I have come not to abolish but fulfill
Homily for Wednesday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time
for USCCB, June 10, 2026
1 Kings 18:20-39; Psalm 16; Matthew 5:17-19
Most Reverend Joseph J. Tyson, Bishop of Yakima
Peace be with you!
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but fulfill.”
As you know, the context for this Gospel passage from Saint Matthew are the Beatitudes a few lines earlier in Matthew 5:1-12. The Beatitudes do not abolish the law or the prophets. No. The Beatitudes of Jesus fulfill the law and the prophets.
What does this “fulfillment” of the law look like in the lives of those we serve?
A few years ago, a woman told me the story of being out of money. At the end of the month, she had had only $50 left. With that last $50, she told me she needed to decide how to pay both the 50-dollar power bill and how to buy her two children food.
It was winter. It is cold in Yakima. Her seasonal work at the apple packing plant had ended. And her husband had been deported. She decided to go to Mass so she could beg for money. But after Mass, she was too ashamed to beg. The parishioners knew her.
Instead, after Mass, she went to the store and spent her last $50 for food. She came home. She prepared dinner for the children. She went to bed depressed because she was unsure what to do about the power bill.
She got up the next day. She got her kids ready for school. She put on her winter coat and reached into her pocket. Miraculously, she discovered a little over $50 in change. She saw her children off to school. Then she immediately went to the power company to pay the $50 power bill in person.
Then she began to think. How did I get that extra $50? Was it a miraculous gift from God? Or did the clerk at the store accidentally given me change for a 100-dollar bill instead of a 50-dollar bill?
Then she felt guilty. She told me she went to confession to one of our Yakima priests. She told him what had happened. Was the extra $50 a gift from God? Or did she commit a sin, and should she now figure out a way to return the $50 to the store?
“It’s not a miraculous gift from God,” she said he told her. “It’s a loan – a loan from God.” Our Yakima priest went on to tell her that someday she might be financially better off. So if someone in need came to her and she had $50 in her pocket she should pay the loan forward to the person in need.
As I listened to this woman I thought to myself, “As Bishop of Yakima, my priests are the best!”
Perhaps this is why St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae 2.2.66.7, notes that “according to natural law, goods that are held in superabundance by some people should be used for the maintenance of the poor.”
As St. Basil notes, “The bread you are holding back for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away from disuse are for those who have none; the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided and did not.”
Just to drive home this point, it might be wise to note that in our Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church’s teachings on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are organized and explained under The Seventh Commandment. “Thou shalt not steal.”
Our failure to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to harbor and shelter the homeless, to comfort the sick, to visit the imprisoned and to bury the dead means we are stealing from the physically poor. Our failure to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, gently correct the sinner, patiently bear wrongs, willing forgive offenses, comfort the afflicted and pray for both living and dead means we are stealing from the spiritually poor.
If we fail to live the Beatitudes, might we be stealing? Minimally might our failure to “fulfill the law and the prophets” be stealing? As George Bernanos sardonically notes, “Those who keep the word fill libraries. But those who fulfill the word take it into the jungle of human misery where it burns.”
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but fulfill.”
The Church lectionary today aligns these words of Jesus in our Gospel with this opening reading from First Kings. At first glance this part of First Kings looks like a throw-down competition between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal.
Morning to noon the prophets of Baal call for their sacrifice to be received. No response. Elijah eggs them on. Perhaps Baal is asleep.
Then we hear Elijah call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel: “Answer me, Lord! Answer me that this people may know that you, Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
The original Hebrew here suggests an alternate rendering: “turned back their hearts.”
God responds. The “turning back of hearts” is the sacrifice God desires. Thus, the sacrifice is consumed in a fire from heaven. The Church pericope today ends with verse 39.
What we do not hear is verse 40. Verse 40 records the command of Elijah to seize the prophets of Baal and to slaughter them all. Perhaps the lectionary editors didn’t want us to hear about a bloody slaughter before breakfast?
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but fulfill.”
In praying with this text Saint Jerome suggests that the fulfillment of the law is Christ on the cross. It’s a chiastic inversion of Elijah’s bloody slaughter of the prophets of Baal. The first words of our opening reading note that Elijah is on Mt. Carmel for this encounter with the 450 prophets of Baal. But later, on Mt. Horeb, Elijah learns that the true sacrifice God requires is not in bloody slaughter, not heavy wind, not mighty earthquake and not a blazing fire. Elijah hears God in a small, still voice.
As bishop now for 21 years – 15 of those in Yakima – it’s a great privilege to hear God in the small, still voice of a woman with only 50 dollars. It’s a privilege to see God move through the wise and caring words from a Yakima priest. And it’s a privilege to share these reflections with all of you.
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but fulfill.”
Perhaps our prayer today is that of the psalmist: Keep me safe O Lord; You are my hope.
Peace be with you.
Art: Harold Copping (1863-1932), “Sermon on the Mount,” via Wikimedia Commons.