The least

There are some people who are excessively scrupulous and who think that their eternal salvation depends upon their perfect obedience to each and every one of the commandments and precepts revealed by God and the appropriate authorities.

There are other people who think that eternal salvation only requires a “fundamental option” that exists somewhere in a person’s consciousness and is at least implicitly Christ-centered.

Both extremes, of course, are wrong: dangerously wrong.

In today’s Gospel (Matthew 5:17-19), our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says this,

Do not think
that I have come to abolish
the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish
but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you,
until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter
or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore,
whoever breaks
one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

May we trust only in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation, even as we strive to be faithful to him even in the least things we do.