Ten
Commandments
As Revelation
Fr.
Bruno Cocuzzi, OCD
First Conference
I
One
thing we perceive about children and young people is that they always seem to be
testing their limits. They always
seem to be wanting to escape parental control. It appears that children and young
people tend to perceive parental authority as something restrictive and
oppressive, something they try to shake off. Unless children and young people have an
extraordinary, great love for their parents, they see them as opponents whose
wills are in conflict with their own.
It is rare that children and young people interpret the will of their
parents, which they find restrictive and confining, as something that is good
for them. They seldom understand
that a command to act in a certain way is a command to do what contributes to
their well-being. On the other
hand, they seldom grasp that a prohibition to do certain things is a command to
avoid what would harm them. It is
true, of course, that the good that the parents want and intend by controlling
the activities of their children is something that is harvested later on in
life, and the same is true of the evils they would have them escape. Thus it is that children and young
people think of themselves as engaged in a power struggle with their parents,
and they long for the day when they are adults and no longer subject to parental
authority, and the authority of everyone that in some way shared in some small
way in the responsibilities of their parents.
Now
it seems to me that many Christians tend to view the Ten Commandments in pretty
much the same way. Christians tend
to see the commandments as the arbitrary impositions of a more powerful
will. Still others as the price
that must be paid to avoid the punishment meted out to whoever violates the will
of the superior being. In other
words, the price to pay to escape Hell.
Rare are the Christians who look upon the commandments as a set of
instructions that help us human beings to function properly and to help us enter
upon the road that leads to our perfection as human
beings.
If
we look upon them as the price to pay to escape Hell and earn the reward of
eternal life, we tend to think of the reward as something separate and distinct
from ourselves. It is like a
faithful employee being rewarded with a party and some nice gift when he retires
from his job. It is something
separate from him.
But
the reward we call eternal life is not something separate from ourselves. It is the state or condition of
Thus I think it behooves us to reflect upon the Ten
Commandments as revelation and believe it is helpful to see them, not only as a
set of commands, but also as containing doctrine, information concerning
ourselves. In the process I hope we
can learn to appreciate them as instructions that help us move closer to the
state of perfect well-being. After
all, we tend to over-look the fact that the Latin word we translate as
“salvation” originally meant “health” or “wholeness”.
Before we begin, though, let us take a few moments to
remind ourselves why we need Divine Revelation in the first place, and why we
should appreciate and cherish the Ten Commandments as good and desirable. Unlike children, who don’t know why they
perceive parental authority as infringements on their freedom, we do know
why we, at least once upon a time in our lives, experienced the commandments as
contrary to all our “natural” tendencies and desires. That reason, we know, is the
wounded-ness of our human nature.
It is the effects of that wounded-ness that we perceive in children and
young people, as described at the beginning of this
conference.
When we speak about the wounds inflicted upon human
nature by the sin of Adam and Eve, we most often begin with the intellect,
namely, that it is darkened.
What that means is that our minds find it difficult to discover truth,
that is: moral truth. Then we speak of weakness in the
will. We know that even in those
cases where somehow the intellect is able to point out where moral
truth lies (good and correct behavior), the will lacks the strength to impel us
to embrace that moral truth.
Finally, we say that our lower appetites (of sense and spirit - the ego)
are in total disarray. They are
disordered not only because they will not obey the intellect and will commanding
them to embrace more noble goods over less noble ones, they can hunger so keenly
after less noble and even illusory goods - i.e. what gratifies the senses and
the ego - that they begin to control the intellect and will. In other words, they cause the
intellect to become blind to objective truth. They can command the intellect to label
“good” what is really evil, or to “find” - to fabricate reasons to justify
conduct that will satisfy its cravings, conduct that is really sinful.
The
other side of the coin is that the lower sense appetites are able to influence
the intellect to label as “evil” whatever inflicts pain upon them, and they can
instruct the intellect to fabricate reasons why certain conduct they find
repugnant should be avoided, even though that conduct is good and required by
the duties the soul owes to God and others.
Therefore, because of the wounds we have just been
describing, the human race has lost the ability, left to itself, to
differentiate between moral good and moral evil, between moral truth and
falsehood, between right and wrong.
But even with the help of others, even with Divine Revelation, we still
tend to submit to the disorder in our human nature. We still tend to accept falsehood as
truth and vice versa. We still tend
to “do lies” in our daily conduct.
That is because the redemptive death of Jesus removed
only the “guilt” of original sin, and it can be applied to remove the “guilt”
of personal sins. It does not
automatically heal the wounds caused in our human nature by original sin,
nor heal the aggravations of those wounds caused by our personal sins. As Adam
Let
us now begin to look at the commandments.
The first one reads: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides
Me.” So we can ask the question, “what is revealed, that is, what
doctrine does this commandment contain?”
To discover that, we need to look at the errors that were prevalent in
the world at the time God gave the commandments to Moses.
One
error was that God was no longer known as a being that is friendly to
mankind, as a being personally interested in the welfare of mankind. If there remained some concept of a
superior, intelligent being, it was a being which was arbitrary and capricious,
not at all kindly disposed toward human beings.
Furthermore, knowledge that there is only one
Supreme being, who alone is in control of all created nature was also lost. Mankind began to believe that there were
as many gods as there are identifiable forces or powers in the universe, and
that each god therefore controlled one particular aspect or facet of
nature. It was further mistakenly
thought that all of them were in competition with one
another.
Again, because of the wounds of original sin, all
concept of the worth and dignity of the human person was lost. There was no greater value placed on
human life than its usefulness.
Human life was valued pretty much the way cattle or horses or beasts of
burden were valued in terms of how they could serve the interests of tribe or
ruler. Human life was even
sacrificed to the gods, and even Israelites fell into it even after entering the
promised land. So I do believe that
in the first commandment we just read we find the truth that rescues from those
errors.
