31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: Dt 6:2-6
Second Reading: Heb 7:23-28
Gospel Reading: Mk 12:28-34
Humans are not self-existent, meaning we do not exist independently of other beings or causes, so we have insurmountable limits which we must freely recognize and respect, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
The physical laws described by scientists constitute limitations on our bodies; the moral laws described in this Sunday’s readings constitute limitations on our souls.
Some scientists call the physical laws patterns rather than laws for they differ from the moral laws in some very fundamental ways.
First, the physical laws describe how material objects are actually observed to behave, while the moral laws prescribe how humans ought to behave.
Second, the moral laws could not possibly be different for they reflect human nature, made in the image of God’s nature, while the physical laws are not necessary in the logical sense.
Third, we cannot disobey the physical laws but we can disobey the moral laws.
In other ways, physical and moral laws are similar. For example, both must be learned; we cannot invent or abolish either. If we know them and heed them, we can act freely within them, but otherwise, we can be destroyed or damaged, body or soul.
From the beginning, God implanted the moral laws in our hearts. However, after Adam and Eve’s fall, we needed reminders and explanations. Accordingly, God gave us the Ten Commandments which Jesus upheld, not only unfolding all their demands and revealing their purpose, but, also, as our great High Priest, constantly making intercession with God for us who disobey them.
No one can change the Commandments or excuse us from obeying them. They apply always, everywhere, and to everyone – not just Christians. They describe serious obligations explicitly but imply lesser obligations as well.
The Commandments reveal, concretely and inescapably, who God is and who we are for they demand obedience “absolutely, thus containing the claim that the one doing the demanding is absolute, having the right to my unquestioned obedience,” noted the late Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto.
How do we react?
We feel that universal obedience, often disparaged as blind, is beneath our dignity. We suspect that disobedience is part of being truly human, wholly ourselves, said Pope Benedict XVI. We think we need evil, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being.
We resent the Commandments. We envy those who do not know them. We are like children ordered to brush our teeth after every meal, who do not know how our health will suffer if we disobey, or teenagers who view speed limits as merely restrictions on our freedom, not realizing that their purpose is to make travel as quick and safe as possible.
“You puzzle me,” a man told me. “On the surface, you uphold the Church’s teaching but, underneath, you really are compassionate.” He could not see that I uphold Church teaching because of my compassion, not in spite of it.
Truly, we are blessed for what pleases God is known to us, said the prophet Baruch.
God’s Commandments have their source in his love for us. He gave them to the Israelites after liberating them from Egypt, the house of bondage. They are part of his loving covenant with us in which he swore to be our God and make us his people. They are his gift to us for they tell us how to live fully-human lives in friendship with him and harmony with our neighbours, rather than as slaves to sin. Obedience is our proper response.
By obeying God’s Commandments, we can enjoy his creation to the full as he intended. Our lives become broad and light, not boring but filled with infinite surprises, for God’s infinite goodness is never depleted, said Pope Benedict.
Obedience offers me the chance of becoming God-like in what is most mine: my deciding and doing, said Cardinal Ambrozic. It brings us close to the kingdom of God.
Preacher George Macdonald called it the one key of life.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights, in both print and YouTube form, at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. He is also teaching the course in person on Sundays (2 - 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver) and Mondays (10 a.m. - noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver). The title of the presentation next week is Prayer. The course is entirely free of charge and no pre-registration is necessary.
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