St. Martin de Porres

Friday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time &
Saint Martin de Porres, Religious

Biographical Information about St. Martin de Porres
Readings for Friday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 Phil 1:1-11

Responsorial Psalm Ps 111:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
R. How great are the works of the Lord!

Gospel Lk 14:1-6

Reflection:

After the feasts of the past two days we are acutely aware of the examples of faith around us and especially in those who have gone before us in faith. Today we remember especially St. Martin de Porres, the first black saint in the Americas. He is also called St. Martin the Broom because of the way he accepted and thrived on labor. St. Martin is placed against a back drop of scripture that poses the moral question; which is more important, the spirit of the Law or the letter of the Law?

This is one of the more difficult questions we face as a people of faith. On one hand, we are brought up in the Church which demands of us greater discipline in worship than almost all of the other Christian communities. We have obligations not only of weekly worship, but also of maintaining a high level of moral status if we wish to participate on the single most holy of the sacraments, the Eucharist.

Most of our Christian brothers and sisters do not have strict rules regarding worship. They do not require any code of behavior to be observed between periods of worship to insure a continual move toward a state of grace in the eyes of the Lord. And they point to stories like today’s Gospel as the corner stone of their belief that it does not matter what one does, if after they have done it, they are repentant, the Lord will forgive them without consequence.

It is for this reason the Church has trouble reconciling with these communities and it comes back to the question; which is more important, the spirit of the Law or the Letter of the Law? The Church tells us that both are important. St. Martin de Porres demonstrated how the two might be lived in harmony. You might say; “Sure he did, but he was a saint!” And that, of course, is the whole point of saints – they provide us an example of what might be accomplished with God’s help.

The challenge we face does not deal with trying to get our Christian brothers and sisters, who practice what we can call Christian anarchy, to join Mother Church. Rather it is to resolve our own conflicts between the spirit and the letter of the Law.

The first thing we must come to grips with is how both can be followed in our lives without either appearing hypocritical (as the Pharisees do in the Gospel story today) or falling into the trap of “Catholic Lite” or “Cafeteria Catholics” as it can be called when someone who professes Catholicism picks and chooses which of the dogmatic teachings of the Church to follow. To accomplish this we must recognize that there are areas in which we can “negotiate” or chose the spirit over the letter of the law and there are some that are absolute in their imperative that we follow.

Before you ask, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are spiritual absolutes are the first and second commandments of the Decalogue and Jesus’ Great Commandment, to love God and Love each other.

While other provisions of the Law might be negotiable depending on the situation, the rule is we follow the letter of the Law unless there are compelling reasons of the spirit that these laws should be suspended in a given situation.

We are not going to solve this one today. I am equally sure that some of you, more deeply schooled in moral theology would challenge my simplistic approach to living the faith. I’ll pray for help from St. Martin today and perhaps a solution will present itself.

Pax