JUNE142023

After Vatican II the faculty at the seminary was more confused than the students were about what it all meant. The old Catholic thing of “pray, pay and obey” did not seem to hold anymore. I remember Fr. Gilbert gave a sermon once during those days: “You can love, love, love until the cows come home but you’ve still got to keep the commandments.” Of course the Bible itself needs to be interpreted if we are to understand how we are to live. For example, St. Paul says, the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. What Jesus and Paul are both driving at (and Vatican II picked up on) is that obeying for the sake of obeying is not life-giving. We have to have a why for obeying. And the why as Jesus insisted is our response to what God has done in us and for us — showering us with love, compassion and forgiveness. Our obedience reflects God’s gifts to us.