PUT OFF THE YOKE OF SLAVERY

October 13^th, 2020: Galatians 5:1-6.

          “Christ freed us for liberty” we heard in our first reading. “So do not take on yourselves the yoke of slavery.” What is Jesus talking about? He is correcting the idea common among his own people -- and sadly, common among many Catholics today – that God will not love us until we have shown that we have done something to deserve his love. People who think like that think of the Ten Commandments are a kind of moral test in which we must first get a passing grade before God will do anything for us. That is false!

          You have heard me tell about the young couple I knew who were expecting their first child. They had learned it was a girl. “We talk to the baby,” they told me, “when we lie in bed at night.” “What do you say to her?” I asked. “Oh, we tell her about everything we did that day. We also play beautiful music for her: Mozart, and Chopin piano music.”

          How wonderful! They were surrounding their little one with love and beauty even before she was born. God does the same for us. He doesn’t wait to see how we turn out – whether we have done something to deserve his love. If he did, he would wait a long time! He loves us as parents love their children: because we are his.

          Does that mean we can forget about God’s law: the Ten Commandments? Of course not. It means that we must understand the Commandments for what they are: a description of what we must do to thank God for the love he gives us before we have anything to merit his love.

          Measured by the Commandments, we all fall short: the saints included. Yet we find the saints confessing their sins even more than we do. Why? It is because they stand closer to the light of God’s love than ordinary sinners like us. This enables them to see their remaining faults more clearly than we can.

          Hence Paul’s conclusion in our first reading: “In Christ Jesus [what counts] is only faith, which expresses itself in love:” love for God, and love for others – whether they deserve our love, or not.

          The Ten Commandments, then, are a description of the grateful life. And if a life of ninety-two years has taught me anything it is this: grateful people are happy people – no exceptions!