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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
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Gospel text (Mt 5:17-19): Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (...)."

"Loyalty" and "novelty" in Jesus' doctrine

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today we look at the religious binomial “loyalty-novelty” in Jesus Christ. He prayed in perfect communion with Israel and yet He Himself is Israel in a new way: the old Passover appears as prelude of the new Passover, which is Jesus Himself. And the true “liberation” is now carried out through His love to all humanity.

If we look back at Jesus’ path, we observe this twisted “loyalty-novelty”. Jesus is “observant”; He celebrates the Jewish Holidays with others; He prays in the temple; He is in line with Moses and the Prophets… But, at the same time, everything is done new: from His explanation of the Sabbath, the pure ritual and the new interpretation of the “Ten Commandments” to the purification of the temple which anticipates the end of the stone temple and announces the new temple, the new worship “in spirit and in truth”.

—Jesus Christ, faithful to the original will of God, brings a decisive change in the history of religions, which becomes reality on the Cross: a new worship has begun.