“I, the Lord am your God.” The true God is a person who has entered into a
relationship with His human creatures.
We see the dignity of the human person, the dignity of human life. God tells us that He is ours, He
belongs to us in some way.
There is a wonderful something about us that enables us to make claims
upon Him. Does it not suggest that
we can look to Him for help in all our needs, and rely upon Him to use His
resources for our benefit? But then
again, He also can rely upon us and upon our resources to serve Him and His
interests.
He
reveals, this personal Deity who chooses to be related to us, that He alone
is the Lord. It is stated
in absolute terms. Therefore,
He has total utter dominion over all of creation.
His power extends to the limits of the universe. Nothing happens that does not fall within
the reach of His permissive will. He
has supreme rights over all created beings, ourselves included. He is the source and the giver of all
we have
By
revealing Himself again as one who is “related” to His human creatures, God
helps us understand what it means to be a “person,” and that it is “person-hood”
that bestows extraordinary dignity upon each human individual. The first thing that comes to mind is
the fact that a “person” cannot be considered a “thing.” A person can never be considered
“property”. To treat a person as if
he or she were a thing is to make “slaves” of them. A slave is not able to have a say in
where he goes or how he is used because he has been totally deprived of
rights. The sublime dignity of the
human person is revealed in the fact that even God respects the free will He has
given us. Even though He has the
right to receive our acknowledgment from Him as our Lord and God, and a further
right to our cooperation in serving His interests, that is, in the fulfillment
of His desires for His human family, He will not force us to comply. He will not violate our free will. Although this first commandment does not
specify in what way this Lord and God relies upon our cooperation in the
unfolding of His plan for humankind, we are so instructed by the Book of
Genesis. There we see that He has
surrendered part of His dominion over all creation to us when He instructs Adam
and Eve: Increase and multiply!
Fill the earth (with human life, obviously), and subdue
it.
The
first commandment also reveals what it means for Him to be our God. Considered from the practical point of
view and in reference to our fallen, wounded human nature, it defines God
as the one who brings us out of “Egypt”, that place of slavery. Of course, for the Israelites and Moses,
that meant literally being delivered from their condition as slaves of
Pharaoh. Their status as free
beings, the repository of rights others are obliged to respect, was
restored. They were no longer
property. They were “persons”
again.
For
us, however, we understand being delivered from Egypt, that place of slavery in
a figurative sense. We interpret it
to mean being delivered from the tyranny of fallen human nature, or in other
words, delivered from slavery to sin.
Another way of saying that to be a person means having a
say in where one goes and what one does is to say that to be a person means to
be autonomous, or self-determining.
Just as God shares responsibility with us in the management of created
nature, He also shares with us the responsibility of bringing us to the
perfection He has in mind for each of us.
If this first commandment were the only one, we would feel justified in
deciding to be anything we wanted to be.
We would tend to think that there is no limit set to our rights of
self-determination. Thankfully, the
other commandments help us to see that there are limits and what those limits
are. Still, because of the wounds
of human nature spoken of earlier, we do tend to fall into the same error that
Adam and Eve fell into. Even though
they were perfect and were ware that God, their Creator and personal friend had
given them autonomy so that they could freely discharge their responsibilities
as stewards of human life and managers of the rest of created nature, they
allowed themselves to be deceived by Satan into thinking that God had unjustly
denied them the freedom to become His very equals. They chose to believe the lie that they
could get beyond the boundaries of their creature-hood and decide for themselves
what is good and what is evil. They
wanted to be like God, the author of all creation, in being able to say:
“Whatever I do is good by the mere fact that I do it.” This error is very prevalent
today.
Of
course, what the true God delivers us from is the disorder in our human nature
which inclines us to embrace lies and evil as if they were true and good, and to
flee truth and good as if they were lies and evil. The true God delivers us by offering us
the opportunity and the means to become His friends and collaborators in an even
more wonderful undertaking on behalf of His human creatures: that of
participating in His life as His Children by adoption, and in sharing that
Divine, supernatural life with others.
The commandments help us to take our first steps in that
direction.
The
first “commandment” concludes with a true commandment. The first sentence of it was a statement
of facts. It is this part which
reveals how we tend to live out false-hood and to do lies so we can avoid
them. It says: “Thou shalt not
have other gods besides me.” He
would not say it if we weren’t doing it.
We turn to false gods because they appear to offer us the means of
freeing us from slavery, that is, from impediments to the exercise of autonomy,
of self-determination. You know
what they are as well as I do: money, power, and anything else, like beauty and
talent, that enables us to obtain money and power, or at least influence over
those who do. Fallen human nature
still inclines us to think that if I am able to do something or get
something, it is perfectly O.K.
We’ve all heard the saying: Might makes
Right.
The
exercise of true autonomy, true self-determination requires knowledge, knowledge
of not only its limits, but also knowledge of the various possibilities, our
legitimate options. The commands
are given so that we might begin to learn what they are, even though in a
negative way by telling us what choices, acts of self-determination, we
cannot make because they are false and evil.
Second Conference
Having considered the First Commandment in our last
conference, we will now consider the second and third commandments.
The
second commandment reads: “You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God
in vain, for the Lord will not leave unpunished him who takes His name in
vain.” Again, we shall try to
see how we tend to “do false-hood” in regard to “take Lord’s
name”.
But
before we do, it is worthwhile to notice that the Jews of the Old Testament were
not really sure what it meant to take the Lord’s name in vain. Because they were afraid that they might
accidentally use His name in vain they would use circumlocutions or substitute
words, or simply omit it altogether.
So we have to try to figure out some of the ways we tend to take His name
in vain.
In
so far as God is the Lord, one obvious way to take His name in vain would
be to acknowledge Him as such in our speech, and then empty the word of meaning
and content by acting as if He were not our Lord, that is failing to see His
providence in all the events of our lives, never giving a thought to what His
will might be in regard to how we conduct our affairs, going about our business
as if He didn’t even exist. In
other words, to call God Lord, but to show by our thoughts, words and deeds that
we don’t mean it.
Thankfully, we have examples from our Catholic Theology
that do reveal how in specific instances we tend to take God’s name in
vain. One way is by denying
certain of His attributes or attributing to Him qualities unworthy of Him and
which cannot be found in Him. I
have to correct a statement I just made; these ways of taking the name of the
Lord in vain were known to the Jews of the Old Testament. The example I have just given is called
blasphemy.
By
way of denial, one would be guilty of blasphemy by stating that God is not
all-good, all-wise, all-holy, all-powerful, all-merciful, all-loving, or any one
of these attributes. Or to deny
that in a certain instance, He did not manifest one or more of them in our
regard.
By
way of attributing to Him qualities foreign to His nature, one might hold Him
responsible for evil and tragedy in the World, or to suggest that certain events
or situations are beyond the reach of His wisdom and power.
One
common way of falling into the sin of blasphemy, very prevalent today, is to
deny that God is Just. It happens
when people say that God could not create a Hell where damned souls would suffer
eternally. This also includes a
denial that God is Faithful, true to Himself.
The
definition of justice is to give each other his due that belongs to
him by right. Everyone has a
right to have his choices respected.
As we said, even God is obliged to respect our free choices, that is how
He is Faithful to Himself. So if
any one were to choose - that is knowingly and deliberately - something or
someone other than God, God is obliged to permit it. If perchance a person were to die
persisting in the choice of something other than God’s Will - which is the same
as choosing something other than God - that person remains separated from God
for all eternity. And that
is what Hell is.
God
could not be true to Himself, faithful, if He were to ignore that choice, and in
effect say: You freely chose something or someone in preference to me, but
that’s O.K. I am going to give
myself to you anyway. I am going to
ignore your person-hood, the autonomy I gave you. God is, He simply cannot go out
of existence. But that is what
people are expecting Him to do by their denial that Hell exists. So though we do not hear the word very
often, blasphemy is a common sin in this day and age.
Another way in which the Lord’s name can be “violated”,
which was also known to the Jews of the Old Testament, is by violating one’s
oath. (In the New Testament Jesus
says we should avoid even taking oaths).
As you know, an oath in effect calls upon God as witness to the truth of
what one states. When a person
tells a lie under oath, he is asking God to be his accomplice in telling a
lie. Once again, to ask God, who is
Supreme Truth, to lie, is the same as asking Him to cease to be, to go out of
existence, a most grievous offense against Him.
Another way of committing the sin of blasphemy would be
to doubt the veracity of Sacred Scripture.
This would be implicit!!
As the Word of God, Scripture must be accepted as true. Although it is true that there are
obscure passages in scripture, and we can never be absolutely sure what they
mean, we do acknowledge that, as God’s word, they must be retained as they came
down to us and not be tampered with.
So it is really when clear, unequivocal passages are denied that
implicit blasphemy occurs. For
example, people, Christians, deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist,
they deny the indissolubility of marriage between baptized Christians, they deny
that acted-out homosexuality is a sin (an abomination, actually). Another example would be to deny the
primacy of St. Peter and his successors as the foundation of Church unity,
indeed, as a guarantee that the Church would last until the end of time, that
the gates of Hell, the power of Satan would not prevail against it. Since Satan is a liar and the Father of
lies, the only way he can overthrow the Church is to introduce error in Faith
and Morals. Therefore, those who
say the successor of St. Peter is not the God-given guarantee of
inerrancy in Faith and Morals, the bulwark against error in Faith and Morals is
denying the evident, literal truth of Jesus’ (the Father’s) words to St. Peter at
Philippi.
I
suppose one might say that every time a sin is committed, truth, God’s Word is
violated, so that is a sin of blasphemy, a sin against the second
Commandment. But most often sins
are deeds done contrary to truth but not denials of the Truthfulness of God the
revealer. In most sins we just
choose to act contrary to God’s will for us, we do not intend to deny any of His
attributes or to attribute evil attributes to Him.
Still another violation against the second commandment
also known to the Jews of the Old Testament is “superstition” and other forms of
“divination.” This denies the reach
of God’s power in the sense that it is based on the idea that some “practice” or
some object or person other than God can give us something that God either does
not want to give or can’t give (superstition) or to give information about the
future (divination or fortune telling).
Superstition also extends to trying to avert things, keeping things from
happening by “practices” or other means.
The sin in this is attributing to creature’s powers what only God
possesses, and this too is a form of blasphemy.
Still another violation of the second Commandment is to
fail to fulfill a vow or to make an invalid or illicit vow. A vow as you know adds the aspect of
“worship” to any obligation we assume outright or which we have in virtue of our
state in life. To violate a vow is
then to deny God the worship due Him: Worship, of course, consists of
acknowledging in word as in ritual the truth of God’s divinity, His absolute
rights over us, and our dependence upon Him as the source of all that is
good.
To
make an invalid or illicit vow would be to try to turn into an act of worship
some conduct that is inherently forbidden.
For example, a married person might decide to take a vow of
celibacy. Since that is a direct
contradiction to the marriage vow already accepted by God, the vow is a
non-entity. To ask God to accept a
non-entity as an act of worship violates His name.
But
there is still another way that can be considered taking God’s name in vain when
we think of it as a family name.
In
the Old Testament we can see how a family name can be taken in vain. As children of Abraham, the Israelites
were to imitate the Faith of Abraham.
Yet we know Jesus told the Scribes and Pharisees that, if Abraham were
their father, they would be doing the works of Abraham. But that was not so much taking
Abraham’s name in vain. It was
bearing it in vain. Applied to us
Christians, do we bear the name of Christ in vain? Unless we live up to all that it means
to be “of Christ”, we are carrying the name in vain.
Since we are inserted into Christ at Baptism and began
to live by the Spirit of Christ, all the characteristic features of Jesus are
supposed to show up in our conduct: His love for and devotion to His Father (and
His Mother), His willingness to suffer a redemptive death; His coming to serve
rather than to be served, His Mercy toward sinners; His desire to forgive and
reconcile them; His thirst for souls.
As
members of Christ’s body, too, of God’s family, our interests and those of all
Christians merge into one. There
can be no competition with regard to family interests, no exclusive
ownership. All that we have and are
is for the good of all the members of the family. To act in ways that deny these truths is
to take or bear our family name of Christian in vain.
Now
how do we understand the warning: “God does not leave unpunished him who
takes His name in vain”? Is God
vindictive? Does He say: “I’ll show
you! I’ll get even with you?” I am sure He does not, but rather He is
reminding us that He constructed us and human society in such a way that
suffering and misery are introduced into our lives when we persist in not living
up to our status as His children.
But in doing that, He does us a great favor, these evils cause us to
repent and return to Him. In a
sense, that is how God practices “tough-love.” He wants us never to forget that He
forgives sin; He never “condones” it.
At
this point let us turn our attention to the third Commandment: “Remember to
keep Holy the Sabbath Day. Six days
you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord, your God. No work may be done
either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your
beast, or by the oxen alien who lives with you. In six days the Lord made the heavens
and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He
rested. That is why the Lord has
blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The
two elements to take note of is that the Sabbath is intended first to be a day
of rest, and second, a day of Holy rest.
The
purpose of the day of rest has not changed in the millennia since the Ten
Commandments were given. And that
is to give due attention and care to the spiritual aspect of our humanity, and
part of that is to remember our relationship with the Lord our God. The falsehood from which this
commandment rescues us is to think that there is no more to us than our bodily
component, and that the material aspect of our humanity is the end-all and
be-all of our existence.
We
also have to be aware, though, that rest can serve other purposes than
that intended by God in this third commandment. All activity, whether physical or mental
does tire the body, and it must be rested.
Rest in itself is neutral - we rest every night - and it replenishes
energy that is used for the pursuit of corruptible goals and compensations as
well as in the pursuit of our heavenly reward. So that is why the day of rest
must be kept holy, that is, attuned to God, our only true End and
Good.
So
what do we mean by a holy rest?
Negatively speaking, it means not profane. In the time of the prophets, God spoke
to the merchants who resented the Sabbath because it interfered with their
pursuit of wealth. They spent the
Sabbath thinking about how they could increase their profits, not excluding
thinking of how they might cheat their customers. So “profanity” that is opposed to
holiness would be practically anything that had to do with mere human
concerns.
In
the case of those merchants, it is evident that they had chosen money as their
god. That suggests that when we are
not engaged in the obligations as citizens of this world we cannot help but turn
our attention to our God, whether it be the true God or a false god. When our minds are not occupied with
daily needs, it seems they automatically revert to what we treasure most, what
we look to for contentment and happiness.
That being the case, we see how “natural” it is for
those who take the day of rest to devote a part of the day to actual “worship”
of their god. As we said already,
worship is a ritual expression of our relationship to God, our dependence upon
Him, our Gratitude to Him, and our need of His favor and protection. Surely, those people who don’t go to
Church on the day of rest must also engage in rituals that are expressions of
worship of their false-god.
Does that mean Christians should not engage in
recreational activities and seek diversion and entertainment on Sunday? Of course not, these do have an
important part to play in helping us to persevere in the love and service of God
through the fulfillment of the obligations of our state in life, so that the
participation in Sunday worship and the awareness of the character of the day of
rest is sufficient to sanctify all those other “neutral” pastimes.
One
sad feature of today’s society is that people work on Sunday, even
Catholics. But because this is
forced upon them by family needs, the higher law of charity takes precedence, so
that the “violation” is technical, not culpable.
Jesus was accused of violating the third commandment,
the Sabbath rest. In truth, He was
keeping it holy in the highest possible way: By doing charitable works; after
all - Charity is the most acceptable form of worship; it expresses God’s nature
and our status as His children.
Third Conference
We
will continue to reflect on the commandments in an effort to see what they
reveal about our tendencies to choose lies or falsehood over truth and what is
real, not illusory.
The
fourth commandment: Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a
long life in the land which the Lord, your God, is giving
you.
This is the only commandment, which is stated, in
positive terms. In all the others
we are told not to act in certain ways. I suppose the reason is that all the
commandments go counter to our natural inclination. We naturally, because of human nature
which is wounded, are inclined to lie or to cheat or to hurt others, so we are
told not to permit those tendencies to go unchecked. On the other hand, we have a natural
tendency to overlook and forget all the things our parents did for us from the
time we were born to the day we left home to be on our own. It is a natural tendency because we got
so accustomed to their being there to look after us that we never dreamed that
it required generosity and self sacrifice day after day. We may have imagined that it was easy
for them and enjoyable for them to assume responsibility for our
up-bringing. Thus we tend to forget
that we owe them a debt of gratitude, that we show them reverence and respect at
all times, and follow that up by helping and comforting them in their old
age.
But, of course, the fourth commandment extends to more
than our relationship with our parents.
It extends to the entire concept of authority. Authority is a word that is clearly
related to the word “authorship”.
The fourth commandment has to do with our origins, not only our physical
origin, but also our origin as “social beings”. We are persons standing in relationship
to others. The fourth commandment
has to do with our inter-dependence.
Therefore, just as we are obliged to honor and respect our parents as
authors of our physical life, we have a corresponding obligation to honor and
respect lawful authority, those who are entrusted with the task of “authoring”
our well being as members of society.
As
we were growing up to adult-hood, it was through obedience to our parents that
our minds and hearts were formed.
While we were growing up, obedience was the most perfect way to show them
honor and reverence. It is through
obedience to lawful authority that we best show due reverence to those who are
responsible for our social well being.
What then, would be some of the ways that we tend to do
falsehood in regard to our relationships with those in authority? We have already dealt with this somewhat
when we spoke in our first conference of how subordinates tend to see authority
as something arbitrary and capricious, as an enemy of one’s freedom and personal
interests, as something that stifles and restricts our initiative. We don’t see authority as something good
and necessary for everyone, particularly to keep the smaller and the weaker from
being hurt by the bigger and the stronger.
The purpose of authority is to create peace and harmony in our social
relationships. We tend to be blind
to the fact that it is the absence of authority that cause strife and enmity in
human relationships.
But
if there are errors and falsehood on the part of subjects, it is much more true
that errors are prevalent in the exercise of authority. One very prevalent error is the notion
that positions of authority confer the right to enrich oneself or to provide a
means to pursue purely personal goals and objectives. The lie is to disassociate the idea of
service and stewardship from the notion of authority. There is a “greatness” that goes with
authority, but Jesus points out that it is realized only in “serving” the best
interests of others. “Whoever
would be greatest among you must serve all the rest.”
It
appears that any and all errors in regard to authority, both in those who
exercise it and in those subject to it fail to see it in terms of a
relationship. Those who exercise it
have the opportunity to share in the attributes of God’s providence - His loving
concern for us His human children, and those subject to authority have an
opportunity to acknowledge and be grateful for the ones who are willing to
assume the serious responsibility of sharing God’s very own authority. It is something like the relationship
God wants us to see between the rich and the poor: St. Paul says somewhere that the rich
are to be grateful they have the means to imitate God’s generosity by giving to
the poor, and the poor have the opportunity to thank God for using their fellow
human beings as the instruments of His wise and loving
Providence.
Now
we will begin to consider briefly the remaining commandments, the fifth to the
tenth, inclusive. All of them have
to do more directly with interpersonal relationships and indirectly with the
individual’s relationship to God and the human community. The first four deal directly with our
relationship to God and the human community and indirectly with interpersonal
relationships. The existence of
others represent limitations on the exercise of autonomy and
self-determination. The dignity of
the human person is such that I am not permitted to make choices and otherwise
conduct myself in ways that injure other persons. The injury, of course, that we might
inflict is most often other than physical injury. Most often they are injuries to a
person’s status in the community or to a person considered in terms of his
relationships. We should not think
of those limitations as something deplorable. God Himself has imposed a limitation
upon Himself by creating us free creatures. By observing that limitation - namely -
by never doing violence to our free will, He is being True to Himself. He is being faithful and reliable. Every time we make a choice that is an
exercise of self-determination, we lesson the number of options open to us. Every time other people make choices
that lessen the number of further options open to them, the number of my options
relative to that person are lessened also.
These next six commandments, in effect, have to do with fidelity to the
self-determining choices we have made and those others have made. An example: My taking solemn vows in the
Order of Carmel limits the kinds of relationships I may enter into with others,
and limits the kinds of relationships others can enter into with
me.
But
to move forward: the fifth commandment is: You shall not kill”. As pointed out before, this would not
have to be a commandment had not original sin blinded us to the dignity of human
life and inclined individuals to take the lives of others who are deemed a
serious threat to one’s personal bodily life. We tend to forget that God commanded
Adam and Eve: Increase and multiply; fill the earth (with human life)
and subdue the earth”. Human
life is part of our stewardship. To
see human life in others as evil and or something to be stamped out is a most
grievous offense against God, its creator.
As creator, God alone has the right to determine when and how human life
should end.
As
Christians we should be utterly horrified by any taking of human
life. I was going to say “even” the
life of depraved murderers. I have
to say, we should “especially” be horrified by imposing the death penalty upon
such criminals, because we have to be concerned about their souls. The longer they live on earth the longer
the grace of God is able to work on them.
Perhaps, by the end of a long life they might repent and be saved. To put them to death while hardened in
sin is tantamount to sending them to hell.
No one who loves Jesus wants anyone to go to Hell. Jesus died for the hardened criminal,
the serial killer, and the rapist/murderer as much as for me. We have to want them to live in the hope
that they will respond to God’s grace in time to save their souls. Imagine how much joy that brings to the
angels and saints in Heaven, indeed, to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, too. Of course, the right to life also
includes the right to good health.
The state of our souls is linked to the state of our bodily health. “A sound mind in a sound body” is
a famous saying - a worthwhile goal to pursue. We need life and good health to do God’s
work on earth, and so do others.
The fifth commandment therefore forbids that we injure even the health of
another. But again, when God in His
wise and loving Providence does allow illness and injury, His permissive will,
we have to accept it gratefully and help others to do so as well. But we must try to restore health and
maintain health by reasonable means.
Only when they fail can we ascribe it to God’s
providence.
The
“doing falsehood” by doing violence to human life is that it reckons the human
person to be no more than a thing.
It is to say that, like a thing, a person is not a repository of rights I
am obliged to respect. We can
own things, we cannot own persons.
What a terrible thing it is, therefore, that our society
allows violence against human life to be depicted in books, newspapers, movies
and television. We have to pray and
suffer in the hopes of obtaining God’s grace to turn this aspect of society
completely around.
The
sixth commandment reads: Thou shalt not commit adultery. When we spoke of the fifth commandment
we did so in the light of the command of God that we “fill the earth”
with human life. This commandment
even more clearly then pertains to our “stewardship” of human
life.
There are many lies and errors prevalent in regard to
human love, and one of the things that fallen nature causes us to become blind
to is the fact that everything that pertains to the origin and development of
human life shares in the sacredness of that human life. The biggest lie of all is that God
created sex to be an instrument of personal sensual pleasure and nothing
else. As part of that lie is the
notion that marriage and human love can be totally divorced from “open-ness to
life.”
Fallen human nature causes us to be blind to the fact
that the sacredness of the lives of our infants and children demands that
marriages be indissoluble and that families remain stable. We fail to see that the sacrifices
required, the dedication demanded of those charged with the up-bringing of their
children are such that if God had not attached keen enjoyment of body and soul,
sense and spirit to marital love, how many would be able to persevere as devoted
spouses and parents? In any event,
it is in regard to marriage and family life - the province of the sixth
commandment - that we see how self-determining choices always diminish the
options open to those making them.
Once the choice to be a spouse and a parent is made by embracing the
sacrament of marriage, a Catholic spouse’s options are severely diminished. There can only be those which include
spouse and children, or at least are options that lead to the development and
perfection of his/her relationship to spouse and children, as spouse, mother or
father.
We
have already mentioned that the physical and spiritual joys God has attached
to sexual love is one of the elements that entices people to embrace a vocation
that requires so much sacrifice and self-denial. One of the spiritual joys is the element
of “exclusivity” in marital love. There
is something about us that enables us to find extraordinary joy in making
of ourselves an exclusive and total gift to another, and in receiving a similar
gift from another. It is only
the sacrament of marriage that makes that possible, so that even if in
I
should have included the ninth commandment when I read the sixth commandment
because they are obviously related.
Apparently fallen human nature is so blinded by the rebellious sense
appetite in the area of sexual love that we tend to overlook the fact that
thoughts, desires, conversations that injure and demean human sexual love and
marriage are themselves grievously sinful.
Thus God had to give us a separate commandment to cover this matter. Fallen human nature also blinds us to
the fact that if we become comfortable and matter-of-fact in thinking about,
talking about, looking at and desiring sinful conduct, very soon we will
become comfortable and matter-of-fact in committing those sinful deeds. If the scandal of violence portrayed in
the media is so very deplorable, the scandal of pervasive, illicit and perverse
sex portrayed in our media is hundreds of times more to be deplored. May God have mercy on us all. (Heroes and heroines are usually
involved in illicit love affairs.)
I’ll quote the seventh and tenth commandments together:
Thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to your
neighbor.
Earlier in this conference we had said that fallen human
nature blinds us to the fact that persons cannot be treated like
things. It is no wonder then
that we also tend to be blinded to the fact that external goods are a kind of
extension of the person. The
things that belong to a person have no rights, obviously, but the person
they belong to has certain rights over them, which must be respected. All of us need to have external goods
that belong to us for a variety of reasons: as a support for our physical life,
which in turn is in the service of our life of grace. We need resources in order to exercise
stewardship, that is, to use things for the well being of others. We need to have external goods to rely
on for a sense of security. If we
don’t have a sense of security that our physical needs will be satisfied, we’ll
never be able to have the peace of mind to attend to the needs of our
souls. In a sense, we need them, a
certain amount at least, as a sign of God’s approval. Jesus did say: “Seek ye first the
kingdom of heaven, and all else will be given you
besides.”
Having said that, we wonder, where does voluntary
poverty fit in? Doesn’t what I have
said indicate that God doesn’t want us to have “nothing”? That is, to own nothing? It seems to me that the voluntary
poverty that is embraced by vow in religious life is possible only within an
institutional setting. In fact, the
institutional setting is the fulfillment of the promise Jesus made to all who
give up everything in this world, i.e., give up ownership, etc.: they will
receive a hundred fold even in this life, and Heaven
besides.
What are the lies we tend to embrace in regard to
material goods? One would be that
goods (wealth) is a god: it delivers us from restrictions and limitations (as we
pointed out in the first conference).
Another is that goods bestow value and dignity upon the owner. This is the total reverse of what we
said a few minutes ago, it is the dignity of the human owner, which gives
dignity and value to what belongs to him.
Finally now, the eighth commandment: Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbor. This commandment embraces more than just
telling lies about our neighbor (about another) it also includes a prohibition
against telling lies to another.
All lies are against our neighbor either way, because either way,
he is injured.
We
know that we don’t like to be told lies, but we seldom advert to the
reason why. It is because truth is
to the mind and heart what light is to the eye of the body. Feeding falsehood to the intellect of
another is like putting stumbling blocks in the path of a blind person. Our minds were created to apprehend
“reality”, “good” under the aspect of truth. When we embrace “truth” or know the
truth, we in some way embrace God, the author of reality, He who is supreme
Good. Surely that is why repentance
is so pleasing to God. If we
embrace the truth that we are sinners, that certain things we have done
have offended Him, and that in truth we are truly sorry for having done
so, then we have indeed embraced Him and been restored to His
friendship.
The
importance of truth in the life of a person is further illustrated by the fact
that the will is blind and has to be told by the intellect where “good”
lies, so as to embrace it. Truth
and good have to be discerned or it is impossible to be a person, to make those
self-determining autonomous choices that perfect us as human
beings.
Truth is so necessary that even in those instances when
one embraces falsehood thinking it is true, damage has been done. No guilt is there, but there is a
restlessness, a “dis-ease.”
There are so many lies and errors prevalent in these
times. We mentioned some of them
already. But the greatest lie of
all is that we don’t need an authority to tell us what is right and wrong, that
the individual himself is the ultimate decider. The lie is that the Ten Commandments are
irrelevant, and even worse, harmful.
