Obeying Our Consciences

Yesterday, we looked at the first reading from Sunday which I am reprinting below just to make things easy. Today we're building on that by hearing from Peter Kreeft.

Moses said to the people:
"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,
and keep his commandments and statutes
that are written in this book of the law,
when you return to the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul.

"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."

Dt 30:10-14

Peter Kreeft looks at what we do in order to be able to ignore God's will. I have a feeling this may be as familiar to you as it is to me.

This reading shows that Moses is truly a great psychologist. ... The Ten Commandments are clear. It's our own wills that are not clear. They are divided. one part wants to play God and say, "My will be done."The second part wants to obey God and say, "Thy will be done." So what do we do? To justify our weak and divided wills, we pretend that it's God's will that's unclear. We "nuance" the Commandments; we pretend they are unclear and difficult to understand because we find them difficult for our rebellious wills to obey. ... God undercuts that rationalization by giving us conscience. Deep down, if we are honest, we all know very well what we should do and what we should not do 99 percent of the time. ...

Of course, we have to be honest with our conscience. We can easily ignore it, silence it, cloud it, or make compromises with it. We have to be uncompromisingly honest and always ask, What is the truth? What is the true good? That's the first duty our conscience tells us we have: to honestly seek the truth, will the truth, and want to know the truth about what we should and should not do. And then to obey it. ...

We all know—even the most skeptical and unbelieving moral relativist clearly knows— that we must obey our conscience. You will never meet anyone who says it's ok to deliberately disobey your own conscience. We all know it; we just don't do it.

Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle C

Tomorrow we're going to take a quick look at the Gospel reading from Sunday, one of the most famous of all parables, The Good Samaritan.

Not Fairy Tales But Real Life!

Moses said to the people:
"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,
and keep his commandments and statutes
that are written in this book of the law,
when you return to the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul.

"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."

Dt 30:10-14

This was the first reading for Sunday. As I was listening, I was struck by the similarity to fairy tales where the hero is sent on a quest. Often it is to win the hand of a bride or to gain treasure, but there are usually three tasks that are in far away, unimaginable lands. When I heard, "Who will go up in the sky to get it for us" and "Who will cross the sea to get it for us" that fairy tale mythology popped into my head.

I was in awe. Indeed returning to God with our whole heart and soul is very close. Everyone can do it. We've all got built in translators so we know already what to do. God made it as easy as humanly possible to get close to him. It isn't a fairy tale, it isn't any of the tales of the gods that would have been familiar to the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It is real life and much simpler than that.

Now, whether or not it is easy to do is another matter. Tomorrow, I will have what Peter Kreeft says on that topic.