Paid in full

3^rd Week of Lent (W)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP

St. Albert the Great, Irving

When you order a book from Amazon, it arrives in a package marked “Amazon Fulfillment Center.” When you pay a bill, you may receive a receipt marked “paid in full.” The obligations of a commercial contract are “fulfilled.” That word – “fulfill” – and all its variations means to complete, to be done with, to satisfy. It can also mean to perfect, to make whole again. So, when Jesus says he has come to fulfill the Law, he's saying that he's here to perfect the Law, to bring the Law to completion. Naturally, we need to ask: what is the telos, the end of the Law? The telos of the Law was and is to make of us a holy nation, a baptismal priesthood, a people assembled together to carry out His will. For centuries before Christ, the Law and Prophets worked toward this end. Sometimes with great success. But most of the time without. At the appointed time, the Son took on human flesh, becoming Man like one of us, and did what we could not – he gave himself to death in an act of sacrificial love so that our part in the Covenant could be fulfilled. The Law is not destroyed. It is made perfect. All of the Law and the Prophets is incorporated into the body and blood of Christ and our duty under the Law is complete.

Now that the obligations of the Law and the Prophets are complete, are we licensed to do as we please? No. The Law and the Prophets are completed under the first Law of Love: love God and neighbor as you love yourself. Do that and you perfectly obey the Law. You love perfectly. What we are doing right now – during Lent – is frankly inventorying our fidelity to the Law of Love. And while we take account of how well we love or do not love, we remember that we are only able to love in the first place b/c Love Himself loves us first. It is only through His originating love that we exist at all. Only through Him that we can love spouses, children, friends, and enemies. Only through Him do we come at last to the source of creating and re-creating love. If we follow Christ – and we say we do – and if Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets – and he did – and if we hope to find a place at the Wedding Feast – and we do – then we too will live and breathe and have our being in the world as fulfillers of the Law of Love. We are the Priests and Prophets of Divine Love sent to show the world its salvation in Christ Jesus.

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