NOTES for Deu 26:16-19
We live according to the laws of this world and want the Lord to judge us according to His own law. God’s law is the law of Love. We cannot understand it, because it fits neither our understanding of mercy, which we often take to mean indulgence, nor our understanding of justice, which we often turn into rigorism and even cruelty. God alone judges according to the law of love. The law of love operates only in His Kingdom. His people live in God’s Kingdom. In the Old Covenant this Kingdom belonged only to the people who had received the Law from God—the Jewish people. The Lord chose this people for Himself. After the death and resurrection of Christ, every person who accepts the law and fulfills it “with all his heart and with all his soul” can enter the Kingdom and be judged according to the law of Love. Only the law itself is now different. It may seem simpler, since there are far fewer rules; even memorizing the law of the Old Covenant was difficult. Yet our law is that very law of love which we cannot understand. The meaning of our life is to hear, understand, and fulfill this law: to look at Christ, who fulfilled it, to imitate Him, to listen, and to try to understand what Love is.