March 9, 2021
Editor’s note: This reflection was originally published on Fr. Mark-David’s Facebook page.
There are many things we do not know.
Scientists do not know how to cure cancer or forestall Alzheimer’s.
We do not know how to exist without copious amounts of oil.
We do not know how to make lasting peace in the Middle East.
We do not know how to deal with radical Islam.
We do not know how to cure the common cold.
We do not know when the pandemic will ever come to an end.
There are lots of things we do not know.
But one thing we do know, and have known since the days of Moses
Is how God wants us to live our wonderful life.
The torah, the law of God, is not a secret.
It was etched in stone thousands of years ago
And given to Moses to give to the people.
The prophets taught that we should write them in our hearts
Jesus taught that we should live them in love.
Rabbis, scholars, theologians, preachers and philosophers
Have interpreted them throughout the centuries.
We cannot say that we do not know how to live with God.
We have known for thousands of years, nevertheless
the Lenten season is an opportunity to cross reference
how we are living with how God commands us to live.
“I am the Lord your God who brought you
out of the Land of Egypt and
you shall have no other gods before me,
you shall carve no idols for
yourselves and worship them.”
God the creator of heaven and earth is the lord of human history,
your story and mine.
We are willed into existence to know God, love God and serve God.
We are not alone, never have been and never will be.
To those who say that that there is no God,
that awe and beauty are transitory phenomena;
to those who make gods of their own ambitions, needs
and longing for power, importance and pleasure
we say there is no God but God, and God is one,
and to go through life ignoring the One
who created us in love and for love
is tragedy beyond words.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
We swear to God all the time:
to love, honor and cherish the beloved we marry;
forsaking all others for as long as we live.
We swear that we will raise our children to know and love God.
We swear loyalty to our friends.
We swear that we will tell the truth, so help us God.
We swear that we will carry out the duties of our public office
with honor, in truth, and without self interest, so help us God.
We swear that we will do no harm to our patients,
That we will represent our client’s best interest
That we will be honest in business.
Priests swear we will live what we preach,
The commandment says:
When we make a promise in God’s name
We should keep it. We should not take it in vain.
“You must keep holy the Sabbath.
On the seventh day God rested so no work may be done by you,
or your son or your daughter or anyone who works for you,
or your beasts.”
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:
“He who wants to enter the holiness of the Sabbath
must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce
of being yoked to toil,
He must go away from the screech of dissonant days,
from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness
and betrayal in embezzling his own life.
He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand
that the world has already been created without the help of man.
Six days a week we wrestle with the world;
wringing profit from the earth;
on the Sabbath we especially care for the needs of eternity
planted in our souls.
The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to someone else.”
When the Romans and Greeks encountered the Jewish practice
of setting aside the Sabbath for rest, prayer and pleasure,
they voiced an opinion that is universal among capitalists of today:
that to sacrifice 1/7th of all the time and energy we possess
is a lazy, outdated, economically nonviable practice.
We are a nation of Sabbath breakers,
and to us God says: time does not belong to us,
we cannot use it however we wish without great misfortune.
The Sabbath tells us that we do not live to work, we live to love.
In the remaining commandments
God calls our attention to the ways in which we live with each other,
starting with our family and then moving outwards
into the concentric circles of relationships that surround our lives.
God cannot be contained anywhere but must be loved everywhere.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
“Honor your father and your mother.“
We begin life being honored by them, loved by them,
not for anything that we have done, or will do,
but just because we are.
President Obama tells the story that when he was a boy
His mother would wake him up at 4:30 in the morning
so that she, a single mom, could read to him
before she had to go to work and he had to go to school.
When he complained, (and who wouldn’t)
she replied, “this is no party for me either.”
Wisdom happens when we recognize that our parents are people
who need to be loved too.
They need to be honored,
as they have honored us with their sacrifice.
“Thou shall not kill” ….period.
Catholics shall not kill Protestants or Jews
Sunni shall not kill Shia in the Middle East;
Tutsi shall not kill Ibo in Africa,
Muslims shall not kill Christians
Jews should not kill Palestinians or Palestinians kill Jews;
thou shalt not kill:
not in abortion clinics or on death row or in Guantanamo.
Thou shalt not kill African Americans,
Thou shall not kill gays, lesbians and transgender people
Thou shalt not kill immigrants crossing the border.
Thou shalt not kill the environment.
To those who argue that violence is inevitable political resolution,
the Church repeats the words of Pope Paul VI:
“War never again, never again war.”
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
Relationships are sacred.
Sex is not forbidden but it is sacred.
Because sex is sacred I cannot say with my body
what I do not mean in my own heart,
I do not make a commitment with my body
that I will not keep in my heart.
Human bodies are indeed beautiful
and indeed we long to touch and be touched,
but bodies belong to human beings who are sacred to God
and to enter into a relationship is to enter into the holy of holies.
To those who say that reality is a matter of perception
facts are subject to spin,
and truth is the art of persuasion,
God says: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
St. Paul says it more brutally, “Stop lying to each other.”
Our words should honestly tell the story of our life.
“Do not covet:
your neighbor’s house, wife, male or female slave,
nor his ox or his ass, or anything that belongs to him. “
Life is not about things,
and you are not the measure of what you possess.
Not only should you not measure yourself
by the possessions of others.
You should not compare yourself to others.
All by yourself, naked as God made you,
you are loved beyond imagination,
valued beyond comprehension.
Greed in all of its forms
is a temptation to exchange being loved for being admired;
a temptation to exchange self worth for the worth of things;
a temptation to not believe that the love of God is enough.
To deprive anyone of the dignity of work
At a wage that enables them to live a dignified life
Is not a matter of supply and demand,
It is an offense against God.
More could be said of the Ten Commandments;
more has been said, and even more should be said.
We have the rest of Lent to study them,
and incorporate them into our lives.
But what cannot be said is that we do not know them.
We cannot say we do not know how God wants us to live.
Amen.
Paulist Fr. Mark David Janus is president of Paulist Press.