Scott Hahn with David Scott
This Sunday’s Gospel takes us to the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Like Moses in this week’s First Reading, Jesus climbed a mountain to deliver the Word of God’s covenant to His people (Exod. 24:12–18).
This covenant Word requires a great deal from us. Far more than our simple hearing and acceptance of Jesus’ “message.”
That’s because the Gospel is not a philosophy, a set of good ideas for living. It is God’s fatherly will for history. It is the good news of His kingdom, of the divine family He has come create on earth in His Church.
The Word of God comes to us as a call to the obedience of faith (Rom. 16:26). We must take this Word to heart, letting it dwell richly within our souls (Col. 3:16). We must allow ourselves to be led, to be guided by the Word that comes to us in His name.
That’s what we mean in this week’s Psalm—when we sing of the Lord as our rock of refuge. Jesus also gives us this image of the solid rock. He promises that if we live by His Word we will have an eternal foundation to withstand the storms and trials of our lives.
Jesus is the new Solomon, bringing us the Wisdom of God (1 Kings 3:10–12). And like Solomon, he builds a house of God, a Temple, on a rock of foundation (1 Kings 5:17; 8:27). Jesus is the Wisdom of God made flesh. The Church is the new household and Temple of God, built on the cornerstone of Christ (Luke 7:35; Eph. 2:19–22).
We will be judged by his Word. But this is not a matter of external works, as Jesus makes clear. That is Paul’s point too in this week’s Epistle. We must do the Father’s will, which is our sanctification—knowing we’ve been justified, made right before God, by Christ’s saving death (1 Thess. 4:3). It’s this redemption, our expiation by His blood, that we celebrate and participate in in this Eucharist.
St. Aphraates
Expositions no.1
Kings do not live in houses empty of goods; it is not there that they make their home. But a complete furnishing of his house is demanded by the king in such a way that he lacks nothing… It is the same with the man who has become a dwelling place for Christ, the Messiah: he supplies what is fitting for the service of the Messiah who dwells within him and for those things that will give him pleasure.
And so, the first thing he does is construct his building on rock, namely the Messiah himself. On this rock is set faith and the whole building rises on top of this faith. So that the house may become a place where he can live, a pure fast is asked of him, founded on faith. Pure prayer is asked of him, received in faith. Love is necessary to him, set up on faith. Then, too, he must offer alms, given with faith.
Let him ask for humility, loved with faith. Let him take to himself virginity, cherished in faith. Let him bring into his house holiness, planted on faith. And let him also meditate on wisdom, discovered in faith. Let him also ask for himself the condition of a stranger, whose worth is in faith. He will need simplicity, mixed with faith. And let him also ask for patience, fulfilled in faith. Through his gentleness may he acquire insight, which is gained through faith.
May he love repentance, which manifests itself to faith. And let him also ask for purity, kept through faith… Behold, these are the works the Messiah King asks for, who dwells within those who build themselves up by such works as these. Indeed, faith is composed of things and adorns itself in many colours, for it is like a building constructed with numerous materials whose edifice rises up on high…
So it is with our faith: its foundation is the true rock, our Lord Jesus, the Messiah… This foundation forms the base of the whole structure. If anyone attains faith, that person is set on rock, namely our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. And his building will not be overcome by floods nor endangered by winds; it will not fall in tempests since this building stands on rock, the true foundation.
St. Bernard
Sermons on the Song of Songs, 61
“My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the wall, show me your face, let your voice sound in my ears.” One writer… sees in the clefts of the rock the wounds of Christ. And quite correctly, for Christ is the rock. Good the clefts that strengthen our faith in the resurrection and the divinity of Christ. The apostle exclaimed: “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20,28).
What was the source of these inspired words if not the clefts of the rock? Within them the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; in them the dove finds safety and fearlessly watches the circling hawk. This is why he says: “My dove in the clefts of the rock.” And the dove replies: “He has set me high upon a rock;” and again: “He set my feet upon a rock” (Ps 27[26],5; 40[39],3).
The wise man builds his house upon a rock, because there he will fear the violence neither of storms nor of floods. Is on the rock not good? Set high on the rock, secure on the rock, I stand on the rock firmly. I am secure from the enemy, buttressed against a fall, all because I am raised up from the earth. For everything earthly is uncertain and perishable.
Our homeland is in heaven, and we are not afraid of falling or being thrown down. The rock, with its durability and security, is in heaven. “The rock is a refuge for the hedgehog” (Ps 103,18). And really where is there safe sure rest for the weak except in the Saviour’s wounds? There the security of my dwelling depends on the greatness of his saving power. The world rages, the body oppresses, the devil lays his snares: I do not fall because I am founded on a rock. I have sinned gravely, my conscience is disturbed but not confounded, because I shall remember the wounds of the Lord. For “he was wounded for our transgressions” (Is 53,5). What sin is so deadly as not to be forgiven in the death of Christ?
