© 2004
John was a “normal” high school junior.
He had a decent relationship with his parents, and was considered somewhat popular at school.
He dabbled in sports and other extra curricular activities, but never really excelled in any of them.
He took his school work serious enough to stay out of trouble, but overall he found school rather boring and he often looked forward to the days when it would be over.
Like most teens at his age, John often argued with his teachers, his girlfriend and especially his parents about many silly things that really didn’t mean that much to him but all had a common theme. This theme was freedom.
John was tired of the many years he had spent following everyone else’s rules.
He was tired of people trying to control his life.
John sincerely thought that life would be a whole lot more fun is he didn’t have to obey any laws or rules.
He desperately desired a “freedom” where he could decide what he was going to do at all times and he longed for a time when he could always do what he wanted.
John tended to treat rules much like he did his school work, he often thought to himself, I’ll do enough to keep them off my back, but when I can I’m doing things my way.
This attitude seemed justified to John b/c he had often experienced rules that seemed not for his benefit, but instead were people unreasonably trying to control him.
John had a friend named Jason whom he had grown up with.
In John’s eyes Jason seemed to have the perfect life.
Jason somehow seemed to be above all the rules that people tried to make John follow.
Jason could stay out as late as he wanted, he had a car that seemed to let him run free, he didn’t bother with rules or people who tried to make him follow them and this was particularly easy with his mom who was to busy trying to get over her recent divorce from Jason’s father to really pay much attention to what he was doing.
B/c of all this Jason seemed to John to have the most precious thing of all, his freedom.
One Friday night while Jason and John were “out on the town”…
(out on the town really meant they spent the whole night driving around in boredom going from neighborhood hangout to hangout looking for something to do)…
But while they were out on the town, Jason pulled over into a park and pulled out a cooler from the back seat and handed John a beer that he has stolen from his home.
John had never had a beer before, and he knew it was against the “law”, but he didn’t want to seem un-cool in front of Jason so he drank and really though it was exciting to not be following the rules and he suddenly felt free.
This trend of getting together with Jason on weekends and getting drunk slowly became the normal thing to do, and they spent many long hours trying to figure out how they would get there next drinks.
After about a year, they began to start stealing beer from gas stations and other convenience stores, and Jason even got a fake id.
John and Jason spent the next few years getting drunk (at times now even on weeknights) and it started to affect the boys school (which they attended less often now).
It also affected their family life (since they were constantly fighting with their parents who were beginning to catch on that something wasn’t right).
At times it even brought them run ins with the police whom they constantly tried to avoid.
John had actually realized a few times over the past year that all this drinking with Jason seemed to be getting him in more and more trouble, and he even tried to stop a few times, but it didn’t last long.
A little peer pressure from Jason and the desire to escape the problems he was having soon found him back to drinking again, but now it was as much to forget about his troubles as much as it was for fun.
For John the whole situation came to a head one night when Jason had had far to much to drink to be driving and he hit a telephone pole going about 60.
John work up in the hospital feeling very cold in a room with bright lights and in the most pain he had ever experienced.
He soon realized that he was strapped to the bed and that his arms were secured by his side.
John did the only thing he could think to do, he started sobbing.
Shortly later a doctor dressed in a white coat came in, noting John was awake, he coldly told him he had been in a car accident and that he had passed out about 12 hours ago.
The doctor continued that John was physically ok now, but that they had come to discover that he was addicted to alcohol and that he would have to stay in the hospital for a few weeks for his body to adjust and to get over the withdrawal from alcohol that he was going though.
John never felt so alone in his life, and he could only think to himself how did this happen…
Overview-
Today I’ve been asked to talk to you about God’s laws.
We are going to cover the last five commandments, and the Church’s laws about marriage and chastity. But before I talk to you about the laws or the rules, I want to talk with you first about freedom, real freedom, a freedom that no one can take away from you.
Freedom and the Law-
We all long for freedom.
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Freedom is desired by every person regardless of race, wealth, age, country of origin, and time.
But few people actually achieve true freedom, and this is a travesty.
But why does this happen? What has gone wrong?
The reality of the situation is that most people have been deceived and have bought into a counterfeit freedom that makes them feel free for a while, but in the long run only enslaves them, while at the same time it blinds them to the path to true freedom which is right before their very eyes.
I want to show you how to obtain true freedom.
You would probably agree with the statement that God is good. In fact if I told you that God always wants what is best for you, I doubt you would argue, but I want to examine what this really means.
God knows each and everyone of you better and more intimately then your parents, your friends, or even you know yourself.
The scriptures tell us that he knit us in our mother’s womb and that every hair on our head has been counted.
Scripture also tells us that we are made in His image and that He even came to earth as a man to share in our nature and experiences.
We have a God who is intimately familiar with what it means to be human.
He was like us in all ways and in all things except sin.
So, when we say that God really does know and desire what is best for us, we can be sure that he speaks from His own shared experience as one of us.
And what about the scripture that says we are made in his image? Just what does that mean?
This means that unlike the animals that can only act on instinct, God has given us free will.
We can choose, we are free to decide what we are to do and when.
Because of freedom, we have the ability to love, and in this way we image God.
So if God really wants what is best for us, and he had made us free, why in the world has he given us all these rules?
He has given us the rules for our own happiness.
God wants you to be happy!
He has given us rules to be a guide for us to be happy.
Ex: law of gravity.
satan will always try to deceive us that the rules will make us unhappy, but in the end on Earth and in eternity following the rules will actually set us free.
This is actually a very old trick used by satan to make us unhappy.
For instance look at what happened in the Garden of Eden… satan convinced Adam and Eve that they would be happier if they disobeyed God’s rule, but we all know that their sin actually enslaved them and made them unhappy.
This is my next point, Sin enslaves us.
Although we may freely choose to sin at first, sin slowly takes away our freedom until we no longer have the freedom to resist and we become a slave to the very thing we choose trying to assert our freedom. And without our freedom, we cannot be happy.
Let me tell you a story about how sin enslaved me… At one point in my life when I was about your age, I was a cheater.
At first it was just b/c I was lazy and falling behind, but I kept cheating until I no longer was able to study enough to catch up, and b/c of that, felt I had to keep cheating.
I was not free to stop.
It made me unhappy and kept me always falling deeper and deeper into my sin.
It may have been more difficult at times to study and not cheat, but I would have retained my freedom and therefore I would have retained the possibility for happiness in the future instead of fear I would get caught, doubt that I could actually do it on my own and the enslavement that cheating brought me.
By following God’s rules (don’t cheat/lie) I would have followed that path he showed us to happiness.
This is a simple example of how I wanted freedom from the laws when in all actuality freedom was only possible by following the law.
God has given us freedom, but if we want to remain free, we must use that freedom to choose good.
There are an infinite amount of good things we can choose, much like there were an almost infinite amount of fruit trees that Adam and Eve could eat from in the garden, but there are only a few options for doing evil, none of which are unique and none of which will allow us to maintain our freedom. Much like the one tree that Adam and eve could not eat from.
To close my thoughts on freedom before we get into the law (which is our path to happiness) I want to leave you with this thought.
If God really wants us to be happy and free wouldn’t He tell us how to do this, doesn’t that seem much more effective and loving then just leaving us to figure it out on our own with no guide and no hope of getting it right except for luck?
But he did tell us, He gave us His law.
God’s Law –
God’s law is written on our hearts.
Besides writing His law on stones and in a book, He has also written it directly into our hearts.
He has also given us a conscience as a wonderful gift to be well formed and to be our guide while interpreting the moral law.
But we can weaken our conscience with sin.
Therefore, we often have to refresh ourselves with God’s rules, the most fundamental of which is the 10 commandments.
The Ten Commandments were written with the very finger of God on 2 stone tablets that were given to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.
We are going to look at the last 5 of these commandments.
As we go through these I will state the commandment, explain it and then explain its flip side or its positive meaning which we are all called to live.
I’m going to cover the 6th and 9th together.
The sixth commandment is you shall not commit adultery.
The ninth commandment is you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
Jesus expanded on this saying that “everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.
To state this in another way, you can say every sexual act that does not break this commandment will meet 4 basic criteria: They will be free full faithful and fruitful acts.
In the CC 2396 it states that acts of masturbation, premarital sex, pornography, and homosexuality are grave offences against the 6th commandment.
Let’s look at how each of these acts fails to live up to our 4f’s criteria for a loving sexual act… [do this]
The flip side or positive side of this commandment is chastity.
Distinguish w/ celibacy.
The CC in 2394-5 states that Christ is the model of Chastity and that every baptized person is called to live a chaste life, each according to their state in life. And that this will give us self mastery. Chastity is a call to purity of heart and the pure of heart will see God.
I hope you can see from what I have said that the Church is not down on sex, in fact it gives us these very rules b/c it holds sex and marriage in such high esteem and b/c God desires us to be free and happy in this area of our life like all others.
Every person is called to marriage.
This can take the form of marriage to God as a priest or sister, but most often takes the form of marriage to one person of the opposite sex.
By being chaste and by not lusting now, you are being faithful to your future spouse weather that is God or another person.
By following the commandments you are being a faithful spouse to your eternal husband which is Christ who marries us his bride the Church.
While we are on the 6th commandment I want to take a minute to talk about the beauty of marriage.
The sacrament of marriage is a symbol of the Trinity, and in fact, it participates in the very love of the Trinity.
2 weeks ago Annie talked to you about how in the Trinity the Father make a FFFF gift of himself to the Son and that the Son receives this gift and returns it FFFF to the Father, and this gift of self, this love, is so real that it is actually the third person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit.
Marriage is so beautiful because it is meant to be an image on Earth of the Trinity.
Like the love of the Trinity, the love of spouses is called to be FFFF. So let’s look at how spouses give themselves FFFF….
This is why Satan wants to attack and distort marriage so much, b/c when it is lived right it is a beautiful revelation of the love of God on earth.
Let’s look at a few ways that satan tries to mess up marriage, let’s look at the counterfeits and lies he is trying to tell us…
The CC in chapters 2399 and 2400 says that contraception, sterilization, adultery, divorce, and polygamy are all grave offenses against marriage and against God. Let’s apply the 4f’s to each of these to see why. [Do this].
I want to end the sixth and ninth commandments by simply telling you that I love my vocation to marriage, it is a wonderful blessing to me and I hope and beg God that you all can participate in this love to its fullest.
The seventh commandment is you shall not steal.
This means that we must respect the personal property of others.
If you are ever someone’s boss, we must pay fair wages to our employees.
We must not hoard the goods of the earth which every person has a right to such a food clothes shelter and an education.
We must preserve the environment for generations to come.
The flip side or positive side of this commandment is the call to be generous with what we have.
To share with others i.e. giving alms to the poor, to defend the rights of workers, and to work honestly and hard uniting our efforts to Christ so that our work can be redemptive.
The eighth commandment is you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
This means that you first except the fact that there is truth. Truth exists.
We must not lie, stretch the truth or act hypocritically.
We must respect others good reputation and not attempt to tear it down.
The flip side to this is that we can seek the Truth with all our hearts.
We can carefully and critically test everything that is said to us.
We can speak out for our faith attempting to spread it with words and deeds.
We can even lay down our lives like the martyrs do in defense of the truth.
The 10th commandment is you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. This is expanded upon in the Gospel of Mathew where it states “where your treasure is there also your heart will be.”
This means we must avoid greed and an unhealthy desire for power and control.
We must avoid a utilitarian attitude that seeks as good only those things that can be bought and sold for personal benefit.
We must avoid Envy, which is sadness at the sight of another’s good and an immoderate desire to have them for oneself.
The flip side of this is holy poverty chosen for God.
Three wonderful examples of holy poverty have been lived by St. Francis, St Clare, and Blessed Theresa of Calcutta. Also, who can forget the poverty of Christ.
To be poor is to be in good company!
We are also called to practice detachment. For as Jesus taught is in the beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit.
And finally we can combat envy through humility and abandonment to God’s providence.
So, what ever happened to John who we started talking about?
John slowly came to realize that the freedom he wanted and tried to get by breaking the rules could only been obtained by following the rules in a radical way.
He also realized in time that these rules were given to him for his own benefit and happiness.
John felt very sorry for his sins and deeply regretted his loss of freedom. He struggled to regain it in therapy but was only truly set free when he decided to make things right with God and he made his first confession in years.
John’s Alcoholics Anonymous group helped to show him that the alcohol had actually enslaved him and taken away his freedom.
John now tries to follow God’s law in an extreme way.
He still struggles at times to do so, but he has been able to regain his freedom to the point of having a happy marriage and 3 wonderful children with many more to come.
God bless you all and thank you for listening.
Monica Ashour can be contacted at
svining@tobet.org
The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team can be reached at
info@tobet.org
