Everyone has their favorite, and least favorite, scripture passages. Some passages affirm us in the way we feel about our relationship with God, about the way we live out our beliefs. Others make us uncomfortable, challenging the way we live, revealing a facet of God we don’t understand, or telling of shameful behavior by our ancestors in faith.
Scripture passages about the law tend to fall into the “uncomfortable” category for some.
At the Easter Vigil in a couple of weeks, Psalm 19 will follow the sixth reading from the prophet Baruch. When I asked one of my cantors to lead it, the response I got was, “You’re going to make me sing about the law?! And the fear of the Lord?! I don’t like all those limits. I’m all about the Spirit.” My immediate response was, “But it’s God’s law! It’s better than ours!” But, there was no convincing this cantor that the Spirit and God’s law can and do go together, because they are both of God. The readings today offer similar challenges around that.
In the first reading, people think of the law in very different ways. Susanna and Daniel hold that God’s law is most important, even when following it may lead them to suffering under (abuses of) human law. The two elders abuse human law as a tool to support their own power, and do not hold themselves accountable to God’s law. This is all the more disturbing because they have been trusted to judge everyone else. In the end, innocence and fairness win out and the malicious elders suffer.
This is not always, or even usually, the ending this kind of story gets. I couldn’t help thinking, while reading Susanna’s story, of survivors of sexual harassment, violence, and trafficking; of my own Church’s part in allowing leaders, trusted to care for the powerless, to abuse their positions of power, an issue recently returned to the forefront of public thought by Best Picture winner “Spotlight.” Susanna’s story certainly brings up deep pain for many who hear it today. Had I encountered law only in the context of those manipulating it for their own ends, or in the prolonging of suffering, I wouldn’t like to think of that word as belonging to God, either.
But God’s law is different. God’s law is that of the Good Shepherd, who walks with us, brings us to fresh streams and green pastures, and protects us from those who wish to harm us. God’s law illuminates – “I am the light of the world.” God’s law is truth – Jesus knows this so well that the idea of a second testimony to his identity seems almost laughably unnecessary. Jesus says in the Gospel that he, the carrier of the law of the new covenant, does not judge. He simply sees, and loves. This Jubilee Year of Mercy is all about God’s law: merciful love.
Love is his name, love is his law:
hear his command, all who are his.
‘Love one another, as I loved you.‘
Love, only love, is his law.
(This verse is not included in “Love Is His Word” arr. Robert Hutmacher in the link above, but it is in the original text.)
Molly Mattingly
I grew up in north of Chicago with my parents, brother, and sister. My parents led the 5:00pm Mass music ensemble at my home parish while I was growing up, so you could also say I grew up in a church choir! Music has always been a part of my life, through school choirs, piano lessons, and music ministry. I accompanied and sang in choirs in grade school and at Carmel Catholic High School. During that time, I also swam on my YMCA swim team and worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor at a local park district.
After high school, I studied Music Education and Music Theory at Ithaca College, with an emphasis in piano and choral direction. There I was also co-director of our Catholic Community’s music ministry. I graduated from Ithaca in ’09, and like many of my classmates who graduated the year the recession peaked, was lucky enough to find a place in grad school. I got my Masters in Sacred Music from the University of Notre Dame (go Irish!), where I was involved with the Folk Choir and Notre Dame Vision retreat program. Most recently, I spent two years in Wexford, Ireland as a member and House Director of the House of Brigid, a lay community of young adults dedicated to the renewal of the Church in Ireland through catechesis and music. (Check out their website if you want to see other blog posts I’ve written and see beautiful pictures of Ireland.) And now, my music ministry vocation brought me to Creighton University and St. John’s, where I am the music director at the parish and Campus Ministry!
