My dear parishioners,

    Peace!  In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.”  We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times.  These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018).  Here we no consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 54.2.
    Saint John Paul II (+2005) reminds us in VS, 54, that how we conceive “the relationship between freedom and law” is “intimately bound up with” our “understanding of the moral conscience.”  If law is seen as “just a suggestion” without any moral import that has consequences.  If law is an “ordinance of reason” as Saint Thomas Aquinas (+1274) taught (Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 90, A. 4), and we are rational creatures as Boethius (+525) taught (De Persona et Duabus Naturisc. ii) there is a different sort of consequence. 
     I never saw Pat Summit or Phil Fulmer coach the Tennessee Volunteers.  They were great because they were able to have their players, athletes, play by the rules (the laws of sports).  I don’t know anyone who would say that the “freedom of the coaches” or the “freedom of the athletes” was impeded by the rules.  When the rules are followed, the playing field is even and physical prowess carries the day.
    Obedience to the natural law inscribed on our very soul, obedience to the Divine Law given through Moses (cf. Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21), obedience to the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 5-7; Luke 6:20-49; John 14:15) is even more important than a good football or basketball game.  There may well be other seasons, but we only have this one life on the good Earth with which to please the Lord (or not; cf. 1 Corinthians 7:17; Isaiah 42:5; Hebrews 9:27).  The sin of our First Parents, in the beginning, in the garden (cf. Genesis3:1-24), was primarily one of disobedience.  Christ the Lord, however, was “obedient unto death, death on a Cross (Philippians 2:8)” as we recall so vividly on Good Friday.  It is not just the “terrible twos” who like to say “no body can tell me what to do”…   The world lies to us, saying that there is no such thing as sin.  Yet, part of the sad consequences of Original Sin are not only suffering, death, and ignorance, but also a tendency to do evil, technically called “concupiscence.”  The evil we have a tendency to do differs, some may be more prone to pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony or sloth, to name a few wicked tendencies.  I actually had a friend who would tell me, half joking, that “gluttony was his favorite sin.”  The point is, we should not have “favorite sins.”  We should despise all sin (cf. Psalm 97:10; Proverbs 8:13; Hebrews 1:9).  A well formed conscience recognizes this and acts accordingly.  Thankfully, i`n Christ, we can be victorious over sin.