“I’ll just do the bare minimum.”
Has anyone heard this quote or experienced this attitude before? I came across this mentality throughout my studies. At university, students would say, “P’s get degrees” and during my time at the seminary some of us would say “P is for priest!” Although these are different phrases, they all express the same sentiment of minimum effort.
Today, we hear another one of Jesus’ sermons teaching us to go beyond the bare minimum of the scribes and pharisees. Jesus’ whole sermon begins with him seated, exercising his role as a teacher of the Torah with authority, fulfilling the “Law and the Prophets” (Matt 5:17-37).
Jesus is very much aware of the situation of Judaism during his time and highlighted three teachings from the Torah, including murder (you must not kill), adultery (you must not commit adultery) and breaking oaths (you must not break your oath). These were observed on the exterior level but Jesus knew their hearts and recognised these issues ran deeper. Adultery was upheld in the physical sense but Christ knew they were pushing the boundaries by entertaining thoughts of covetousness. They may not have murdered anyone but by their anger, words and slander, malice was already inflicted on others. The whole of purpose for Jesus to bring the law and prophets to fulfilment was to go beyond and find the underlying virtue behind each commandment.
Catholics can also fall into the same trap of doing the bare minimum. There is the risk we can become “Sunday Catholics” – attending Mass on Sunday but failing to practice our faith during the week. It is our obligation to attend Sunday Mass but our virtue must go deeper. As children of God, all of us are called to be great. In fact, we are called to the great heights of sainthood, even if that seems so distant for us but with grace and interior conversion it is highly possible.
Today, we are challenged to be honest with ourselves and that is a confronting task. But the whole purpose of this weekend’s readings is not to scare and not to instil fear but to allow ourselves to go beyond the surface. It’s an invitation to go deeper and recognise our capacity to be great.
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Rosemary Pacquola says:
Thank you. Great counsel.