Homilia

- Most of us are not probably familiar with construction of a building, but we all know that building must have solid foundations and strong beams to sustain it and anchor it when there is a storm or an earthquake.
- An arquitect or engineer can not do away without these foundations and strong beams, otherwise the building will run the risk of coming down.
- The other materials: plaster,paint, glass, etc. give a final touch to the building and make the building look beautiful.
- In a way we can say that the commandments God gave to Moses in the Old Testament are these foundations and strong beams that, should we chose to follow them, make us follow in the path of the love of God.
- Jesus, in the Gospel that we heard today - and let us remember that this is still part of the Sermonon the Mountain that we started to read two sundays ago and will continue to read for three sundays more -tells us that, if we really want to please God and do well, we have not only to follow the commandments externally, but also assent to them with our heart.
- The core of them all, however, is in the heart.
• Certainly, our exterior behavior must follow God's will.
• This is what Jesus meanswhen he says, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law…”
• But Jesus is trying to tell us that exterior behavior, that appearances, are not enough.
• For a true, faithful citizen of Christ's Kingdom, the attitudes and desires of the heart must also be in harmony with God's plan for our lives.
• This is what Jesus means when he says: “I have come… to fulfill…” - to bring the Old TestamentLaw to its fulfillment.
Friendship with God (which is what Jesus offers) requires a union of hearts.
Christ is explaining the Law from this perspective when he explains the true meaning of sinful anger, lust, and lying.

• If God “wills all men to be saved” (1Timothy 2:4), how can our friendship with him be complete when we harbor resentment or contempt towards some people, or tarnish theirgood name by spreading rumors about them or speaking ill of them?
• How can I live in intimacy with a God who loves every man and woman as a father loves his children, when in my heart I desire to use some of them only as an object of pleasure and self-indulgence?
• How can I be a true friend of God, when I make promises that I don't intend to keep? (Some Jews of Jesus' time had developed thehabit of swearing oaths in the name of God if they meant to keep them, and swearing on something else if they meant to break them.)
Other people may be satisfied with merely exterior success, with a hefty “bottom line”; Christ, however, is interested in every line: he looks all the way in to our hearts.

If we live our faith superficially, looking like a Catholic on the outside only, ourlives will never have the meaning or the power that they are meant to have.
• We will end up just following the latest trends and fashions, never really having the stability or making the progress in life that Jesus wants us to.
• But if we live our faith from the inside out, keeping Christ alive in our hearts, we will be able to help set the trends, not just follow them.
• It's like the differencebetween a thermometer and a thermostat.
A thermometer merely tells what the temperature is in a particular area.
• If your thermometer reads seventy degrees and you place that thermometer in a room that is currently eighty degrees, the thermometer will change to register whatever the room temperature is.
• It won’t be long before the thermometer reads eighty degrees.
• It always changesaccording to its environment.
The thermostat, however, does just the contrary.
• Instead of changing in accord with its environment, it actually changes the environment in accord with itself.
• It adjusts the room temperature.
• If the thermostat is set at seventy degrees and the room is eighty degrees, the temperature of the room will gradually change to conform to whatever the thermostat is...