Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I will admit to you that I am pretty sub-optimized with such simplistic approaches to God’s word when it is claimed that everything that Jesus says to someone in the Gospel, he also says to me personally. Don’t get me wrong, yes, I believe his word is for me too.

I only want to say that to take every part of the gospel at once would be pretty difficult to accomplish; how would it look, for example, if we approach the text in this way, where the Lord says: “Take nothing for the journey: neither stick, nor pocket, nor bread, nor money, nor two clothes,” but at the same time: “You missed something when I sent you without a bag, without a pocket, and shoes? But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, also a pocket, and whoever has none, let him sell his clothes and buy a sword”?

It is good always to remember that many of Christ’s words, as we have them in the Gospels, were for specific people in specific situations: Jesus revealed to these people how they see their situation in heaven, and because the word is alive and its power did not expire with the sound the last syllable, can also speak to my completely original situation, in which no one else has been and in which I have not been and will not be either.

Therefore, any passage can touch my heart, and I can relate to myself in some way, for example, the words: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” although I am not a woman and no one is going to throw stones and pebbles at me right now. With such an approach to the Scriptures, one must be aware of the danger of boundless spiritualization and pathetic allegorization, which may be discussed later.

There is a danger that freedom will be overshadowed by the letter and the law, that the gospel, that pleasant yoke and light burden, will be exchanged for heavy and unbearable burdens.

Even the words that are the Gospel passage in the Western rite for today’s Sunday were spoken to a particular group: Jesus said them to the crowd and his disciples. And yet, without forcing the text into a different context, we can say that its relevance did not disappear with its primary addressees, nor did it disappear even when generations of Christians had no experience with what prayer straps and tassels on clothes are. These words are still relevant for us Christians. And maybe more than we would like to admit.

We have already seen that Jesus is depicted in the Gospel of Matthew as a new Moses: Christ is the Son whom the Father brings out of Egypt to free his people from slavery. So when we hear the words about the throne of Moses, can we not think of the new Moses and his chair? Even the seat of the new Moses is in danger of being occupied by something or someone other than Jesus, the liberator, that freedom will be overshadowed by the letter and the law, that the gospel, that pleasant yoke and light burden, will be exchanged for burdens that are heavy and unbearable.

There is no need for rules and laws. Well, this earth is inhabited by people with shortcomings and everything that follows from that. Therefore, there will always be some regulations and agreements governing the coexistence of human beings on the earth’s surface.

This also applies to the area of ​​life that directly relates to our faith in Christ. And here, you have to be very careful because the beginning of the end occurs when what is secondary becomes primary and when the laws that were supposed to facilitate the practice of the gospel become an idol.

When we currently have so many forms of Friday penance, experiencing the drama of having a Thursday lunch with meat on Friday is a symptom that the means have become the end and that there is something too carnal in me.

Maybe it’s a banal example, and it’s certainly no longer so poignant, but it will help you understand what I want to say. As an act of repentance, the practice of not eating food prepared from warm-blooded animals on ordinary Fridays has developed. It is not entirely because they were said to be more expensive than fish (in addition, if the motive were economic, let’s try to compare the price of a kilogram of poultry and a kilogram of salmon or octopus in our latitudes today).

It was based on the period’s view of man and the natural science knowledge of the time: in short, abstinence from the mentioned meat was supposed to help in the fight against sin.

When we currently have so many forms of Friday penance, experiencing the drama of having a Thursday lunch with meat on Friday is a symptom that the means have become the end and that there is something too carnal in me.

It is a symptom that I do not live in the Spirit, which is the Spirit of adopted sonship, that I refuse to be a son in the Son. Still, once again I cling to the letter; I seek my own righteousness according to the flesh in keeping the regulations I have made my idol because I have lost sight of to which those regulations could have led me. It is a symptom that I replace the gospel with the law that I present the gospel as regulations.

That’s why it’s good to keep questioning our conscience in this regard, both as individuals and as a community. Where is God in the regulations? Are they bringing me to him, or am I getting lost in self-serving regulations? Do the regulations and their interpretation make it easier to understand what it is about and where the essence is, or do they divert attention to tables and schemes, where God is not needed, where he is only a variable, but not the Father?

Blessed are the pure in heart, those who live according to the Spirit, for they will not be lost in regulations, ordinances, and laws, in what is secondary. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, whom they have seen and not lost in regulations, ordinances, and laws.