Before the Commandment

We often read Jesus’ words as a radicalization of morality — an impossible moralism. But it is the opposite. With the attractiveness of His Presence, with the power of His love, He Himself will make possible what seems unattainable when we try to achieve it by our own strength
— Julián Carrón
Before the Commandment
Julián Carrón

Julián Carrón - Before the Commandment: Why the Moral Life Begins with an Encounter

Two Sundays ago, we listened to the Gospel of the Beatitudes, in which Jesus responded to the desire for Fullness that lies at the heart of every person. Those who "hunger and thirst" for this Fullness, He said, "will be filled." Jesus came to give a Fullness that none of us can achieve on our own. Only those who open themselves to the life He brought into the world will truly be "blessed" — fortunate! — because they will overflow with the very fulfillment for which they were made.

Only from this Fullness can we understand today's Gospel. God always goes ahead of us with His salvation. From the very first great gesture by which He makes Himself known to His people — the liberation from Egypt — God shows His method. First, He lets them experience who their God is, caring for them so concretely that He frees them from slavery. Only then will they have the context to understand the commandments properly. After seeing His love in action, what could matter more than responding to that love — if they wanted to remain free and fulfilled?

Think of it this way: what could someone who has found the love of their life do that is more reasonable than responding to that love — a love without which life is not life? Even without a commandment or a rule to follow, the only thing adequate to such an Event, one that has shaken your life to its foundations, is to respond with love — precisely so as not to lose the best thing that has ever happened to you: that Presence which makes possible a Fullness you could never have imagined on your own.

And so the Lord, who loved and freed His people, addresses them:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today shall be fixed in your heart. You shall repeat them to your children, you shall speak of them when you are at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, they shall be like a pendant between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Deut 6:4–9).

If you do not want to lose them!

Having seen that, thanks to Jesus' Presence in history, we can attain — as the Beatitudes say — a Fullness that satisfies our hunger and thirst with unprecedented abundance, we then have the context for understanding the words of the Gospel that might seem to say the opposite: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

We often read Jesus' statement that He does not intend to abolish the law as a radicalization of morality — an impossible moralism. But it is the opposite. With the attractiveness of His Presence, with the power of His love, with the Fullness that His life unleashes, He Himself will make possible what seems unattainable when we try to achieve it by our own strength. In fact, Jesus Himself, filled with the Fullness of the Father and the power of the Spirit, brought His plan to completion. "Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the Law will pass away, until all is accomplished."

Only this Fullness brought by Christ will enable us to live the commandments we have heard listed: "You shall not kill," "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not bear false witness." In all these transgressions, a person is grasping after a fullness that none of them can deliver. Only the Fullness that Christ brings — as the Beatitudes remind us — will make us so complete that we will not need to seek satisfaction anywhere else. "Where shall we go?" When the disciples begin to understand, they say: "You alone have the words that give life."

We may still make mistakes — many times — but even when we fall, we know where the answer to our thirst for fulfillment lies. Every attempt to find it elsewhere has left us empty. It is a road to be walked, a road that, without sparing us anything, will bring us to discover where the life we are groping for actually is.

Only those who walk this road will discover the "wisdom" mentioned in the second reading by so authoritative a witness as St. Paul — a man who had been an expert in Pharisaic rigorism. "A wisdom," says Paul, "that is not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who have come to nothing. We are speaking of a divine, mysterious wisdom that has remained hidden and that God established before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this world knew it; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

The discovery of this "wisdom" leaves St. Paul speechless: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, God has prepared for those who love him." Everything is ready for us — this Fullness! "But God" — and here is our good fortune — "has revealed them to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God."

This knowledge, which Paul attained through his relationship with Christ, led him to consider what he had previously regarded as a gain "as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ" (Phil 3:8). In this way, he surpassed the righteousness of the Pharisee through the experience of the newness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

VI Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A Notes from the homily by Julián Carrón, February 15, 2026 (First reading: Sir 15:15–20; Psalm: 118 (119); Second reading: 1 Cor 2:6–10; Gospel: Mt 5:17–37)

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