19 January 2021
Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
The reading for today would be near and dear to the hearts of 17th century Jesuits. During that time, the Jesuits were involved in a publishing and teaching war that pitted their theologians and philosophers against those who followed the strictest interpretation of church law. If you want to know the names of the two sides, they were known as probabilists and probabiliorists. Most Jesuits (probabilists) favored the decisions of a well-informed conscience acting in light of what the law intends, even if an action would go contrary to the stated law. Their advisories (probabiliorists), on the other hand, argued for a strict adherence of what the law states. Echo’s of this great debate resound even to this day with positions being taken on the primacy of conscience and those that regard the safer to position as following the exact text of what is stated by church teaching. Historians can identify errors a plenty of those who followed the extremes of either position. The Gospel of Mathew helps us set parameters for this discussion. One parameter in today’s Gospel identifies the importance of understanding the spirit of the law. Another parameter was established by Mathew when he records how Jesus identifies the importance of the commandments of the law: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.(5:17) The gospel presents us with the challenge faced by every Christian: How do we faithfully fulfill the law of Christ and his Church in the challenges presented in our daily lives? Advising how to drive safely between what could be the extremes of these positions situated the Jesuits within heated conversations that have involved issues touching upon the law vs. conscience and individual liberty vs. the power of the State. These discussions are quite contemporary and therefore the task of discernment as to selecting the best course remains as vital today as it did in the time of St. Ignatius and the centuries that followed.