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Your Place in Heaven
2 min
Gospel
Mt 5:17-19
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Readings are taken from Dynamic Catholic’s Bible: RSV Catholic Edition.
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Transcript
Your Place in Heaven
Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly, and
welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we take a few minutes to reflect on
the gospel, looking for a word, a phrase, or an idea that the Holy Spirit uses to
capture our imagination so that we can live the gospel more fully today than we did
yesterday. Today's reading comes from the Gospel of Matthew, 5:17-19. "Think not that I
have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to
fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not
one dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of
the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom
of heaven. But the one who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven."
What jumps out at you today? Was there a word or
a phrase or an idea? A couple things jumped out at me. Jesus talks about least in the
kingdom of heaven and great in the kingdom of heaven. And so that's an interesting
concept, right, because he speaks about this over and over. It isn't just one-off, and
that means there is different experiences of the kingdom of heaven. The second thing
that jumped out at me is the word relaxes. Whoever relaxes one of the least of these
commandments, and I think we're relaxing the commandments for ourselves all the
time.
I know I am. My whole life, I look back, I see, "Oh, yeah, I
relaxed that one a little bit there, and I relaxed that one a lot there and I relaxed
that one," and I think we do make exceptions for ourselves. We do pretend sometimes that
we're the exception to the law, or in this case, the commandment. Example is speeding,
right? Speed limit is 55, 65, whatever it is. Do we go faster? Yes. Why? Well, we're
relaxing the law. We're making ourselves the exception. And Jesus is saying, "This is
not the path to the kingdom of heaven."
And so which of the
commandments are you relaxing for yourself at this time in your life? Have a great day
and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.
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