Word to the Wise
Friday, July 27, 2007 - Sixteenth Friday in Ordinary Time
[Exodus 20:1-17 and Matthew 13:18-23]In those days, God gave all these commandments......
Those who can remember Cecil B. Demille's famous movie, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, will recall the scene when God inscribes the commandments on the stone tablets. It was only later that humans invented lasers! The Ten Commandments, also known by biblical theologians as the "decalogue," were not just carved in stone. They became carved into the Judaeo-Christian consciousness! They are the theological and moral basis for that consciousness and that conscience. The first three deal with God's relationship to humans. There is only ONE God. That God's name is sacred. That God must be given the worship that is due on the Lord's Day. Those seem simple enough, but we know that they are regularly ignored in our secular society. The remaining seven commandments deal with human-to-human relationships: respect for parents, respect for life, respect for marriage commitments, respect for what belongs to others, respect for truth, and lastly, two psychological admonitions about coveting someone else's spouse or belongings! Respect for what belongs to another is not just external! Indeed Jesus extends this internal respect to all the commandments! We know from our own experience how difficult this psychological effort can be! We also know that these commandments, too, are widely ignored in our secular society. Indeed, the ACLU will sue anybody who attempts to give public expression to this fundamental moral code without which no human society, Judaeo-Christian or not, can exist. Jesus sums all these ten commandments as a statement of love for God and neighbor. If we obey them only out of fear and not out of love, we will eventually find a way to "get around" them. Keeping them in our hearts as well as in our conduct is the key to integrity of faith and morals! AMEN
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