Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 336 - Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 336 – Part I. How did Jesus deal with the Law of the Old Covenant?

(Youcat answer) “Do not think”, says Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, “that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Mt 5:17).

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 1965) The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel…. I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Heb 8:8, 10; cf. Jer 31:31-34).

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Jesus, being a faithful Jew, lived according to the ethical ideas and requirements of his time. But on a series of issues he departed from a literal, merely formal interpretation of the Law.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1966) The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it: If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there… the perfect way of the Christian life…. This sermon contains ... all the precepts needed to shape one's life (St. Augustine, De serm. Dom. 1, 1: PL 34, 1229-1230).

(This question: How did Jesus deal with the Law of the Old Covenant? Is  continued)