Grace, Law, and the Human Community (Catechism Series Part 31) - Auspice Maria Ep. 61

Follow the Maine Catholic Podcast:

Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Transcript:

Welcome back to the Auspice Maria podcast, I'm Bishop James Ruggieri of the Diocese of Portland in Maine. 

We're continuing this series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  We're now in part three, Life in Christ. And in the previous episode, we began part three and we considered the dignity of the human person, our vocation to beatitude, freedom, conscience, virtue, and sin. And now the Catechism, we could say, widens the lens. The Christian moral life is indeed personal. Our life in Christ is personal. But it's never merely private.

And before proceeding any further, again, I invoke the Holy Spirit to inspire us to open our hearts and minds to better appreciate this great gift of the Catholic faith that we have been blessed with.

Come Holy Spirit, fill our hearts, fill our minds, inspire us, remove from our hearts that which keeps us from loving you more and loving our neighbor more, and help us, Lord, just to grow in our desire to serve and to follow you as members of your Church. And we ask all this through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So for this particular episode, the paragraphs I'll be referring to are 1877 to 2051. And they include, in this part three, chapter two, "The Human Community," and chapter three, "God's Salvation, Law and Grace."

These chapters do belong together. We are created for communion with others, but human community needs truth, it needs justice, moral law, and ultimately the grace of Christ.

The Catechism begins with a very profound statement in this section. And I quote, "The vocation of humanity is to show forth the image of God and to be transformed into the image of the Father's only Son." Close quote, and that's paragraph 1877. This vocation belongs to each person, but it also concerns the human community as a whole.

We are made for communion because we are made in the image of the triune God. God's own life is an eternal communion of love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Catechism says that "there is a certain resemblance between the union of the divine persons and the fraternity that human beings are called to establish among themselves in truth and love." That's a direct reference to paragraph 1878.

This does not mean that human society is divine. It means that our life with others can reflect, however imperfectly, the communion from which we come and toward which we are called. Love of neighbor cannot be separated from love of God.

Society, therefore, is not an unfortunate limitation placed on individual freedom. The human person needs society. Through relationships, dialogue, mutual service, family life, work, friendship, and civic responsibility, we develop our gifts and respond to our vocation. At the same time, society exists for the person, not the person for society.

The Catechism teaches that, quote, "The human person is and ought to be the principle, the subject, and the end of all social institutions," close quote. That's from paragraph 1881, but it's a direct citation to Gaudium et Spes, "The Church in the Modern World," section 25, paragraph one.

So again, the Catechism reminds us of this teaching, that the human person is and ought to be the principle, the subject, and the end of all social institutions. So no government, economy, institution, or ideology may treat the person as a tool, a burden, or a disposable object.

Sin, however, wounds community. Pride, greed, domination, indifference, prejudice, and the thirst for power distort social relationships and can become embedded in institutions. This is why personal conversion and social reform belong together. We need just structures, but structures alone, social structures alone, cannot save us. The Catechism says society must be "renewed first of all through conversion of heart." It's a reference to paragraph 1888.

So, several principles help order social life toward authentic human communion, and these are cited in the Catechism.

The first is the common good. The common good is not simply what benefits the greatest number or serves the most powerful. It refers to the social conditions that allow persons and groups to reach their fulfillment more fully and readily. It includes respect for fundamental rights, the social well-being, and development of the community, and peace. References to paragraph 1906 and also 1907 to 1909. There's also an important reference to Gaudium et Spes, section 26, paragraph 1.

So again, not to kind of complicate things with all these references, I just want us to know where we are at in this content. But the common good, once again, is not simply what benefits the greatest number. It refers to the social conditions that allow persons and groups to reach their fulfillment more fully and readily.

Legitimate authority exists to serve this common good. Authority is necessary for social unity, but it does not justify itself. It must act according to moral truth, use morally legitimate means, and respect the dignity and freedom of persons.

And a second principle is subsidiarity. A larger or higher community should not take over responsibilities that can be carried out by persons, families, parishes, neighborhoods, or smaller associations. Rather, it should support them when necessary and coordinate their work for the common good. It's a reference to paragraph 1883. Subsidiarity protects freedom, initiative, and responsibility while rejecting both radical individualism and excessive centralization.

A third principle that serves community is participation. The human person should not remain a passive recipient of social life. Participation means taking responsibility for the communities to which we belong through family duties, honest work, service, voting, civic involvement, and concern for neighbors, especially those who are vulnerable. Reference to paragraphs 1913 to 1917.

The Catechism then speaks of social justice and solidarity. Social justice requires that society provide the conditions in which persons and associations can receive what is their due. It begins with reverence for the dignity of every person. Differences in gifts and circumstances should lead to mutual service, not domination. That's in reference to paragraph 1928.

Solidarity recognizes that we belong to one human family. It is expressed in the sharing of spiritual and material goods, concern for the poor, and a commitment to peace. Paragraphs 1939 to 1942. Solidarity resists the temptation to say that another person's suffering is none of our concern.

