Oct. 5, 2006

‘Thou shalt not have other gods besides me’

Part Three

The first of the Ten Commandments directs our attention to God, commanding us to make God first in our life. To do this, we must avoid idolatry, magic and superstition. Even more important than just avoiding sin, we must embrace the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. The practice of the theological virtues underpins obedience to this commandment and prepares us to worship the living God.

It is worthwhile, therefore, to consider for a moment each of these virtues that we call theological. Recall that these virtues are called theological because they relate directly to God (“Theos” in Greek): faith in God, love of God, and hope in God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says (CCC, 1813), “They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life.” The theological virtues have God as their “origin, motive and object.” (CCC, 1812) What a great blessing in our life.

Faith in God: able to move mountains

In the very first reference to faith found in the Bible, Genesis 15:5-6, the two key ingredients of this virtue are both prominent: assent to the truth of what God reveals and complete confidence in Him. God tells Abraham, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so shall your descendants be.” To this wondrous promise of God, Abraham surrenders himself with childlike trust. He firmly believes what God reveals. He commits himself to the Lord without reserve and with boundless confidence, in a way that earns him the title, “our father in faith.” The Book of Genesis describes it this way (15:6), “Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.”

Faith, as we see in Abraham, is stronger than doubts and fears. Faith’s object is truth, the truth that God has divinely revealed. There may be times, nonetheless, when believers face temptations to doubt and fear. These arise because of our own insufficiencies and weaknesses. Precisely then, it is good to follow the example of the father of a boy possessed by a demon who pleads with Jesus (Mk 9:17ff), “I do believe, help my unbelief!”

To some people, faith in God seems like a waste of time, an act that is incapable of making any real difference in life. But Jesus assures us that faith, even as tiny as a mustard seed, can move mountains (Cf. Mt 17:20). That is why the key message preached by Jesus and His followers is this (Mk 1:14), “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

Faith in God is the source and motivation of our moral life. For this reason, St. Paul (Rm 1:5, 16:26) refers more than once to the “obedience of faith” that we owe to God. He also insists that ignorance of God is the primary reason for immorality. We have a duty to believe in God and to put that belief into action. While this is a serious obligation, far more than being a moral duty, faith is a precious gift to be treasured.

Hope that does not disappoint

Hope is the theological virtue that follows naturally from the gift and virtue of faith. Once we have begun to believe in God and His wondrous love, we are eager to love Him in return. But, by our own strength, we are unable to do so. This is where the virtue of hope comes in. We expect that God’s love is so great that He will give us the capacity to love Him in return.

The virtue of hope lifts our sights above the passing things of this world. It does not thereby reduce our love for others here on earth. On the contrary, it inspires us to fulfill both of the great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. Still, it keeps us from falling into despair and assures us of enjoying the life of the world to come. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says (#2090), “Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God.”

The Apostle Paul frequently reminds us of the virtue of hope. It is a principal theme of his letters to the Romans and the Corinthians, perhaps because he so frequently encountered despair among those he served in Christ’s name. He knew that hope kept us from getting bogged down in discouragement. It braced us for struggles with inner fears and for opposition from outside forces. In Romans 8:31-39, St. Paul extols the indomitable love of Christ, closing with these words, “…in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, not present things nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Love of God: the greatest of all virtues

We have seen that it is nearly impossible to talk about one of the theological virtues without mentioning the others. They are inextricably intertwined. St. Paul says that, in the end, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love (Cf. I Cor 13:13).

Pope Benedict XVI picks up this similar theme in his encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est. He writes (#1), “We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

Our response to God’s love is first of all an act of faith. Faith is an act, not an emotion. We profess our belief in God and in His love. Then, this faith fires our desire to love Him in return with the help of His grace. Faith makes us eager to fulfill the first of all the commandments (Mt 22:37): “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Since the love of God underlies our whole moral and spiritual life, we should arm ourselves against those sins that erode or even destroy our love of God, sins such as indifference, lukewarmness and ingratitude. It is instructive to notice how often the Chosen People of God, on their exodus journey out of slavery in Egypt, fell into the sin of complaining and murmuring against God (Cf. Num 21:4-9). Jesus encountered this same opposition to His teaching when He spoke about the mystery of the Eucharist (Cf. Jn 6:41ff).

On the other hand, whoever loves wholeheartedly overflows with gratitude and praise. In the eucharistic celebration we find the fullest expression of thanksgiving to God for the gifts of love and faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (2097), “The worship of the one God sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world.”

To love God or neighbor takes great effort because it means we must see and treat someone other than ourselves as more important. Since love like faith is an act, not an emotion, we overcome the difficulty of loving by acting lovingly, without undue attention to our feelings. When we act with love toward God and neighbor then we are indeed loving. Feeling good about it is a different issue.

The best way to keep the first of the Ten Commandments, then, is to embrace and put into action the theological virtues of faith and hope and love.

Copyright 2006 The Catholic Sun.