Saturday
1st Week of Lent
1st Reading: Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Israel, the People of the Lord
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[16] "This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and
ordinances; you shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and
with all your soul. [17] You have declared this day concerning the Lord that
he is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and
his commandments and his ordinances, and will obey his voice; [18] and the
LORD has declared this day concerning you that you are a people for his own
possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his com-
mandments, [19] that he will set you high above all nations that he has made,
in praise and in fame and in honor, and that you shall be a people holy to the
LORD your God, as he has spoken."
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Commentary:
26:16-19. The main part of Moses' second discourse (chaps. 5-26) ends with
a new, solemn proclamation of the Covenant between the Lord and his people,
on which their mutual relationship is based. Israel is the people--property of God,
chosen by him from among all nations. And the Lord, for his part, is the God and
Lord of Israel, whom he has solemnly promised to protect.
Verses 17 and 18 begin with turns of phrase typical of the language of contacts
and pacts: one contracting party has the other declare or swear something. This
gives the passage great beauty and strength: through the wording of the Covenant,
Israel makes the Lord undertake to be its God and protector, while God calls on
Israel to testify that it will be faithful to his commandments. The wording of the
Covenant is extolled in other passages of the Old Testament. Thus, Hosea 2:25
uses the imagery of love to express the dialogue between God and Israel: "You
are my people. [...] Thou art my God."
By treating man in this way, God shows himself to be both near to man and far
above him. The mutual commitment of God and men in the Covenant is not a
simple business-like transaction; it is something enduring, something which is
being renewed all the time: for man, and I particularly for the Christian, every day
is a renewal of the Covenant, a new beginning (cf. Is 43:19). BI. J. Escriva writes
"Committed. How much I like that word! We children of God freely put ourselves
under an obligation to live a life of dedication to God, striving that He may have
complete and absolute sovereignty over our lives" ("The Forge", 855).
As regards the structure of Deuteronomy in its present form, vv. 16-19 act as
both a summing up of Moses' second discourse and as a preparation for chapter
28, the end of that discourse, consisting of "Blessings and Curses" exhorting
Israel to be faithful to the Covenant it has made with the Lord.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:43-48
Jesus and His Teaching, the Fulfillment of the Law (Continuation)
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(Jesus said to His disciples,) [43] "You have heard that it was said, `You shall
love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' [44] But I say to you, Love your ene-
mies and pray for those who persecute you. [45] So that you may be sons of
your Father who is in Heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. [46] For if you love those
who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the
same? [47] And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than
others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? [48] You, therefore, must be
perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect."
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Commentary:
43. The first part of this verse--"You shall love your neighbor"--is to be found in
Leviticus 19:18. The second part--"hate your enemy"--is not to be found in the
Law of Moses. However, Jesus' words refer to a widespread rabbinical interpre-
tation which understood "neighbors" as meaning "Israelites". Our Lord corrects
this misinterpretation of the Law: for Him everyone is our neighbor (cf. the para-
ble of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37).
43-47. This passage sums up the teaching which precedes it. Our Lord goes
so far as to say that a Christian has no personal enemies. His only enemy is
evil as such--sin--but not the sinner. Jesus Himself puts this into practice with
those who crucified Him, and He continues to act in the same way towards sin-
ners who rebel against Him and despise Him. Consequently, the saints have
always followed His example--like St. Stephen, the first martyr, who prayed for
those who were putting him to death. This is the apex of Christian perfection--
to love, and pray for, even those who persecute us and calumniate us. It is the
distinguishing mark of the children of God.
46. "Tax collectors": the Roman empire had no officials of its own for the collec-
tion of taxes: in each country it used local people for this purpose. These were
free to engage agents (hence we find reference to "chief tax collectors": cf. Luke
19:2). The global amount of tax for each region was specified by the Roman
authorities; the tax collectors levied more than this amount, keeping the surplus
for themselves: this led them to act rather arbitrarily, which was why the people
hated them. In the case of the Jews, insult was added to injury by the fact that
the chosen people were being exploited by Gentiles.
48. Verse 48 is, in a sense, a summary of the teaching in this entire chapter,
including the Beatitudes. Strictly speaking, it is quite impossible for a created
being to be as perfect as God. What our Lord means here is that God's own
perfection should be the model which every faithful Christian tries to follow, even
though he realizes that there is an infinite distance between himself and his Cre-
ator. However, this does not reduce the force of this commandment; it sheds
more light on it. It is a difficult commandment to live up to, but along with this
we must take account of the enormous help grace gives us to go so far as to
tend towards divine perfection. Certainly, perfection which we should imitate
does not refer to the power and wisdom of God, which are totally beyond our
scope; here the context seems to refer primarily to love and mercy. Along the
same lines, St. Luke quotes these words of our Lord: "Be merciful, even as your
Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36; cf. note on Luke 6:20-49).
Clearly, the "universal call to holiness" is not a recommendation but a com-
mandment of Jesus Christ.
"Your duty is to sanctify yourself. Yes, even you. Who thinks that this task is
only for priests and religious? To everyone, without exception, our Lord said: `Be
ye perfect, as My Heavenly Father is perfect'" ([Blessed] J. Escriva, "The Way",
291). This teaching is sanctioned by chapter 5 of Vatican II's Constitution "Lu-
men Gentium", where it says (40): "The Lord Jesus, divine teacher and model of
all perfection, preached holiness of life (of which He is the author and maker) to
each and every one of His disciples without distinction:`You, therefore, must be
perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect' [...]. It is therefore quite clear that all
Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and
to the perfection of love, and by this holiness a more human manner of life is fos-
tered also in earthly society."
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
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