31st Sunday - Fr. Leo
Legalism is a spiritual illness that can pop-up in any form of spirituality. Legalism occurs when the laws of a religion are divorced from the spirit of the law in the keeping of cultic practices. An even worse legalism is enforcing laws that God would not ordain.
This latter legalism happens in the case of the ‘morality police” in Iran beating and killing people because they don’t wear the ‘right clothes.” What needs to be remembered is that God made the body, we made the clothes. We were able to be naked before God and all, until we sinned. Another example here would be the legalization of abortion. It may be legal now, but it is still not moral. Preventing life is killing.
Legalism for us is making a god out of the law and the religious practices that go with it and misses the spirit that is behind the law, that at certain moments may contradict a strict black and white reading of the law.
For example: We are asked to fast one hour before receiving the Eucharist. To make a rigid enforcement of the fast, misses a couple of points. First, the fast has a purpose, to prepare us to receive the Eucharist with a hunger for God. Simply keeping the Law does not mean one is preparing for union with God.
Also, if people are in the hospital and communion is offered while they are eating, it is ok for them to receive the healing presence of God in the Eucharist. We can’t always be in control of our schedules and to receive the Eucharist is more important than the fast when we realize that the Eucharist is God coming to us to heal. Eucharist is a gift from God, not something to be earned. God is for us, not against.
Legalism can take the spirit out of spirituality. While the laws are meant as guides and call us to consider their purpose more than their practice, we can’t make them and end in themselves. When we do, we dethrone God and make the law god. So, law can help us consider the kind of life that leads to holiness, but it has no power to make us holy. Only our relationship with the Lord can have that power through the work of the Holy Spirit.