At the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus highlights the difference between saying and doing, and between hearing and doing.
This injunction fits the situation: he has just finished a great moral speech. And Christ is the first one to do what he proclaims. For example, Christ lived the beatitudes - he was pure of heart, a peacemaker, meek, merciful, mournful (over Lazarus), upright, persecuted, and poor and spirit. And therefore he was blessed, that is, happy.
In this passage, though, Christ enjoins us to do the will of God, for it is only they who do the Father's will who will be admitted into heaven. The Father wills the same thing as Christ because they are one. Indeed, one Church father writes that Christ came to do:
the will of him that sent me, that every man that sees the Son and believes on Him should have eternal life. The word believe has reference both to confession and conduct. He then who does not confess Christ, or does not walk according to His word shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
So to do God's will is to believe in Christ (and act as if we believed in Christ). "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent" (John 6:29). And this does not necessarily involve doing great things, for there were ones who did great things but not the will of God. Rather it is to do all things with great charity.
Then Christ likens the one who hears his word and acts on it to a wise man who built his house on rock. One father writes a beautiful interpretation of this part, interpreting Christ to be the wise man and the house to be the Church:
Christ is the wise man who has built His house, that is, the Church, upon a rock, that is, upon the strength of the faith. The foolish man is the Devil, who has built his house, that is, all the ungodly, upon the sand, that is, the insecurity of unbelief, or upon the carnal, who are called the sand on account of their barrenness; both because they do not cleave together, but are scattered through the diversity of their opinions, and because they are innumerable. The rain is the doctrine that waters a man, the clouds are those from which the rain falls. Some are raised by the Holy Spirit, as the Apostles and Prophets, and some by the spirit of the Devil, as are the heretics. The good winds are the spirits of the different virtues, or the Angels who work invisibly in the senses of men, and lead them to good. The bad winds are the unclean spirits. The good floods are the Evangelists amid teachers of the people; the evil floods are men full of an unclean spirit, and overflowing with many words; such are philosophers and the other professors of worldly wisdom, out of whose belly come rivers of dead water. The Church then which Christ has founded, neither the rain of false doctrine shall sap, nor the blast of the Devil overturn, nor the rush of mighty floods remove.Nor does it contradict this, that certain of the Church do fall; for not all that are called Christians,are Christ's, but, The Lord knows them that are his.
Let us then belong to Christ!
Lord, let us be blessed and at peace in doing the will of God, in believing in You. Send your Holy Spirit of love into our hearts and inspire us to live with great charity. And let us always be counted among those whom you have chosen.
Mary, mother of good counsel, lead us to the will of God for our lives and form us to do the truth in love. Do not let us be crushed by circumstances, but let all things work together for our good and God's glory.
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