Unless your justice abounds: Mary and the justice of the heart

**Quote:** “If your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)**Text:**Matthew 5:20-26 presents the first of six “antitheses” in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said to those of old, ‘Do not kill.’ And whoever kills will be subject to judgment. But I say to you, every one who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22). Jesus does not abolish the commandment “do not kill,” but radicalizes it by going to the root of the act of murder: anger, contempt, insult towards another. The “righteousness” that Jesus demands from his disciples “exceeds” (perisseuô surpasses) that of scribes and Pharisees not because they keep more precepts, but because it goes deeper: to the heart, to the root of attitudes and intentions that external precepts can only regulate superficially.**I. The “Righteousness that Exceeds”: From Exteriority to Interiority**The “righteousness” (dikaiosynê) of scribes and Pharisees was a justice of outward observance: keeping the commandments of the Torah in their visible behavioral dimension. This observance was not negligible; it required effort, discipline, loyalty. The problem Jesus points out is not exteriority itself, but the sufficiency of exteriority. When external observance is considered sufficient for “righteousness,” and there is no concern for the inner state of the heart that outward acts express.The “righteousness that exceeds” that Jesus asks for goes from exteriority to interiority. It’s not enough not to kill; you must not hate, not despise, not insult. It’s not enough to offer sacrifices; you must be reconciled with your brother before offering (Matthew 5:23-24). This radicalization does not make the precepts harder to observe in their letter; it makes them impossible to observe without interior transformation that only grace can bring about. That’s why “the righteousness that exceeds” is not an additional effort of human free will, but the fruit of grace that transforms hearts from within.The exhortation in Matthew 5:23-24, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, go first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift,” is one of the most radical statements in the Sermon. Reconciliation with a brother takes precedence over worshiping God: not because worship is secondary, but because worship that does not spring from a reconciled heart is a contradiction in terms. One cannot worship the God of love with a heart that hates one’s brother, made in the image of God.The urgency of reconciliation before judgment (Matthew 5:25-26: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, go first be reconciled to your brother…”) applies the principle to eschatological reality: there is a “moment” for reconciliation, the present time of earthly life, which cannot be indefinitely postponed without consequences. This eschatological urgency of reconciliation is one of the most consistent themes in the New Testament: love for one’s brother as a sign of love for God (1 John 4:20), reconciliation as a condition of effective prayer (Matthew 6:12, 14-15).**II. Mary and “The Justice of the Heart”**Mary is the model of “exceeding justice,” not the one who multiplies external precepts, but the one that emanates from a undivided heart. The Gospels do not record any conflict between Mary and anyone; there is no anger, no contempt, no insult. This is not an argument from silence (the Gospels record very little of Mary’s life in general), but it is significant: the tradition that meditated on Mary never found a shadow of inner injustice within her.The closest episode to a “conflict” between Mary and someone is the scene in Matthew 12, 46-50, where Jesus seems to distance himself from his mother and brothers who seek him from outside: “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” The tradition interpreted this episode in various ways, but the most common is that Jesus does not reject Mary; he deepens the foundation of his relationship: what binds Jesus to Mary is not only the biological bond, but the bond of faith, and Mary stands with those who “do the will of the Father.” There is no conflict between Jesus and Mary, there is a deepening of the bond.Reconciliation as a priority over worship (Matthew 5:23-24) has an important Marian dimension: Mary, who intercedes with the Son for humanity (as at Cana), is the mediator of reconciliation between men and God. But her mediation does not replace direct reconciliation among brothers; on the contrary, it points to it. The most effective Marian prayer is one that, while invoking Mary, also becomes a disposition towards reconciliation with one’s brother. Mary who stood at the Cross, where Jesus achieved supreme reconciliation, is the icon of a faith that does not separate love for God from love for the next.

III. “Do not be angry with your brother”: anger and its root

Jesus’ radicalization on anger (Matthew 5:22) points to the biblical anthropology of the heart as the source of all actions: “It is from the heart that evil thoughts originate” (Matthew 15:19). Anger, Greek *orgê*, which ranges from fleeting irritation to deeply rooted hatred, is the root of murder, not just murder the fruit of anger. Fighting only the fruits (violent acts) without tackling the root (heart anger) is a superficial approach that does not solve the problem.The ascetical and mystical tradition (particularly Evagrius Ponticus, John Climacus, and more recently Thomas Merton) treated anger as one of the fundamental “thoughts” that disrupt prayer and spiritual life. Healing anger is not repression; it is transformation: recognizing its causes (the wounded pride, fear of loss, sense of real or perceived injustice) and surrendering it to God. Mary, who never appears angry in the Gospels, who “guards her heart” instead of reacting with irritation, is the model of this inner transformation of anger into serene trust in God.The connection between the “justice of the heart” described in Matthew 5:20-26 and Marian spirituality is deeper than it may seem: the “justice” Mary practices is not the one of legal precepts that regulate external behaviors, but the love that transforms the heart, and through the transformed heart, transforms behavior. It is the “justice” that springs from the “poverty of spirit” of the Beatitudes: the one that does not have anything to prove, nothing to defend, nothing to impose; it is simply the clarity of one who is at once completely dependent on God and completely available for the brother.

Mary, whose “justice exceeds” all legalistic observance because it springs from a heart free from anger and division, is the model of inner reconciliation that Jesus calls for in the Sermon on the Mount as a condition of authentic worship of God.

References

• Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes 22 (1964).
• John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater 39-41 (1987).
• U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus vol. I (1985).
• R. Schnackenburg, Die Bergpredigt (1984).