by day, into the likeness of Christ himself. There is great blessing and reward for those who obey God's commandments and who help others, especially the younger generations, to love, respect, and obey the Lord.

"Lord Jesus, grant this day, to direct and sanctify, to rule and govern our hearts, minds, and bodies, so that all our thoughts, words, and deeds may be be in accord with your Father’s law and wisdom. And thus may we be saved and protected through your mighty help."