755. Moreover it is within the Church that we
Filipino Catholics, baptized into the death of Christ Jesus, to live a
new life (cf. Rom 6:3-4), encounter the Risen Christ sacramentally __
forgiving us in Penance, strengthening us in Confirmation and Anointing,
sanctifying our life’s vocation in Matrimony and Orders, and most of all,
nourishing us with his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Through these
saving sacramental encounters, the Holy Spirit inspires and empowers us as
Christ’s followers, with infused virtues to strengthen us for the moral combat
in the service of others.
756. Church
as Communal Support. The Church provides the
communal support absolutely necessary to be faithful in following Christ in our
moral living. The next chapter takes up the specific role of the Church’s
Magisterium, or teaching function, as norm for our consciences in moral
reasoning and the process of moral deciding (cf. CCC 2032-37). Here we
summarize the broader mission of the Church in regard to the moral lives of her
members in terms of three functions: a) to help form Christian moral
character; b) to carry on and witness to Christian moral tradition; and c) to
serve as the community of Christian moral deliberation.
757. Active Agent in Forming Christian
Character. One commendable feature of
today’s moral thinking is the shift in emphasis from individual
acts and techniques of decision making to the formation of moral
consciousness or character. More important for moral living than explicit
instructions in the form of do’s and don’ts are the symbols,
images, stories, and celebrations that, by capturing our active imaginations,
determine in great part how we think, evaluate, judge and decide morally. Thus
the Church helps form moral character with its epic Old Testament narratives of
Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Sinai Covenant, Exodus, and the formation of
the Kingdom of Israel with their great heroes and figures __
Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. The New Testament follows with
the “Good News” of Jesus the Christ, who redeems all by his Passion, Death and
Resurrection. Such stories are not only proclaimed by and in the Church, but
also embodied in its ritual ceremonies, and imitated in its history of saintly
witnesses through the ages.
Thus does
the Church help form moral character by exercising an indispensable influence
on the imaginations and moral sense of Filipino Catholics.
758. Bearer
of Moral Tradition. A common complaint today
among those plagued with difficult moral decisions is the lack of “rootedness.”
So many have lost the sense of who they are, their identity, heritage and
“roots.” For Filipinos, the Catholic Church can supply their solid point of
reference, where they feel at home in continuity with their family and
community traditions. The constancy of the Church’s moral tradition through
changing times helps Filipino Catholics:
a) by grounding their own
moral development with moral instructions, customs and ways of
acting;
b) by supplying much of the content of a
Christian morality __ the Ten Commandments, Christ’s
Sermon on the Mount, the Precepts of the Church; and
c) by serving as the structure or framework
for their moral accountability as disciples of Christ.
Specifically, the Precepts of the Church include: 1) to assist at Mass
on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation; 2) to fast and abstain on the days
appointed; 3) to confess one’s sins at least once a year, and receive Holy
Communion during the Easter time; 4) to contribute to the support of the
Church; and 5) to observe Church laws concerning marriage.
759. Community
of Moral Deliberation. The Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and individual bishops throughout
the land, have consistently brought before Filipino Catholics the burning moral
issues affecting everyone __ on violence, peace, family
planning, procured abortion and euthanasia, on voting in elections, on ecology,
anti-government coups, and the like. These directive/guidelines and the moral reasoning
employed are often themselves the outcome of prolonged serious reflection,
careful research and discussion. In this, the Church is acting as a moral
community in which active and vigorous dialogue between Filipinos on serious
moral matters can take place on all levels, under the guidance of the Bishops.
Typical are the moral catechetical programs for school children, religious
education for teenagers, cursillos, marriage encounter programs, and
social action seminars for adults __ just to name a few.
III. The Mystery of Wickedness: Sin
760. But our common experience testifies to the
fact that the full and perfect Reign of God has not yet come. On the contrary,
we are all too conscious of our shattered world in which so many moral evils,
both personal and social, afflict the human race. All too easily we can
recognize St. Paul’s descriptions of the “works” of the flesh: “lewd conduct,
impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, bickering, jealousy,
outbursts of rage, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envy, drinking
bouts, orgies and the like” (Gal 5:19-21). “The mystery of evil is
already at work” (2 Thes 2:7). So we must face the reality
of SIN which obstructs the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.
761. The
Mystery of Sin. But beyond the stark factual reality
of sin, we must recognize that sin is not simply “doing something wrong,” or
“making a mistake” which we can easily rectify at will. John Paul II describes
it as follows:
Clearly sin is a product of man’s freedom. But deep within
its human reality there are factors at work which place it beyond the merely
human, in the border-area where human conscience, will, and sensitivity are in
contact with the dark forces which, according to St. Paul, are active in the
world, almost to the point of ruling it (RP 14).
