At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples: I say to you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall be guilty of the judgment. But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be guilty of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be guilty of the council. And whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be guilty of hell fire. Therefore if thou offerest thy gift at the altar, and there shalt remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and first go to be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Sermon XCIII.
Unless your justice abound
more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees,
you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
—St. Matt. v. 20.
The Scribes and Pharisees were very particular about keeping the letter of the law, and prided themselves mightily on this kind of "justice." But Jesus Christ says that unless our righteousness exceed theirs we shall not save our souls. Here, then, he teaches us that we must keep the spirit of the commandments as well as the letter. And to show what he means by the spirit of the law, he quotes the commandment which forbids murder. "Now, it is not enough," he says, "that you refrain from committing murder; you must equally refrain from the passion of anger—anger, that is, which destroys charity, and breeds ill-will, hatred, and revenge; for those who give way to these malicious feelings shall be arraigned at my judgment-seat side by side with murderers." Among those who heard him was St. John, his apostle; and St. John says: "He that hateth his brother is a murderer."
Again, our Lord tells us that the spirit of the Fifth Commandment includes lesser sins than anger—that to call our brother contemptuous names, to provoke and irritate him by hard words (except, of course, in the case of just rebuke), is a grave violation of this law as he would have us Christians understand it.
The words which follow—addressed to those who were in the habit of going into the temple to lay their gifts before God's altar—apply with even greater force to us. We come before God's altar when we come to hear Mass, and we come with the profession, at least, of offering a gift—that worship which is the tribute of our faith and love. There is one thing, then, which our Lord requires before he will receive our offering: that "our brother have" not "anything against us." In other words, we must be in perfect charity with our neighbor. If we have anything against him, we must forgive him there and then "from our hearts." If he have anything against us, we must either have already done our best towards reconciliation and reparation, or at least be prepared and determined to do it at the very first opportunity.
Now, it may be we are not in the state of grace when we come to hear Mass, but, on the contrary, laden with mortal sins. Well, we still have the right to hear Mass—nay, are bound to hear it; and, further, we can still offer a gift, and a very acceptable gift—an earnest prayer for contrition and amendment—a cry for mercy and deliverance. Our Lord once said to St. Mathilda: "However guilty a man may be, however inveterate the enmity of his heart against me. I will patiently bear with him whenever he is present at Mass, and will readily grant him the pardon of his sins if he sincerely ask it." Clearly, then, dear brethren, there is but one thing that can keep even a poor sinner from coming before God's altar with an acceptable gift—viz., the want of charity to his neighbor; that is, either the refusal to say from his heart: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"; or, equally, the refusal to seek reconciliation or make reparation for wrongs of his own doing. Now, in either case there is a brother who "has something against us," and that brother is Jesus Christ himself, who calls all men his brethren without exception, and especially our fellow-Catholics, having given to all his Sacred Heart and the love of his Blessed Mother.