First Commandment

[written 2/13/14]

Our first reading at Holy Mass today recounts King Solomon’s infidelity to the one, true God. Hopefully that put us in mind of one of the Commandments, namely…

By the grace of Jesus Christ, which He gives us through His sacraments, we can believe in the triune God. We can hope to share His perfect, eternal blessedness. We can love Him honestly, with our whole selves.

God gives us the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. But we have to co-operate with His grace by cultivating them.

We give the true God His due by practicing religion. We daily recognize the grandeur of God’s Providence. We acknowledge that we are but dust and ashes in His sight. We beg His mercy. We praise Him and adore Him. We offer ourselves to Him, in union with His Son Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the cross.

Thus we observe the most-basic of all laws. We never forget the One Who, in His kindness, delivered us from slavery. The slavery of sin. And the slavery of not even existing at all.

Keeping the First Commandment saves us from the terrible fate of Solomon. His “heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God.”

Temperately Ready

King Solomon prayed that the Lord would spare him both poverty and superfluity. “Provide me only with the food I need” (Proverbs 30:8). Better to have only the necessities, with nothing added. After all, the Lord told us to “take nothing for the journey” (Luke 9:3).

Wise king Solomon wanted to focus on other things than his material needs and desires. Namely, praising God and seeking the truth.

Three points, if I might:

1. The Lord provides enough for everyone to eat and drink, and not starve, and not freeze to death in the cold. He has no plan for anyone to luxuriate in this world. Not because He doesn’t want us to be happy; He actually has better things planned for us.

2. The wise person cultivates the cardinal virtue of temperance. The temperate person fasts and feasts, according to reason, proportion, “appropriateness.” Temperance allows us to focus on spiritual pursuits, leaving us to eat, drink, sleep, exercise, and have sex according to what makes sense, given the realities of our particular individual lives. Being temperate in our desires frees us to act justly in all our dealings with others, giving everyone what is due them.

3. If you have a good memory, you will recall that two years ago we went over these exact same points. We had these same readings on the feast day of the martyrs Cosmas and Damien.

Cosmas and Damien bear the crown of martyrdom, along with all the holy martyrs. But, of course, the martyrs of Christ only wind up with crowns of martyrdom because of external events beyond their control. Martyrs are always glad to continue their work on earth, whatever it may be, if such be the divine will. The virtues of justice and temperance allow us to do our work on earth well, whatever that work may be, because we stand ready to obey God, without unreasonable self-indulgences getting in the way.

In other words, If we hold in our hands crowns of justice and temperance, if our consciences do not accuse us of any abuse of this world’s goods, then we can live precisely the life the Lord gives us to live.

The temperate Christian can say to St. Peter and St. Paul, to St. Joseph, St. Francis, and all the saints: “Denizens of the court of heaven, I stand ready to serve. Please present me to Christ. If it be His will that I remain on earth today, then give me the grace to serve well here. If today is my day to suffer death, let it come.”

Trying is Succeeding to Find the Pearl

Young Solomon prayed, “Lord, you have made me the king, but I do not know how to act… Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart, so that I can judge right from wrong.”

St. Paul declared: “All things work for the good of those who love God.” Romans 8:28.

The treasure buried in the field, the pearl of great price: Wisdom. Sharing the divine mind. Understanding life. Knowing what to do and what not to do. Standing firm in the truth. The peace that passes all understanding. Union with God.

The wise person prays. The wise person begs God for help all the time. As Socrates had it, to be wise is to know that I don’t know anything. Compared to God, I don’t know much. I don’t understand much at all, compared to God. So let me pray like a madman.

By the same token: The praying person demonstrates great wisdom already, because to believe in God is the wisest act of the human mind. No thought, no knowledge, no Sherlock-Holmesian deduction can touch a more solid, a more sublime truth than the Truth we touch by simple faith.

And this all-encompassing Truth which we touch by faith: He became man to show us how good, and how kind, and how loving He is.

Cosmas and Damian’s Justice and Temperance

Saints Cosmas and Damien were brothers, Arabians, physicians. During the persecution of Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century, they were beheaded. Their relics were eventually brought to Rome, where Pope St. Felix transformed an ancient pagan temple in the Forum into their church. The names of Cosmas and Damian are invoked in the ancient prayer of the Roman church.

The apse of their basilica has a famous mosaic, depicting Saints Peter and Paul presenting the martyrs Cosmas and Damian to Christ.

King Solomon prayed that the Lord would spare him both poverty and superfluity. “Provide me only with the food I need” (Proverbs 30:8). Better to have only the necessities, with nothing added. After all, the Lord told us to “take nothing for the journey” (Luke 9:3).

Wise king Solomon wanted to focus on other things than his material needs and desires. Namely, praising God and seeking the truth. Saints Cosmas and Damian offered medical treatment for free. Because of this, everyone knew them. When the persecution came to Asia Minor, the gun-sights were immediately trained on the magnanimous Christian doctors of Cilicia.

Seems to me that three key points emerge:

1. The Lord provides enough for everyone to eat and drink, and not starve, and not freeze to death in the cold. He has no plan for anyone to luxuriate in this world. Not because He doesn’t want us to be happy; He actually has better things planned for us than bon-bons on the divan.

2. The wise person cultivates the cardinal virtue of temperance. The temperate person fasts and feasts, according to reason, proportion, “appropriateness.” Temperance allows us to focus on spiritual pursuits, leaving us to eat, drink, sleep, exercise, and have sex according to what makes sense, given the realities of our particular individual lives.

3. In the mosaic in Rome, Saints Cosmas and Damien hold their crowns in their hands as Saints Peter and Paul present them to Christ, waiting for Christ Himself to place the crowns on their heads. The crowns Cosmas and Damian hold are crowns of martyrdom. But, of course, they only became crowns of martyrdom because of external events beyond the saints’ control. The generous physicians would have been glad to continue to try to heal the sick on earth, if such had been the divine will.

If we hold in our hands crowns of justice and temperance, if our consciences do not accuse us of self-indulgence or abuse of this world’s goods, then we can stand up straight before the Lord and live the life He gives us to live. We can say to St. Peter and St. Paul, to St. Joseph, St. Francis, and all the saints: “Denizens of the court of heaven, I stand ready to serve. Please present me to Christ. If it be His will that I remain on earth today, then give me the grace to serve well here. If today is my day to suffer death, let it come.”

The just, temperate person can live life as God made us to live, starting now, and never ending.

Quick Sacred History Quiz

Your ways, O Lord, make known to me.

We sing this prayer in the Psalm at Mass.

Why do we keep the season of Lent? The Spirit drove the Lord Jesus out into the desert. He fasted and prayed for forty days.

The prophet Elijah walked through the desert for forty days to reach God’s mountain. Jonah gave the Ninevites a forty-day warning of God’s wrath. Moses dwelt in the cloud on Mount Sinai and conversed with the Lord for forty days. When the Lord flooded the earth, it rained for forty days.

Six weeks. Can we learn the ways of God in six weeks? Let’s get started.

In six days, God made the heavens and the earth. On the seventh, He rested. (Maybe if we study His ways hard for six weeks, then on the seventh, we will find rest.)

In the beginning, God made the land and the seas and all they contain. Then what happened? Sin. Disobedience. Estrangement from the Creator. It got ugly. Brother killed brother.

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil. The Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved (Genesis 6:5).

The innocent blood that had been shed cried out from the ground. The good world that God had made needed to be cleansed.

Best (Valentine’s) Plan: Holy Mass instead of Cupiditas

On the Mediterranean coast, north of the Holy Land, the Phoenicians worshiped the goddess we usually call Venus.

King Solomon, as we read, fell under the sway of a Phoenician woman. He betrayed his god, the God of Israel, the source of all true wisdom.

Then, as we read, the God of Israel visited Phoenicia. The Wisdom of God calmly walked into Venus’ territory. And another Phoenician woman forsook the pagan goddess and believed in Him. She entrusted the well-being of her possessed daughter to the Holy One of Israel, the Christ.

He came to conquer the demons. He came to deliver us from the shadow of evil, false worship, sin. He came to open up the door of truth.

The truth is: God Almighty, the one and only, loves everyone. He wills everyone’s eternal salvation–by the practice of true religion, the religion Jesus Christ brought to the world.

Let’s humble ourselves, entrust our prayers to Christ–like the second Phoenician woman did—and offer the one genuinely worthy sacrifice to God: Jesus Christ, and ourselves united with Him.

Will He Judge?

Jesus said: “The Father commanded me what to say and speak, and I know that his commandment is eternal life.”

On a number of occasions, Christ declined to present Himself as the supreme judge which, in fact, He is.

Once, He told his audience that the Ninevites of old and the ancient Queen of Sheba would judge them, because these pagans had listened to, and heeded, the Word of God.

Christ told His faithful Apostles that they, His appointed teachers, would judge the Twelve tribes of Israel.

He asked an aggrieved plaintiff, “Friend, who appointed me your judge and arbitrator?”

And right before the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus insisted: ‘I came to save, not to judge. My doctrine itself will judge those who fail to heed it.’