Love That Transcends!

Friday, March 14, 2025

Ez 18:21-28; Mt 5:20-26

Today’s Gospel invites us to possess that love that surpasses justice and righteousness. 

We know that there are four cardinal virtues (also known as ‘acquired’ or ‘moral’ virtues because we can acquire them through our efforts): prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. 

Likewise, we also know that there are three theological virtues (also known as ‘infused’ virtues because they are infused into us by God): faith, hope, and love (charity).

Looking at the two categories of virtue, a curious or perceptive mind would quickly ask why there is no place for justice in theological virtues when it is an integral part of the four cardinal virtues. 

Here is where today’s Gospel becomes the answer we are looking for. 

More often than not, we have our justifications for being angry with those who have wronged us in one way or another. Since we believe our anger to be ‘just,’ any appeal to give up our anger or a call for reconciliation is often seen as a sign of cowardice or weakness on our part. 

However, contrary to what we believe, Jesus rules out anger in any form and holds us accountable if we are not ready to settle down the issue with our neighbors. For Jesus, while anger is the root cause of sins like killing and murder, it becomes an impediment to discipleship too. In other words, our discipleship would be incomplete if our ‘righteousness does not surpass that of others.’ For Jesus, ‘higher morality or righteousness’ is possible only with love that both encompasses and transcends justice. 

Hence, by the fact of our discipleship, we should not only give up any claim to ‘right or just anger’ but also master that love, which, while encompassing and transcending justice, also includes reconciliation, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy. It is also because love (charity) transcends justice that we do not find it among the theological or infused virtues. Only when we practice that love do we become better disciples, Christians, and citizens.

Love (charity) that exceeds the claims of justice is what Jesus offers as the moral corrective in today’s Gospel. The new teaching of Jesus shatters the notion of ‘just anger’ and upholds neighborly love as a foundational trait for his disciples. 

Hence, higher morality or righteousness is about exemplifying love in everything we do. 

Let us pray that we may possess that love that encompasses and transcends justice and righteousness.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar