Father Timothy Hepner

By Father Timothy Hepner

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time/Feb. 16

Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-2,4-5,17-18,33-34; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

The summer after my sophomore year of college seminary I went to Mexico for an intensive language program. One weekend all of the students in my cohort went to Acapulco, while I visited an orphanage. I learned that this did not make me the most virtuous foreigner in Latin America upon meeting a young atheist from either Sweden or Switzerland (my Spanish wasn’t good enough at the time to tell the difference) who had been volunteering there for six months. While the two of us ate lunch, he asked me, “Why do I need to believe in God if I am more selfless than most Christians?”

Most people seem to think that Jesus’ mission was to make us morally good people. This is a sad and shallow misinterpretation. “The Son of God became man,” St. Athanasius succinctly wrote, “so that we might become God.” Now that is a profound reality.

In the second reading St. Paul writes beautifully, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him, this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” Jesus’ one desire — a desire which took him all the way to the cross — is that you and I share in the very inner life of the Trinity. That is the Christian message, the point of the sacraments, the goal of our preaching, and the entire reason for the existence of the Church.

FULLNESS OF LIFE

Now, you may be wondering what we do with all the moral stuff at this point. Wasn’t my atheist Swiss Swede right? Well, kind of. For one thing, while he had an admirable desire to serve others, it was obvious that he was the author of his own moral law. He assumed that he knew what was morally good, which is the same assumption almost every despot in history has made.

What truly makes an act good or bad? Is there a wisdom outside of and above human wisdom, which helps us understand the goal of human existence and how to reach that goal given the daunting gift of free will? Not, of course, if you are an atheist. In which case, the law of the strongest is what ultimately prevails.

But as we hear in both readings, there is a “wisdom” that comes from God, who orders all things and who both knows and desires the fullness of life for us. Some of that wisdom was written down on stone tablets and given to God’s people in the desert so that they could begin enjoying the life God had prepared for them. But 1,500 years later, Wisdom Himself was made flesh in order to give us a full share in that life. He didn’t abolish that former law, but took it higher and deeper, and wrote it on the hearts of those who would be baptized.

“You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Only God can rewrite the commandments. And, given how deeply misaligned the human heart is (especially in matters of sexual morality), only God could enable someone to live this way. And that’s the point. If Jesus weren’t God, and if he didn’t come to give us a share in the life of God, he would either be a liar or an abusive tyrant making unreasonable demands.

INVITED TO DIVINE LIFE

Catholic morality is both a result of and a sign of our share in the life of God. We follow his law because he has loved us, and we want to love him back. We follow his law because we want others to witness the miracle of freedom he has wrought in our lives, and we want them to share in this life, too. And when we fall short of his law, we don’t try to rewrite it according to our own dictates. We go out of ourselves in repentance, and then we receive the mercy that he untiringly holds out to us, enabling us to live those lofty commands.

It can be easy to pick on atheists or on the Pharisees of the Gospel, but the reality is that we also tend to pit our own wisdom against God’s moral law, sometimes in subtle, clever ways. Which moral laws are most difficult to follow in our lives? How have we been relying too much on ourselves, and not enough on God’s grace? Where does the Lord want to transform our hearts and deepen our freedom with his grace? In what ways can we be more radically honest with God and ourselves and let our “yes mean yes” and our “no mean no”?

St. John Paul II wrote, “Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.” Truth Himself has not only entered the flesh, but has drawn us to himself and invited us into divine life with his Father and the Holy Spirit. We simply need to say “yes” to him and mean it.

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FATHER TIMOTHY HEPNER is vocation director of recruitment for the Diocese of Peoria. To learn more about vocations, visit comeandfollowme.org or the Office of Priestly Formation at followmepeoria on Facebook.