Fourth Conference
Up
to this point we have been treating of the Ten Commandments as a set of
instructions that enable us to stop doing “false-hood”, to cease living lies in
our interpersonal relationships. We
have said that the commandments directly oppose the “natural” inclinations of
fallen, wounded human nature.
A
question arises: What if we did not have the commandments to deter us from
giving in to those tendencies all the time? Or better, what happens to those
people who ignore the Ten Commandments? What happens is that habits are
formed. Evil tendencies become
entrenched and vices, the seven capital sins and all their related sins take
over completely. Then everything a
person does, desires, thinks is contrary to one’s personal dignity as a human
being made in the image and likeness of God, and contrary to the dignity of
every other human being with whom such a person has to deal with. “Disorder” becomes a way of life. Reason loses control entirely, the
vicious person always chooses “what is not” over “what is”, and the image of God
is utterly destroyed.
Some further questions: What is the long-term effect
of keeping the commandments?
What is its effect upon fallen human nature? Does keeping the commandments suffice
to overcome and root out the tendencies to do lies and replace them with a
natural tendency to do the truth?
The answers to these questions are: Long term effect? (1). A purification of the soul, (2)
removal of blindness of the inner eye.
(3) Are evil tendencies rooted out and replaced by good ones? Just the rooting out part. The effect can be compared to the
Israelites in the desert after having been freed from slavery in Egypt. No longer subject to Pharaoh, still not
yet entered upon the Promised Land.
Keeping the commandments frees us from the tyranny of sin, but still does
not introduce into the Promised Land of holiness. Therefore, something else is
needed to restore our human nature to its original integrity prior to the
fall. There is need of a new set of
tendencies and inclinations, a set that are good and totally in accord with our
dignity as God’s children by adoption.
What we need are the moral virtues. The moral virtues become our “second
nature”. It is by means of the
virtues that order is restored to the soul. Whereas before the sense appetites
wielded a disproportionate influence upon the intellect and will, now, because
of the virtues, they yield to the control of reason and they do not block out
the more subdued and less intense appeal or attraction of spiritual goods that
give pleasure to the higher part of the soul. Because the unruly sense appetites of
fallen nature are in opposition to the commandments, they are mortified and
nullified by keeping the commandments, until eventually they no longer blind the
intellect to authentic good, and the intellect, further, can begin to value
goods of the spirit more than the goods of sense, or material good. Therefore, the keeping of the
commandments faithfully is really what we call the Purgative
Way.
The
three stages of the spiritual journey have been designated the
Purgative, Illuminative and the
Unitive Way.
In a sense, all three stages are concurrent to some extent, but the
Purgative way has been substantially completed once the soul has been
freed from serious sin. Insofar as
one will never be completely free of venial sins and imperfections while we are
in the illuminative way, there is still some purging or purification to be
accomplished. And even were we to
reach the Unitive way, there would still remain indeliberate venial sins
and deliberate imperfections that would need to be purged.
In
any event, once the soul has embarked upon a serious effort to acquire all the
moral virtues, it has entered the Illuminative way. The reason it is called
illuminative is obviously because the mind is enlightened. During this state it begins to see and
understand the relationship between the way we conduct ourselves in relationship
to God and our fellow human beings and our eternal happiness. During this stage Wisdom is
acquired. Wisdom is the knowledge
of all things in their deepest relationships. Through the effort of acquiring the
virtues the soul obtains the ability to assess all things and all conduct in
terms of whether they hinder or promote progress on the road to holiness and
whether they hinder or promote growth toward fullness of
charity.
What then, are the virtues? As you
either know already or have guessed, the virtues are the opposite of vices. Or rather, like vices, they are habits,
but good habits. Habits, as
you know, are instinctive, spontaneous responses to the perceptions we
experience in daily life. Habits
are ingrained tendencies that cause us to react in a certain way, the same way,
to a specific perception or experience.
A good example is the habit of biting one’s nails when one is nervous or
anxious. Habits become “second
nature” because we can become completely unaware that we are acting according to
habit. In a sense, we are “on
automatic” when a “habitual” response takes over. Virtues, then, are “good habits.” When they are fully acquired they cause
us to be “good” “automatically” all the time. They free us from the necessity of
having to “figure out” what conduct is called for in given situations in order
to grow in the life of grace. God
created us to be creatures of habit because He knew that we don’t always have
time to stop and evaluate a situation in all its aspects before acting. We most often have to respond in the
twinkling of an eye. Thus, by means
of the virtues we “pre-program” ourselves to do what is right, good and pleasing
to God in every situation.
To
help us appreciate what the virtues do for us, we can meditate briefly upon the
psychological impact they have upon our lives. It seems to me that they help us (when
fully acquired) to taste a tiny bit of the blessedness enjoyed by God. As you know, God, being Goodness itself,
the Supreme Goodness, never has to worry about whether what He proposes to do is
right or wrong. The very fact that He desires it makes that a good desire. The very fact that He acts makes of that
act a good and holy act. He
experiences no restraints. He
cannot do evil because He is supreme goodness, love, truth and
holiness. At least a part of His
Blessedness lies in knowing that whatever He does is the absolute best and
holiest way of doing.
So
when a human being has acquired all the virtues to the highest possible degree,
that person, also, knows that he or she need not worry about what he or she
does, thinks, says, desires. That
person knows that he or she is programmed to do good in any and all situations,
to do God’s will, and do the charitable thing every time one acts. All sense of restraint falls away. Such a soul experiences total and utter
freedom - thus it tastes a tiny bit of the blessedness that belongs to
God.
