Tuesday, February 8 : Saint Augustine

“The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death” (Rm 8:2) (…) Saint Paul says that the Law of Moses has been given to prove our weakness, and not just to prove it but to increase it and thus force us to find the doctor. (…) “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more” (Rm 5:20; cf. 3:20) (…) But why did the first Law, written with the finger of God (Ex 31:18), not give us the essential assistance of grace ? Because it was written on tablets of stone, not the tablets of flesh that are our hearts (2 Cor 3:3) (…). It is the Holy Spirit who writes “the Law of the Spirit of life” not on stone but in the heart; this Law of the Spirit of life that is in Jesus Christ in whom the Passover has been celebrated in truth (1 Cor 5:7-8), has delivered you from the law of sin and death. Do you want to have proof of the manifest and certain difference separating the Old Testament from the New? (…) Hear what the Lord spoke by the mouth of one of the prophets. (…): ”I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts” (Jr 31:33). So if God’s Law is written in your heart, it does not bring forth fear [as at Sinai] but pours a secret sweetness into your soul.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team