Jesus, after having proclaimed the Beatitudes, invites us to enter into the newness of the Kingdom of God and, to guide us on this path, reveals the true meaning of the precepts of the Law of Moses.” With these words, Pope Leo XIV began his address prior to the Marian prayer of the Angelus on February 15, the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Pope Leo: True justice is love
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Leaning from the window of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, reflecting on a part of the “sermon on the mount” that proposes the Gospel of the day, explained that these precepts “They do not serve to satisfy an external religious need and feel good before Gods, but to make us enter into the relationship of love with God and with our brothers.” And that is why – he pointed out – “Jesus says that he has not come to abolish the Law, ‘but to fulfill it’.”
“Compliance with the Law is precisely love, that realizes its deep meaning and its ultimate goal. It is about acquiring a “higher justice” than that of the scribes and Pharisees, a justice that is not limited to observing the commandments, but that opens us to love and commits us to love.
The justice of the Kingdom of God To show the difference between a “formal religious justice” and the “justice of the Kingdom of God”, the Bishop of Rome explained that Jesus examines some precepts of the Law that refer to specific cases of life and he does so using antinomies.
Thus, on the one hand, Jesus affirms: “You have heard what was said to your ancestors,” and, on the other: “But I tell you.” Jesus makes us “children of the Father” This approach tells us “that the Law has been given to Moses and the prophets as a path to begin to know God and his plan for us and for history,” the Holy Father observed, but now, “He himself, in the person of Jesus, has come among us bringing the Law to fulfillment, making us children of the Father and giving us the grace to enter into a relationship with Him as sons and brothers among us.”
Jesus and his concept of love
“Brothers and sisters, Jesus teaches us that true justice is love and that, in each precept of the Law, we must perceive a demand of love. It is not enough to not physically kill a person, if I later kill him with words or do not respect his dignity.
In the same way, it is not enough to be formally faithful to one’s spouse and not commit adultery, if that relationship lacks reciprocal tenderness, listening, respect, mutual care and walking together in a common project.” A “great love” to live in justice To these examples, which Jesus himself gives us, the Pope added another one, a valuable teaching that the Gospel offers us: “Minimal justice is not needed, great love is needed, which is possible thanks to the strength of God.”
Before concluding his catechesis, Pope Leo invited us to invoke the Virgin Mary together, so that “She may intercede for us, helping us to enter into the logic of the Kingdom of God and to live in its justice.”
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