But how do we know what is truly good? Well, here the Catechism moves from human community to moral law. Moral law is not divine interference in human freedom. It is God's fatherly instruction, showing us the path to beatitude and warning us against what leads away from Him. Reference to paragraph 1950.

Its first expression is the eternal law, God's wise ordering of creation. The natural moral law is the Creator's light placed within human reason. It enables us to recognize basic moral truths: do good and avoid evil, respect life, honor truth, seek justice, care for family, and worship God. It is called natural, not because it is a collection of biological instincts, but because it belongs to human nature and can be known by reason. Section on natural moral law, these sections, these paragraph sections, are 1954 to 1960.

Because sin obscures our judgment, God also revealed His law. The Old Law, especially the Ten Commandments, is holy and good. It teaches what must be done, exposes sin, and prepares God's people for the Gospel. Yet it does not by itself give the grace needed to fulfill what it commands. It is a preparation for Christ.

The New Law, or the Law of the Gospel, is the perfection on earth of divine law. It is expressed especially in the Sermon on the Mount. It's found in Matthew's Gospel, chapters 5 through 7. But it is not merely a higher set of demands. It is the grace of the Holy Spirit received through faith in Christ and working through charity. Reference to paragraphs 1965 to 1966. And the Catechism calls it a law of love, grace, and freedom.

So here we reach really the center of these paragraphs. Human beings need more than instruction. We need redemption. We may know the good and still fail to do it. We cannot justify or save ourselves.

Justification is the gracious work of God by which the Holy Spirit cleanses us from sin and communicates to us the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ and baptism. Reference to paragraph 1987. Justification was merited for us by the Passion of Christ and conforms us inwardly to God's righteousness. And justification is more than God overlooking sin; it includes forgiveness, sanctification, and the renewal of the interior person.

Grace heals freedom rather than destroying it. God acts first, but He does not treat us as passive objects. Grace enables our free response of faith and charity. Reference to paragraph 1993.

And the Catechism says grace is "a participation in the life of God." Paragraph 1997. And this is where communion becomes distinctly, we could say, supernatural, beyond the natural. Grace introduces us into the life of the Trinity. Through baptism, we become children in the Son, members of Christ's body, and temples of the Holy Spirit.

Grace does not turn every human institution into the Church, nor does it eliminate the natural responsibilities of society. It heals and elevates human persons. Through converted persons, grace can also renew families, communities, cultures, and institutions.

Within the Church, however, communion takes on a uniquely sacramental form. We do not merely cooperate around shared interests. We share one faith, one baptism, one spirit, and one Eucharistic life. This is why the Catechism concludes these paragraphs with the Church described as Mother and Teacher. This is from paragraph 2030, quote, "It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation."

So from the Church we receive the Word of God, the grace of the sacraments, the witness of the saints, and the important guidance of the Magisterium, which is the Church's teaching authority, the bishops in communion with the Holy Father, the Pope. The Church's moral teaching is not meant to replace conscience, but to form and illuminate it. Remember, we are obliged to follow our conscience, but we must ensure that our conscience is well formed. The Church protects the truth entrusted to her by Christ and helps the faithful apply that truth to changing circumstances. Some important points, these are paragraphs 2032 to 2040.

The Church's precepts establish a necessary minimum for growth in love of God and neighbor. But the goal is never minimum observance. And I just want to point out here, I mentioned the precepts of the Church. Very interesting, it's well worth it, if you have the time, to look these up in the Catechism. They start on paragraph 2041 and they go to paragraph 2043. There are five precepts of the Church.

Again, these are not minimal requirements for being active members of the Church, but really they are here to help us, help us to grow in love of God and neighbor, and to dispose ourselves to receive this grace that God offers us, especially through her sacraments. So again, the precepts, they establish a necessary minimum for growth, but we're not about minimalism here. We want the maximum. We want to receive as much grace from God as possible and grow in that spirit of conversion, because it just ripples, affects everything.

Remembering that the goal is holiness. The moral life is therefore ecclesial and Eucharistic. We do not become holy alone, very important. We are strengthened by the sacraments, corrected and encouraged by fellow believers, served by the gifts of others, and sent together into the world.

Christian community is not yet heaven. However, it remains a community of sinners being sanctified. Yet, by grace, it can become a sign and a foretaste of the communion for which humanity was created.

When we defend dignity, when we seek the common good, when we practice subsidiarity, when we participate responsibly in social life and civic life, when we stand in solidarity with the poor, receive grace through the sacraments, and live the law of Christ in charity, life together becomes a path toward holiness.

Once again, we are created for communion. We are governed by truth. We are redeemed by Christ. And we are sustained by grace. And within the Church, we learn that the journey to God is never only I, but also we.

Thank you for listening to the Auspice Maria podcast. And again, as always, I'd like to conclude by offering a Hail Mary, asking Our Lady, Mother of the Church, to intercede for us.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.