How often do siblings get into an argument simply because one of them has misappropriated to him- or her- self what belonged to another? Once the parents finally intervene to find out just what’s going on—attorneys call this the “discovery phase” of a case—the child whose belonging was misappropriated will cry out, “That’s not fair! It’s mine! It belongs TO ME!!!”
Where or how did the young children learn this lesson?
Without having had any instruction in moral theology or civil law, young children know innately that appropriating to oneself what belongs to another is wrong. Especially if it’s their possession that’s been misappropriated, siblings immediately see the injustice and vociferously demand restitution.
It’s just as Moses told the Hebrew people:
For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you….No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts….
To which Moses added:
…you have only to carry it out.
Precisely.
That represents the difficulty across the millennia: Carrying out the commands God has enjoined on all of us when God breathed His spirit into us. Arguably, the reason that’s presented such an immense difficulty across the millennia is that following those commands places limits upon us which, in turn, are perceived as constraining what’s called an “inalienable right,” namely, our pursuit of happiness.
Heard any of that lately?
Reconsider that sibling who misappropriated what belonged to another sibling: He or she wanted it—and right now—for the simple reason that misappropriating the object as if it were one’s own would make him or her happy.
Irrespective of the fact this sibling knows that he or she would be similarly outraged if another sibling misappropriated his or her possessions, none of that matters in the present moment. For this reason, knowledge of this particular law is judged to be difficult and burdensome.
Why? It places limits upon how this sibling can pursue happiness.
Even if this sibling was to pause and consider what he or she already knows, none of that matters because the allure of what’s purported will bring happiness. That allure is weakening the willpower to do what one knows he or she ought to do. Or, worse yet from a moral or legal perspective, this sibling lacks the willpower to resist doing what he or she knows not to do.
That is believed to make the knowledge of this law doubly difficult and burdensome.
How so? It’s now not just a matter of not being allowed to do something—the imposition of an external constraint—but also one of not possessing the strength of character to do what one’s already knows is right—the imposition of an internal constraint. The external law isn’t problematic, the sibling thinks, “It’s me…I’m the problem. Something’s wrong with me…I just can’t stop. I must be broken.”
Allowed to fester and grow unchecked, this lack of willpower could lead to a whole host of potentially terrible if not horrific outcomes. Consider the evidence of recent mass shootings by young adults.
All this is compounded when this sibling is compelled to admit—to confess—that one has violated what he or she knows God commands as well as what the law requires...and did so willingly. Not wanting to accuse oneself of a moral and legal failure of character, a new strategy emerges: The sibling shifts blame to the lawgiver. Obviously, that individual wants people to be unhappy by limiting what would bring a measure of happiness in this all-too-difficult world.
The rationale? That lawgiver—and, in this instance, the Supreme Lawgiver Who is God—loves nothing more than to make people feel miserable. So, God has declared off-limits everything that otherwise would bring immense happiness to human beings in this life and make each day more worth living to the max.
Yes, indeed! God is the problem and source of our unhappiness! God wants humanity to be miserable!
What this sibling is unwilling to admit is that he or she has been disobedient and, in fact, is seeking to experience happiness in doing what one knows is forbidden. The sibling possesses the willpower not to engage in the forbidden act but has decided not to engage that power and bend his or her will in the direction of doing what’s moral and lawful.
In Latin, “to bend the will” is rendered “obediere” from which the word “obedience” is derived in English. Obedience isn’t a matter of being moral or lawful but where an individual—like that sibling or, for that matter, you or me—“bends” or “directs” one’s willpower. What an individual enacts by choosing one direction or another determines whether the way that person conducts oneself is moral or immoral, lawful or unlawful, or good or bad.
This is how each of us, from the time we are very young, define our character. When confronted with choices concerning where we decide we will discover happiness, we’re making small but incrementally important decisions. These decisions shape the kind of person we will become over time as we make determinations not just about what will make us happy but, more substantively in light of today’s readings from scripture, whether we will view God’s law as difficult and burdensome and adopt an erroneous theology.
Yet, because God has endowed us with free will, all God’s law can do is to inform us about the choices we have before us. In the end, we freely and willingly make the choices that will lead us to experience true happiness—the possession of that which can never be taken away—or fleeting and transient happiness—the possession of that which can be taken away. The former is discovered in virtue; the latter in things.
It’s the sum of those freely willed decisions that ultimately frames our theology...how we view God.
The “good news” is that God didn’t create us to be “sinless” but through the power of free will, when we do make choices, hopefully we will “sin less.” At times, we fail to direct their willpower toward what will bring true happiness—virtue—and perhaps in a very serious way. Knowing that God’s law is very near to each and every one of us—already in our mouths and in our hearts, we were just told—it’s a relatively simple and straightforward matter, as Moses instructed the Hebrew people, of “carrying it out.” Yet therein is the problem that’s the source of all that sibling’s rationalizations—it’s neither the law nor the lawgiver that’s at fault but the sibling’s lack of willingness to exercise one’s willpower! And the failure to carry out God’s law not only leads to unhappiness but also and, more importantly, misery.
When we’re tempted to sin, what’s needed at that moment is the willingness to exercise sufficient willpower.
Today’s Psalm response offered a solution for those who find themselves in this challenging position:
Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
That’s precisely the place where we’re to turn to the Lord and pray:
Save me, Lord, through your grace. Strengthen me to do what’s right and just, my duty and salvation, so that I might always and everywhere give You thanks through Christ the Lord.
When we are tempted to sin—to freely will an erroneous, bad decision about our marriage or spouse, a child, relative, or friend, a direction in life—how many of us “turn to the Lord in our need”?
“Sleepy” Catholics sure don’t! For them, complacency is the name of the game of being Catholic.
While “sleepy” Catholics may not be content with their moral and spiritual failures, the awareness of those failures introduces increased anxiety, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness into their lives. Over time, the danger is that sensitivity to the movement of the Holy Spirit declines as does the willpower to seek holiness of life. Not examining their conscience and turning to the Lord in their need, “sleepy” Catholics may comply with the letter of the law which they believe to be difficult and burdensome, at best, or become “comatose” Catholics, at worst. Then, having consistently failed to turn to the Lord in their need, “sleepy” Catholics increasingly seek happiness in created things rather than the Creator.
Unfortunately, this approach to life only makes the trials and difficulties associated with daily life in this world increasingly unbearable. Moreover, since “misery loves company,” “sleepy” Catholics spread their bitterness like a contagion, infecting others who also become dissatisfied and discontented with the life God has entrusted to them, grumbling and inciting yet others to feel similarly.
Why? “Sleepy” Catholics don’t believe God is with them. Then, as their comfort and ease decrease, “sleepy” Catholics increasingly grow bitter with God until all sorts of doubt, anger, and resentment consume their days.
In contrast, “WOKE” Catholics know they’re not “sinless” but struggle to “sin less.” Their struggle isn’t to strengthen their willpower directly and of their own accord—what psychologists and self-help gurus call “self-mastery”—but to heed the Psalmist’s advice as they “turn to the Lord in their need.” Then, assisted by God’s grace in their need, God gradually “re-forms” “WOKE” Catholics—recreates and gives them a rebirth through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—strengthening their desire for what’s right and just which is their duty and through which they are saved. As “WOKE” Catholics experience this internal reformation, they reaffirm through their personal experience the fulfillment of the promise we heard on Christmas Eve—“They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.”
In today’s gospel, a scholar of God’s law—what Catholics would call a “canon lawyer”—asked Jesus:
Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus immediately asked the scholar “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”, to which the scholar replied:
You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus replied:
You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.
“Do this.” Sound familiar? “In memory of me.”
Let us not forget, however, that scholar of the law—parsing what Jesus said—wanted to know exactly what it meant to love one’s neighbor. Jesus answered:
The one who treated [the person in need] with mercy.
Jesus then said to the scholar of the law:
Go and do likewise.
Yes, for “WOKE” Catholics, the struggle to “sin less”—not to be “sinless”—is how “WOKE” Catholics continuously experience God is with them. For them, God’s law isn’t difficult and burdensome. Instead, it provides the way to experience the true happiness for which God has created each and every human being…by turning to the Lord in their need.
“WOKE” Catholics “do this” and, in this way, God’s law educates “WOKE” Catholics about how they might live each day in such a way that the happiness and satisfaction with the life God has entrusted to them grows exponentially and intensifies to the point that “WOKE” Catholics see and love in others what God sees and loves in them. They “do this”—they love their neighbor by demonstrating mercy to those who also have wandered and their willpower has grown weak—“in memory of me.”
Like Jesus, “WOKE” Catholics are neighbors to those who are in need—physically or spiritually, it matters not—to assist, speak with, warn, and pray for them so they know God is with them in their need. These folks may have pushed God to the side, abandoned God, or be angry with God. But God—Who is full of mercy and rich in compassion—is with them and present to them in their need. How? In the person of those “WOKE” Catholics who have experienced God’s grace in their need and found it sufficient, sustaining and strengthening their willpower to live in obedience to God’s law.
That represents our challenge from this week’s scripture: To turn to the Lord in our need so that we will live.
If we’re to “do this,” we first must identify our need—the place in our lives where we feel most powerless to will the good. Perhaps there’s a personal weakness—having to do with being obedient to one of God’s commands—that we need to own. Or, perhaps it’s an interpersonal weakness—having to do with loving our neighbor—that we just don’t seem able to rectify, like worrying about and having tried to help a spouse, child, relative, or friend overcome a personal or interpersonal weakness. Whatever the need, the first step this week—do it today—is to identify this need—just one which will serve as a focus for this week’s memento mori.
Then, upon waking each morning this week, recall that need, contemplate it, and pray:
Save me, Lord, through your grace. Strengthen me to do what’s right and just, my duty and salvation, so that I might always and everywhere give You thanks today through Christ our Lord.
Throughout the day, call to mind that God is with you, regenerating and renewing your heart to extend mercy to those who are in need. Then, listen for the Holy Spirit to direct you about what mercy requires. This week, the goal is just to listen...until you hear the Holy Spirit distinctly, experiencing God with you in your need.
Once again, as we have been doing each week of this Church year during Ordinary Time, the purpose of this memento mori is to awaken us from being “sleepy” Catholics and move us to act by learning this week to turn to the Lord in our need. Perhaps then we will learn to live obedient to God’s commands, not as slaves under the law but in the freedom of the spirit of the law, as Jesus taught by extending mercy to others in their need.
In this way, we will become more perfectly “WOKE” Catholics, more consciously aware of what Isaiah prophesied on Christmas Eve—“He shall be named ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.”
As Jesus said to the scholar of the law, so Jesus tells us today:
Go and do likewise.
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