6th Sunday
St. Alphonsus Rodriquez
Woodstock, Maryland
February 15, 2026
The Astonishment of the Scribes and Pharisees
Imagine the position the scribes and Pharisees were in. They were the unchallenged interpreters of the Mosaic Law, the Torah. They studied it assiduously. They were steeped in it. They sought to apply it to every detail of Jewish life. As teachers of the Law, they were respected and admired. Their place in society was exalted and secure.
Along comes a Rabbi from Galilee. He turns the secure world of the scribes and Pharisees upside down. He doesn’t merely claim to interpret the Torah better than the established teachers. No, he says something even more astonishing: “Do not imagine, that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I have come, not to abolish, but to fulfill [them].” This is a statement not even the most distinguished rabbi would make. It is a claim that only God, the author of the Torah, could make. Who, then, is this upstart Rabbi, the son of a Nazareth carpenter?
Behind the text of Matthew’s Gospel is the bedrock truth of our faith, viz., that this obscure Rabbi from Galilee was, and is, the Incarnate Son of God: He is the Word made flesh, the very embodiment of the Torah, not as it is written on tablets of stone, but as it is inscribed on the mind of God. Only One such as this could claim that he was sent to fulfill the Law and the Prophets – to draw from them their inner potential, their limitless wisdom, their promise of salvation. Only One such as this could claim to fulfill in himself the plan and purpose for which the Law was given and the Prophets were sent.
How Does Jesus Bring the Law to Fulfillment?
How, then, does Jesus bring the Law, the Torah, to fulfillment. His beginning point is not the legalism of the Pharisees but rather the wisdom of Ben Sira, author of today’s first reading. For Ben Sira, the Commandments reflected, not only God’s wisdom, but also his love, the love with which he chose for himself a People, and confided to this People the designs of his heart. As we read in the Psalms: “He proclaims his word to Jacob, his statutes and laws to Israel; He has not done this for any other nation . . . .” (Ps 147: 19-20). For the chosen People, following the Commandments was a choice, not only to avoid sin, but indeed, to belong to God – to entrust their life to the Lord’s wisdom and love. It was to choose life over death, good over evil. Was this not why Jesus came into the world?…that we “might have life and have it more abundantly”? (Cf. Jn 10:10)…that he might fulfill in us the Father’s plan of salvation by conquering sin and death through the blood of the Cross?
Notice that Jesus does not exempt us from following the Commandments. No where does he condone violating them. Rather, Jesus says that those who teach and obey these commands “will be called greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” But for Jesus, the living embodiment of the Torah, mere external observance of the Commandments is not enough. Responding to the Law and Prophets in a legally minimal way is not enough for the One who came, not to abolish the Law, but to unlock its promise and potential for the sake of a suffering humanity.
Just as the people of Israel came to see that they belonged to God because he gave them the Law, so too we recognize that we belong to the Lord, because he came into the world to fulfill in us the promise and potential of the Law; he came that ‘the hidden wisdom’ of God’s saving plan would materialize in our lives, whether in joy or sorrow, triumph or tragedy, or simply in our daily routine. When it dawns on us that we belong to the Lord – or, as St. Paul said – that ‘we belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God’ (cf. 1 Cor 3:23) – then we will respond to the Lord, not with lip service or stingy legalism, but rather, with the totality of our humanity: body, mind, and spirit. Isn’t this what happened in the lives of many saints? For example, as it dawned on St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, that she no longer belonged to herself, she said, ‘I am totally surrendered to Jesus, so he is free to do with me as he wills.’ (Cf. Letter 247 to Fr. Bellière).
Because we belong entirely to the Lord, therefore, we avoid not only external acts of violence, but seek to be cleansed of the anger we harbor in our hearts. Before we come to offer our very selves in the Eucharist, which is ‘the sign of unity and the bond of charity,’ we seek to be reconciled with anyone with whom we are at enmity. We not only reject adulterous behaviors, but seek to become pure of heart, singlehearted in love. When, in the grace of God, we respond in such a wholehearted way, then it is that ‘God the Father can see and love in us what he sees and loves in Jesus Christ, his own beloved Son’ (Cf. Preface, Sundays, VII).
Two Takeaways
Let me leave you with two takeaways. First, this community has a proud tradition of Ignatian spirituality. If anyone taught us to discern what is in the depths of our hearts, and to distinguish the movements of our souls – it was St. Ignatius. We learn this also from St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, one of the original Jesuits, who embraced Ignatian spirituality as he followed the Lord with humility. Let us ask his intercession that we might take today’s Gospel to heart and discern specifically how it applies to our lives.
Second, as you know Lent is upon us; Ash Wednesday approaches. May this Lent be a season of grace, a time both of repentance and growth, indeed, a time when the Gospel in its fullness finds a home in our hearts. May it also be a time when it dawns on us afresh that we belong, not to ourselves, but to the Lord, who loves us more than we could ask or imagine, and who seeks to elicit from us a response of wholehearted love. And may God bless us and keep us always in his love!