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Gospel: Matthew 5: 17-19
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Dorothy Day was a social activist who became a Catholic after giving birth to her first child.
Holding her newborn tenderly against her chest, she realized there had to be someone to thank for the gift of life.
But Day not only came to believe in God’s existence; she also conformed her life to that belief, deciding to live above a soup kitchen in New York City for the next several decades.
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Most people wouldn’t jump at the chance to call a soup kitchen “home.”
But Day made it her mission to serve the poorest in New York City, because she understood that the same God who created her child was the author of every other life, making all humans equally deserving of love.
As she once wrote, “Christians are commanded to live in a way that doesn’t make sense unless God exists.”
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Do we live that way, as if our lives don’t make sense unless God exists?
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Consider the question in the context of the core Christian tenets: salvation; charity; generosity; forgiveness; hope.
Do our lives reflect these values?
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This is how we fulfill the Law, as Christ proclaims in the Gospel, by living in a way that doesn’t make sense.
Unless God exists.
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