RBWords

    What follows these words are the Ten Commandments!  Some of us may recall the scene in the movie epic directed by Cecil B. DeMille when Moses (played by Charlton Heston) crouches in terror as God uses something like lightening or divine laser to carve letters on the stone tablets.  Later on, we humans rather strangely would substitute Roman numerals in our depictions of those tablets!

     In his wonderful treatment of the Old Law in the SUMMA THEOLOGICA, St. Thomas Aquinas points to the Ten Commandments as a basic moral guide designed by God to prepare the world for the coming of the New Law which is Christ.  We are still measuring our lives by those Ten Commandments.  Law suits are being fought over any depiction of them around public courthouses! Their influence is truly deep in our public moral consciousness.  Yet they command in a negative way only the minimum: "Thou shalt not......"   Our faith should summon us to something more without ignoring those basic rules.

     That something else is the love and compassion that Jesus commands.  This demands that we look for what we CAN do for others, and not just what we should avoid doing!  In Lent we can examine our consciences not just to see which of the Ten Commandments we have observed or broken, we can look at our lives to see where we have failed to love and show compassion for others.  If we direct ourselves toward those values, the chances are that we will not have any problems with the Ten Commandments!  AMEN