A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples: “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.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes clear to the disciples what Saint Paul describes in the first reading; namely, the Old Covenant with Israel is fulfilled in God’s New Covenant for all who come to Christ in faith. God made the Old Covenant with his people so that the New Covenant could bring him greater glory. As Paul says, “For if what was going to fade was glorious, how much more will what endures be glorious.” The breadth and majesty of God’s kingdom incorporates the glory of the old with the glory of the new until heaven and earth pass away and all things have taken place.
God, help me understand the sweeping breadth of your being—manifest in the Old Covenant and fulfilled through your Son in the New. Jesus says, “I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Nothing is lost in these covenants, and whoever is obedient to them and teaches them, as Jesus says, “will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” Help me be obedient to the truth of your glory.
From the Gospel acclamation, “Teach me your paths, my God, and guide me in your truth.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.