TWENTY-SIXTH DAY OF LENT

Jesus continued, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” – Matthew 7:12

Possibly overuse, trite use, has weakened the significance of these words of Christ.  Yet, this verse holds a key to an understanding of the “Justice Christianus“.  Christ’s sense of justice is that it is a mutual justice, a Divine justice now made incarnate in the life of humanity.  This Divine Justice, this moral and ethics of a the highest definition, is the manner of justice that is administered now in an egalitarian, communitarian way.  This Christian understanding is at the very heart of the principle of the democratic republic.  It is not the emperor nor the monarch nor the oligarchy nor the party nor the tyrant who establishes the laws of the land, rather it is the conscience, we hope Divinely inspired, of the people.  It is our acceptance of a mutual covenant of the “we”.  If is our acceptance of a mutual covenant to seeks the draw the community into becoming the more just community.

Yes, the “Justice Christianus” is a process of continually Becoming.  It is a Justice that seeks to be moving toward a More Prefect version of itself.  This sense of moving in the direction of a More Perfect Union comes from the impetus of Divine Possibility.  The perfection is not a reactionary course into the past as we find in the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, but rather a leaning toward the future in the direction of Perfection.

This process of ongoing perfection is based on the Christian understanding of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Our proper destiny is always in the future, but NOT waiting for some one day future to arrive, but always moving toward that future together.  Now the few, not the many, but “We the People” who are being drawn ever to the frontier of ever more perfect justice.

Our humility is posture of our heart to not claim we already know the answers, but that we are learning the answers.  Thus where there is arrogance there is the building a stronger fences to keep us forever in the inadequacy of our past.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz