Saturday of 28th Week in Course 2023
One of the requirements for a just law, according to the Fathers of the Church and Thomas Aquinas, is that it be promulgated to those we expect to obey it. Now there is a natural moral law that is summarized in the Ten Commandments. St. Paul talks about that law as being written on our hearts, impossible to ignore. If we murder someone (and, thank God, I have no personal experience of that myself) I imagine that act would grate on conscience at the time, and just get worse as we get older. But the commandments themselves were not given by God to Israel until the time of the Exodus, hundreds of years after Abraham. It’s just logical that Abraham’s promise of a son and uncounted descendants was not given him by God because of adherence to a law that didn’t even exist in his day. His relationship to the Blessed Trinity was sealed, using St. Paul’s words again, by the obedience of faith he lived by following God’s command to leave his birth land and home and venture into new lands with that faith. That consistent yearning of Abraham to hear the voice of God and obey that voice led to the establishment of a covenant that all believers, Jew and Gentile alike, benefit from. And that covenant led in Jesus Christ our Lord to the New Covenant that we partake of every time we gather for Eucharist.
God always remembers His covenant, His unbroken promise, so in all our words and actions, as the psalmist proclaims, we are led forth with joy, God’s chosen ones with singing.
This fundamental notion of the “obedience of faith” especially marks followers of Christ in times of trial and persecution, times foreseen by Christ in today’s Gospel. Our covenant with Him has very stark demands: when the governor demands we revoke our allegiance to Jesus, we must acknowledge our enduring relationship with Him. And, conversely, we must prefer death to desertion. Nor do we need to spend time crafting wonderful speeches, for the Holy Spirit will shore up our own spirits, and give us the words. I can testify to the truth of that myself, because on multiple occasions, without expecting it, I’ve been called to preach, even to skeptics, and I felt the power of that Holy Spirit compelling my words to testify to the love and power of God. Blessed be His name forever.