Now
we have to ask: How are the moral virtues acquired? Part of the answer is easy: the same way
any habit is acquired, by doing the same thing over and over again. The difficult part is knowing just
what actions specifically must be repeated over and over again. That is because, although by keeping the
commandments we know we are excluding the conduct that is evil, we still need to
know what the response is that is good and pleasing in the sight of God. Therefore, we have to begin by following
the example and teaching of those we know to be holy. We spoke just now of the Blessedness of
God. We do indeed want to imitate
God, but He is a pure spirit. Thus
we have to imitate and be guided by the teaching of Jesus Himself. As He Himself says, whoever sees
Me - [that is, observes and meditates upon My conduct, meditates upon and
puts My teaching into practice]- sees the Father. So we begin to acquire the virtues
when we begin to do all that Jesus instructs us to do in the Gospels,
particularly what He says in the Sermon on the Mount. But we also need to pattern our conduct
upon Jesus’ conduct. That is why
St. John of the Cross tells us in Chapter 13 of Book I of the Ascent of Mount
Carmel: Have an habitual desire to imitate Jesus in all things. To do that you must know Him. Therefore, study and meditate upon His
life in the Gospels so that you may come to know how it is He would act in all
things.
I
said above that we must imitate and learn from Holy people. Jesus is the one model all holy men and
woman have followed. Still, because
the saints and people known to be holy because the Church has declared them to
be saints or blesseds are often closer to us in time and to our particular
cultural milieu, we can very profitably learn from them what the virtuous
conduct is in our particular situation.
Surely that is why our Holy Mother St. Teresa was led to say: “These
are not times for believing everyone.
Believe only those you see modeling their lives after
Christ”. Those words are much,
much more applicable and urgent in these, our own times.
Still, let us suppose that I have learned, from
observing Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, our Carmelite saints and other saints, what
it is I must do to exercise, that is, carry out, what a particular virtue
would incline me to do sweetly and powerfully, yet I find that my nature shrinks
from that response because it is difficult or distasteful. (Remember, we have supposed that the
tendency to evil is gone, but that the tendency to do good has not yet replaced
it.) What am I to do? Well, we just have to “force” ourselves
to follow the example or carry out the teaching. It is something like going to take a
shower because we really need a shower, yet there is no hot water, the water
heater is out of commission. I will
not omit the shower, because that would be like following a sinful tendency and
breaking one of the commandments.
Still I must honestly admit that I dread the contact with cold water,
even though I know it is the right thing to do in the circumstances. So I summon up all my courage and I
plunge into the cold shower. That
is how it is upon first entering the illuminative way. It requires great
courage.
From what I have just said, it becomes evident why
self-denial and corporal mortifications are so necessary on our spiritual
journey. In the Purgative Way, the
violence we do to ourselves in avoiding serious sin is itself adequate
self-denial and corporal mortification.
But in the Illuminative Way they are absolutely necessary to help us gain
the mastery over our lower nature, even over our ego, the mastery that provides
the courage we need to overcome the resistance we may experience when trying to
imitate the example of Jesus. Of
course, as a person begins to get further along the Illuminative Way, the
reluctance tends to decrease for a particular aspect of our imitation of Him,
that is with regard to a particular virtue. However, as we undertake to imitate Him
in a more noble or fundamental virtue - such as turning the other cheek - we
find the reluctance to be as strong as ever. So self-denial and corporal
mortification is always necessary.
Even in the Unitive way, where one begins to participate in the highest
degrees of Divine Love, Divine Charity, self-denial and corporal mortification
are still valued by the soul, but in that stage more as “penance: offered for
sinners and to earn graces for those still struggling to get through the
Purgative Way and into the Illuminative Way.
But
there is also a deeper more fundamental source of the courage to overcome the
reluctance our human nature (our sense appetites and our ego) experience at the
prospect of imitating Jesus - we can say: at the prospect of taking up one’s
cross and following Him - it is the same source that gives us the courage to
practice self-denial and corporal mortification. That source is love. Love for Jesus; love for God the
Father. That source is the Spirit
of Love, all of us know by experience that if we truly love
something or someone we have no trouble overcoming obstacles that stand in the
way of being near that person or obtaining that thing. Or rather, despite the trouble and
effort required to overcome the obstacles, we persist until we have
conquered. The same is true in
regard to imitating Jesus and thus in acquiring His Virtues. If we love Him enough, no reluctance, no
repugnance is insurmountable.
Thus we see another reason why we must meditate upon the
life of Jesus in the Gospels. We
need to do so in order to properly appreciate how much Jesus loves us. Thus we particularly need to meditate
upon His Passion, beginning in the Garden and ending with His death on the
cross. If we are normal, that is,
not depraved, human beings, we cannot help but love in return those who have
loved us with a “disinterested” love.
That is, love us for our own sake, rather than what we can do for another
and give to another. The more we
love Jesus the greater strength we discover we can draw on to follow Him and
imitate Him wherever He goes, in whatever He does.
Thus we see also the relationship between meditation on
the Passion of Jesus and the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.
When we begin to appreciate how much Jesus, and the Eternal Father,
who delivered Him up for our sake, love us, we begin to realize that in no
way would they want to deceive us, and so we can believe more tenaciously
and cling firmly to the basic truths they have revealed, even going back to
the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Thus our Faith is strengthened. Similarly we can rely more strongly on
that love which has given us the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and
the Beatitudes and the Evangelical Counsels as means of guaranteeing our salvation,
and so our Hope is strengthened. And
of course, when we begin to fathom the extent of Jesus’ self-less love for
us we begin to see that the only adequate way to say “thanks” is to surrender
ourselves completely to Him as He surrendered Himself completely for us, and
to us, in the Eucharist. It is
then that our Charity reaches its limit, too!!
MISSION
STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work
of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private
use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of
the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel
Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770.
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