6A Sirach 15:15-20.  In this reading the word “choose” is used three times.  “Before man, are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.”  Our life, as lived by us, is basically going to be a choice of one or the other.  The choice cannot be forced on us.  The fire is the omnipotent power of God; the water, the ocean of worldly worries and pleasures that can drowned us.  God “understands man’s every deed,” what is at the depth of hearts and minds that produces our words and actions.  He is “all-seeing”.

Matthew 5:17-37.  Jesus says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  What Jesus brings is what the Law, the Torah, offered and infinitely more.  The Law was only the beginning of what the fullness of Jesus brings.

Jesus then goes on to give some examples of what that fullness is, so much more than the Old Testament Law.  (1)”Whoever is angry with his brother” or says anything that is a ‘put down’ “will be liable to judgment.”  You kill, maim or harm not only another’s body but also his spirit or psyche.  (2)If you “recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  How can we be reconciled with God, if we are not reconciled with the people God loves?  (3)”Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  A sin in the body is the same as a sin in the heart.” (4)”It is better for you to lose one of your members (of your body) than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.”  Get a hold of your priorities and make sensible decisions.  If a sinful choice now, no matter how good it looks for the here and now,  makes you lose everything later, what sense does it make. (5)”Whoever divorces his wife-unless the marriage is unlawful (has cause to be null and void, i.e. never truly a marriage in God’s eyes) – causes her to commit adultery.”  To be married as a Christian, i.e. in Christ, is to be married in the unbreakable bond of love because God is love.  (6)”Do not swear at all.”  In other words, it seems that at that times swearing (not cursing) by this or that obligated one to be more or less true to his  words.  Jesus is saying that one’s making a commitment or verifying a statement, should be enough.  One should stand by one’s word without any need for swearing to the veracity of your words or your full commitment to do what you said you would do.

To summarize the fulfillment of the Law that Christ has brought is that the interior of one’s person has to be at one with exterior.  It is not enough just have external acts visible to the world.  What we are and have grown to be, and not just what we show on the outside, must show the integrity of the whole and entire person.  We must be truly good on the inside and out to be to fully good. We cannot be just Sunday Catholics.  Our whole person must belong to God.  “He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”(Matthew 22:37)  Secondly, everything about us must show a sensitivity and obedience to what God wants of us and not of “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.”

1 Corinthians 2:6-10.  “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”(John 16: 13a)  Genuine wisdom is the capacity to see the truth, reality, what genuinely is and not just what some people always thought or what people are thinking nowadays.  Our “God has revealed to us through the Spirit” his plan for our salvation, “mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory.”  This is ”what God has prepared for those who love him,” love him thoroughly, totally , completely.