(1) Num 6.22-27.
(2) Gal 4.4-7.
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The New Law of Christ is called a law of love, a law of grace, and a law of freedom because it is vivified by the Holy Spirit who is love, because Christ infuses the grace to act, and because it sets us free from the observances of the Old Law so as to live as friends of Christ rather than merely as servants.
· Jn 15.15: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
· Jas 2.12: “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.”
· Rom 8.15-16: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
· Gal 4.6: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”
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The gospel of Christ can be summarized in these words: “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4.4-5).
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The Annunciation to Mary inaugurates the “fullness of time” (Gal 4.4), the time of the fulfillment of God’s promises under the Old Covenant. Mary was invited freely to conceive God the Word (Col 2.9) in her womb. To Mary’s question as to how this was possible (Lk 1.34), the answer was that the Holy Spirit would make it so.
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Mary was predestined by God’s design to be the mother of God the Son. In responding to this vocation, Mary cooperated freely with God’s prevenient grace. According to the Second Vatican Council: “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life” (Lumen Gentium 56).
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Jesus’ circumcision is the sign of his incorporation into God’s covenant-people as a descendant of Abraham. His circumcision shows his obedience to the Law of Moses and prefigures baptism, which for Christians takes the place of baptism. It is also the first shedding of his blood, symbolically pointing to the shedding of his blood on the Cross in the New Covenant.
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The greater part of Jesus’ life was spent in obscurity, in a life of manual labor. His religious life was that of a Jew obedient to the Law, lived in the midst of the community of God’s people. Jesus was obedient to his parents and “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2.51-52).
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The perfect fulfillment of the Law could be accomplished only by the divine Lawgiver himself, in the person of Christ, the Incarnate Word. In Jesus, the Law is no longer engraved on tables of stone but upon the heart of Jesus the Suffering Servant. Jesus fulfills the Law to the point of taking upon himself the curse of the Law incurred by sinners. His death took place to redeem them “from the transgressions under the first covenant” (Gal 3.13).
· Isa 42.3, 6-7: “He will faithfully bring forth justice… I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”
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From the beginning until the “fullness of time” (Gal 4.4), the Father’s Word and Spirit were at work though hidden. This joint mission is only revealed with the advent of Christ. For this reason, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit who inspired the prophets wants to tell us about Christ.
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Baptism not only purifies from all sins but also makes the baptized person a new creation (2 Cor 5.17), an adopted child of God (Gal 4.5 and Rom 8.16-17), a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet 1.4), a member of Christ’s body (1 Cor 12.27) and co-heir with him (Rom 8.17), and a living temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6.19).
· 2 Cor 5.17: “Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”
· Gal 4.4-5: “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
· Rom 8.16-17: “It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
· 2 Pet 1.3-4: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”
· 1 Cor 12.27: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
· 1 Cor 6.19-20: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
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Since “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12.3), it is only by the gift of the Holy Spirit imparted in baptism that we share in the Trinitarian life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son. Only then, after being touched by the Holy Spirit and make partakers of Christ, that we can call God Abba! (Father) in the proper sense.
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The Spirit whom the Father has sent into our hearts is himself truly God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and inseparable from them. In adoring the Triune God, the Church’s faith also professes the distinction of persons within the one Godhead. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, but it is the Spirit who reveals him.
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The Holy Spirit is also termed by St. Paul the Spirit of the promise (Gal 3.14; Eph 1.13), the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6), the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8.9), the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor 3.17), and the Spirit of God (Rom 8.9, 14; 15.19; 1 Cor 6.11; 7.40). St. Peter refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of glory (1 Pet 4.14).
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Gal 4.6: “Because you are son, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
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Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6.19), “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6.11), “sanctified and called to be saints” (1 Cor 1.2). The Spirit teaches them to pray to the Father (Gal 4.6) and to bear the fruits of the Spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5.23).
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The Lord’s Prayer is not a formula to be repeated mechanically: “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 7.8). Rather, through this prayer contained in the Word of God the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their Father. Jesus not only gives us the words of this prayer but also the Spirit by which these words become “spirit and life” (Jn 6.63): “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8.26-28).
(3) Lk 2.16-21.
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The Son of God who became the Son of Mary also learned to pray according to his human heart. From his mother, he learned in a human way the forms of prayer, who kept in her heart the great things the Lord had done (Lk 2.19, 51). Jesus learned by experience the traditional words and rhythms of his people’s prayer, both in the synagogue at Nazareth and at the Temple in Jerusalem. However, the prayer of Jesus had a deeper source, as he himself indicated already at the age of twelve: “I must be in my Father’s house” (Lk 2.49). The newness of prayer in Christ is here revealed: his prayer as the Eternal Son of the Father is expressed and lived out in his humanity, and so becomes our prayer also.
· Lk 1.48-49:
“For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.”
· Lk 2.19-20: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”
· Lk 2.51-52: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.”
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See above.
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