The key for me to today's readings is to be found in the First Reading where it states: "If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice." (Sir 15: 15) God summons us and empowers us through prevenient grace. We are formed and designed to accept our individual relationship with God and we can only find peace truly in Him. However, God, being of His nature love, doe not force us. He may offer us grace but we need to make the free choice to accept it. The gospel reading places before us the choices we are called to make as disciples. We are exhorted to turn away from sin, to forgive others, to repudiate evil, to be faithful in marriage and to be honest in our speech. All of this is to come from hearts transformed by love and informed by the Beatitudes which we heard about at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. The rigid adherence to law, as Law, avails us naught if our hearts remain hardened by anger, resentment and unforgiveness. The hard lesson for the disciples, then as now is: "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mtt 5: 20)
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