The mystery of sin “hates the light” (cf. Jn 3:19;
1 Jn 2: 9f), and we, sinners all, are often ashamed to take it seriously.
But we need to reflect deeply on sin: 1) to truly appreciate God’s everlasting
merciful love, and 2) to correct common distorted ideas of God, the Church,
conscience, law and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
762. In
summary fashion, with St. Augustine,
we can define sin as “an utterance, a deed or a
desire contrary to the eternal law” (cf. CCC 1849). We can sketch the
essence of sin in a few broad strokes as:
• refusing to follow
our own conscience’s call towards the good;
• rejecting God,
our Creator and Lord, and our own true selves and others,
by turning away from God, our true end; and
• breaking God’s loving
Covenant with us, shown forth in Jesus Christ, dying and rising for our
sake.
What must
be stressed these days is the inner link between rejecting God and rejecting
ourselves. In refusing God and wishing to make a god of ourselves, we deceive
and destroy ourselves. We become alienated from the truth of our being. Hence,
to acknowledge oneself a sinner, is to know oneself guilty — not
only before conscience, but before God our Creator, Lawgiver, and Savior (cf.
CCC 1849-51).
763. The “Sense of Sin.” Our Christian
faith alerts us to the basic fact that we are “not well,” that all of us have
an urgent need for a physician to “cure us.”
If we say, “We are free of the guilt of sin,” we
deceive ourselves; the truth is not to be found in us. But if we acknowledge
our sins, he who is just can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from
every wrongdoing. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his
word finds no place in us (1 Jn 1:8-10).
764. Moral life, then, requires that we
recognize in ourselves the tendency to sin and acknowledge ourselves as sinners
when we have done evil. PCP II presents Jesus’ mission to “liberate from
sinfulness” (cf. PCP II 53-54), as well as his call to us for
“overcoming the reality of personal sin and sinful structures (cf. PCP II
81-86, 266-70). Today this sense of sin seems to have been radically
weakened by secularism: we are caught up in the flagrant consumerism
that surrounds us. We are unconsciously influenced by the modern behaviorist
psychologies that identify sin with morbid guilt feelings or with mere
transgressions of legal norms (cf. RP 18). And through radio, TV and the
cinema, we continually face so many examples of bribery and corruption in
business and government, cheating in family life and lying in personal
relationships, that we often end up rationalizing for our own misdeeds:
“Anyway, everybody does it,” or “I had to do it because. . . .”
765. Even within the thought and life of the
Church, certain trends contribute to the decline of this basic sense of sin.
Exaggerated attitudes of the past are replaced by opposite exaggerations: from
seeing sin everywhere to not recognizing it anywhere; from stressing the fear
of hell to preaching a love of God that excludes any punishment due to sin;
from severe correction of erroneous consciences to a respect for individual
conscience that excludes the duty of telling the truth. Some conclude: “the sin
of the century is the loss of the sense of sin” (RP 18). Despite the
“natural piety” of the Filipino, an authentic Christian “sense of sin” is
gradually being eroded due mainly to religious ignorance and
the consequent secularistic set of attitudes and values. A true
sense of sin is a grace as we perceive in the saints, who
(paradoxically) manifested, without exception, a far keener sense of sin than
the “ordinary sinner.”
A. Sin
in Sacred Scripture
766. The Old Testament presents three
basic notions for what we call sin.
a)
“Missing the mark”
focuses on the offense inflicted on another by failing to meet one’s covenant
obligations. Since the first law of the Covenant is worship of Yahweh, idolatry
is its clearest expression. “The worship of infamous idols is the reason and
source and extremity of all evil” (cf. Wis 14:27).
b)
Depravity and perversity
refer to the defect of character or disorder that weighs the sinner down. “For
my iniquities . . . are like a heavy burden, beyond my strength” (Ps 38:5).
c)
Rebellion and transgression
picture sin as a conscious choice which destroys positive relationships. “See
what rebellious Israel
has done! She has . . . played the harlot” (Jer 3:6).
767. More importantly, the Old Testament
manifests certain shifts of emphasis in its conception of sin. A
more primitive, less morally developed idea of sin pictures it as defilement
or “stain,” the sense of being unclean before the face
of God, the All-Holy. “You shall warn the Israelites of their uncleanness, lest
by defiling my Dwelling, their uncleanness
be the cause of their death” (Lv 15:31). Strong in its sense of God’s
holiness, this “stain” image manifests a rather primitive ethical sense by: 1)
missing the inner evil of sin in not seeing the difference between responsible
free acts and involuntary evils; 2) fixing on sexual taboos and ritual
cleanliness, but ignoring interpersonal and societal justice; and 3) being
motivated by a self-centered fear that shuts out authentic faith in the
transforming merciful forgiveness of God.
768. A more ethical view of sin is presented in
the Old Testament prophets and “covenant” narratives. Sin is seen as a crime,
an internal, willful violation of Yahweh’s covenant relationship. Isaiah
warns: “It is your sins that make Him [Yahweh] hide His face,” and lists their
sins: their works are evil, their lips speak falsehood, their hands are stained
with innocent blood, their feet run to evil, and their thoughts to destruction,
plunder and ruin on their highways. Crooked have they made their paths, and the
way of peace they know not (cf. Is 59:2-8). Viewing sin as crime emphasizes
its juridical aspect, with its concern for determining the nature of the crime,
the culpability of the sinner, and the appropriate punishment.
No comments:
Post a Comment