Idaho Lay Dominicans
Blessed Margaret of Castello Chapter
Blessed Margaret of Castello, OP Chapter-in-Formation
Third Order of St. Dominic
16 April 2000*
Matthew 5:6: righteousness
A brief study on “righteousness”
Matthew mentions the term “righteousness” in his gospel at the Sermon on the Mount, when it says, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6. Also, at Matthew 3:13,14, he writes at the Baptism of Our Lord, Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me? Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill al righteousness.” This may be the fulfillment of all prophecy or that the righteous prophets and their words were fulfilled in Our Lord’s coming. To submit to the will of God for the plan of salvation of the human race is the fulfillment of righteousness. In order to show sinners that He was willing to die for them, he willing submitted himself to the baptism of John the Baptist.
In this, we should consider Our Lord’s sanctity. He has been identified with “radical perfection” that “permeates His entire soul and which shines forth in all His faculties and virtues.” (Our Savior and His Love for Us, by Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange, OP, p. 125).
St. Thomas shows holiness in general has two essential characteristics: first, absence of all stain, of all sin, and of all directly or indirectly involuntary imperfection; and second a firm union with God.
(Our Savior and His Love for Us, p. 125). Garrigou-LaGrange says that holiness or sanctity takes on three different forms: the duty to know Christ, the duty to love Him, and the duty to serve Him. (Id., p. 342). This is seen in the Scriptures as well. (See for example, 1 John 2:3). Some holy souls have a special duty to love God ardently and to make reparation for the offenses made against Christ. Other holy souls excel at the contemplation of God, to make Him known and shows the ways that lead to Him. “From the start they receive graces of light that increasingly enlighten their intelligence and make of it a beacon to guide the faithful in their progress toward eternity.” (Id.). Other holy souls find it their mission in grace to “essentially to serve God by their fidelity to daily duties in various works of charity.” (Id.). These graces first demonstrated in Christ, shown in the Blessed Virgin Mary, came to be fulfilled in the Apostles, and can be achieved in each of us.
For the members of the Third Order of St. Dominic, or Lay Dominicans, our example is one who is one in Christ, loving of His Mother with a deep devotion, and fulfilled the apostolic calling in his own life time: St. Dominic. Our father in faith led by example in fulfilling the scriptural calling, “for God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.” (1 Thess. 4:3,4,7). This holiness is intensely personal to each of us: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness: without which no man shall see God.” (Hebrews 12: 14). “Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1: 15, 16). “God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all. The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 2014). Therefore, it is an intensely personal call, with special gifts from God, that finds its last and first at the Cross, which gives us each great graces.
For the third order, this call is to “study to conform themselves to the spirit of their patriarch, in the instruction of the rude and unskilled in Christian doctrine and morality. … [to be] assiduous, as it is a matter of great consequence for the good of souls” (Fausto Appentente Die, Pope Benedict XV (1921), para. 13). In closing, we will turn to the rule, to the study of Scripture and the patriarchs, and to the Rosary, for help in fulfilling this wondrously divine mission: the salvation of souls.
* This is from a study on righteousness at a regular chapter meeting on 16 April 2000.
