Monday 12 August 2024
St Jane Frances de Chantal
Ezekiel 1:2-5, 24-28. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory – Psalm 148:1-2, 11-14. Matthew 17:22-27.
The Spirit of the Law
My youngest son recently received a fishing rod for Christmas, and since then we have spent countless hours at lakes, beaches and rivers trying to catch a fish, with no success. It normally ends up in tangled lines and tears (his and mine). One day he suggested we swing past the shops to buy a fresh fish and pretend we’d had some success. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus makes a point about the current situation of the temple law, but chooses to keep the peace and offers the disciples a miraculous workaround to pay the tax. The religious laws and those who enforced them had become so tangled in the letter of the law that they missed the spirit of the law. In a similar way, I continue to remind my son that the point of fishing isn’t necessarily what we bring home but the quality of the time we spend trying.
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