“Whoever serves me must follow me,and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honour whoever serves me.”
John 12:26
REFLECTION – Grace hid itself under a veil in the Old Testament, but it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages. Now, amidst this admirable correspondence, there is at least this very considerable diversity in the cases: the people in the earlier instance were deterred by a horrible dread from approaching the place in which the law was given; whereas, in the other case, the Holy Spirit came upon those who were gathered together in expectation of His promised gift. There, it was on tablets of stone that the finger of God operated; here, on human hearts.
“Love is the fulfillment of the Law.” Now this law of love was not written on tablets of stone but is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. God’s law, therefore, is love. “To this the carnal mind is not subject, neither indeed can be”; but when these works of love are written down on tablets in order to caution the carnal mind, there arises the law of works and “the letter which kills” the transgressor. But when love itself is shed abroad in the hearts of believers, then we have the law of faith, and “the Spirit which gives life” to the one who loves.
Now, observe how consonant is this diversity with these words of the apostle Paul: “You are shown to be a letter of Christ, administered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.” Observe the same thing also in the testimony given by the prophet Jeremiah on this subject in the clearest way: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers. I will place my law within them, and write it in their hearts.”
St Augustine (The Spirit and the Letter)
PRAYER – Lord God, You inspired St Lawrence with so ardent a love that his life was renowned for the service of Your people and his death for the splendour of his Martyrdom. Help us to love what he loved and to live as he showed us. St Lawrence, Martyr for Christ and His Church, pray for us. Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever amen.
AnaStpaul 