Law, Rules, Discipline
See also: Decalogue, Ten Commandments.
Moses and the Ten Commandments of the Law, circa 1896-1902, by James Tissot, gouache on cardboard, at the Jewish Museum of New York.
Discipline is the quality of the disciple, it allows one to receive a teaching and put it into practice. Knowing the Law of the Ten Commandments given by God on Sinai is not enough. It must be practiced to sow Fruits of life eternal.
In "The Gospel as Revealed to Me"
- I did not come to change, but to fulfill the Law: if the fear of punishment can hold back three times out of ten, the certainty of reward gives you momentum seven times out of ten.[1]
- Do you not know that nothing is isolated from all that happens and exists in creation, but that everything follows an eternal law of dependencies and consequences so that one’s action has very extensive natural and supernatural repercussions?[2]
- How is the Kingdom of God founded in the world and in the Hearts? By returning to the Mosaic Law and by exact knowledge if it is unknown, and above all by total application of the Law to oneself, in every event and at every moment of life.[5]
- "Woe to you, doctors of the Law, because you burden people with loads they cannot carry, turning a punishment of the paternal Decalogue given by the Most High to His People into a punishment".[6]
- Deuteronomy prescribed laws of humanity, for men then had a childish spirituality, they were coarse, half-savages.[7]
- When I came, I perfected the Mosaic rules and opened wider horizons. The letter is no longer "everything". It is The Spirit that has become "everything".[8]
- Go back and remain in the Discipline, several times centuries old. From Moses to the Christ, from Christ to you, from you to the last day, there is only that, and no other.[9]
- In the Mosaic Law, and consequently divine, in the pre-Mosaic one, purely moral, or coming by heavenly inspiration, is it said by chance that one who did not belong to Israel could not enter it to be part of it?[10]
- Do not worry about knowing a lot of laws. They will come to carry my Law into the world. But as long as they have not come, have as Law the few phrases below in which all my Law of Salvation is summarized: Love God with all your Heart. Love authorities, parents, friends, servants, the people, and even Enemies, as you love yourselves.[11]
In the fundamental Christian texts
In the Bible
He who loves others has by that fact fulfilled the law. Indeed, the precept: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and all the others are summed up in this formula: You shall love your Neighbor as yourself. Charity does no harm to the Neighbor. So, the perfect fulfillment of the Law is love.[13]