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3 min read

Liturgy

Bring Your Children To Mass?

Msgr. William J. King

March 7, 2023 7:58 am March 7, 2023

3 min read

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3 min read

When Jesus reprimanded the apostles for wanting to keep children away from Him (see Mt 19:14), He did not give an age or behavior requirement. At the baptism of a…

When Jesus reprimanded the apostles for wanting to keep children away from Him (see Mt 19:14), He did not give an age or behavior requirement.

At the baptism of a child, parents and sponsors promise to teach their children the Catholic faith and “to bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “The Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life” (No. 2177). This importance is shown in attendance at Mass and rest from labor, the first of the precepts of the Church.

The obligation to attend Mass is captured in canon law, which states, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass” (Canon 1247). The same canon goes on to note the duty to abstain from work on the Lord’s day. As a law of the Church, the Sunday Mass obligation binds Catholics who are at least 7 years old and have the use of reason. However, since first reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist are at or about age 7 in the United States, it seems that children should be well accustomed to attending and participating in the Mass prior to that age.

In truth, children can at times be loud and disruptive during Mass, and not everyone is accepting of the fact that children will be children. It can be exasperating to those around them when parents do not attempt to quiet their children who are overly loud or rambunctious during Mass, preventing others from participating in Mass.

However, children need to be taught correct behaviors, and they should learn to feel welcome in the pews at Mass. By keeping your children away from Mass unless they behave perfectly, you might be sending a subtle message that Mass and Church are only for the perfect and not for sinners. That’s a lesson that might keep them away from Mass in the future, too.

Some churches have a children’s room, or “cry room.” Signs in the children’s room of one church state clearly that it is a place to help parents teach their children to participate in the Mass. In other churches, there are a few pews or seats in the narthex, where parents can take a crying or overactive child for a time, while still able to see and participate in the Mass.

For parents with children, the rush to prepare for Mass and to leave the house on time can set up a state of panic that lasts through the Mass. It is easily written and not always easily accomplished, but finding more time on a Sunday morning in order to make the preparations for Mass more calm and relaxed — even praying at home or in the car as a family in preparation for attending Mass together — can establish a more serene atmosphere even before arriving at the church, along with establishing a clear expectation for children that they should focus on prayer and the Mass as much as their age allows them to.

Children under the age of 7 are not obligated to attend Mass, but if they can there are benefits for them and for the community. There are certainly times when it is best to remove unruly children from Mass temporarily, if only to be charitable to those in surrounding seats, but it seems better to teach children to be comfortable in the house of God surrounded by their fellow Catholics. It takes plenty of patience and lots of attention from parents, but that is a better practice than keeping them away from the Lord.

Rev. Msgr. William J. King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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8 min read

Sacraments

Making A Good Confession

Msgr. William J. King

February 7, 2023 11:26 am February 7, 2023

8 min read

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8 min read

A father watched his young son at work in the garden. Instructed to remove the weeds, the son eagerly took up the challenge, taking garden clippers and lopping off the…

A father watched his young son at work in the garden.

Instructed to remove the weeds, the son eagerly took up the challenge, taking garden clippers and lopping off the stems as close to ground level as he could maneuver. He assured his father that the weeds were gone, never to return, but the father knew better: without removing their roots the weeds would grow back.

Making a good confession of our sins is like weeding the garden of the soul. Most of us have the experience of assuring our heavenly Father that we have removed all the weeds, but unless we attack them at their roots, we’ll confess the same sins again and again.

It takes work to make a good confession. Focusing on behaviors and actions alone is like taking garden clippers to weeds: we may for a time cut off the parts we can see, but hidden within the soil of our behaviors the roots of sin are still growing. The real power of the Sacrament of Penance is unleashed when we expose the roots to God’s grace.

The Desire to Change

Making a good confession starts long before stepping inside the confessional. Even before making an examination of conscience we should examine our motivation. Do we really want to change? St. Augustine describes his tepid approach to change in the midst of his conversion. Realizing the excesses of his lifestyle, he prayed, “Lord, give me chastity,” and quickly aded, “but not yet!”

A good confession arises from a heart that wants to change. This is the very core of a good confession — firm purpose of amendment. A humorous spin on the Act of Contrition comes from a child who hasn’t quite memorized the words correctly: “Oh my God, I am partially sorry for having offended you…” If we’re rigorously honest, however, we might admit that the child is speaking the truth. St. Augustine recalled that as he determined to leave certain sins behind he could hear those sins calling out to him as if old friends were inviting him to spend some time together again. A good confession is the fruit of prayer to God, begging the grace to want to change, to want to leave our sins behind, to want to hand our sins to God and never seek to take them back.

How should you make a good confession? Start by spending some time in prayer, preferably before the Blessed Sacrament so as to be better protected against the snares and wiles of the enemy, the deceiver. In prayer, ask God to show you the roots of your sins, not just the external sinful behaviors. Ask God to shed light upon your motivations, the desire to sin, the reasons you make the choices that lead up to sin. It is one thing to ask God to show you your sins, but quite another to reach into the roots of your sins and eradicate the roots instead of the weeds.

Examination of Conscience

Next, make a good examination of conscience. That starts with an act of praise and confidence in God’s grace. Acknowledging that you are in the strong and loving arms of God, trusting that God will care for you and provide for you, thanking God for the blessings of His grace — all of this is a fitting start to prepare for a good confession. With confident trust and abandonment to God’s loving will it is easier to open your soul to God in the Sacrament of Penance; it is easier to want to change by first recognizing the good things that are part of total abandonment to God’s mercy and grace. In the hands of God who created the soil and planted the Garden of Eden, why would you do less than trust Him completely with the garden of your soul?

Having placed yourself in the arms of God, the next step is to ask God to lead you through a thorough examination of conscience. There are many formulas for an examination of conscience. Some are based on the Ten Commandments, and others on the beatitudes. Still others focus on the Precepts of the Church or the teachings of saints. They are found in missals and prayerbooks, websites and mobile apps. Any of these can be a tool by which God can shed light on sin and the motivations for sin. It can be confusing and distracting to switch among several forms for an examination of conscience when preparing for a good confession, so it’s best to pick one form and invite God to help you through it by the light of His grace.

Always approach the examination of conscience in prayer, and allow sufficient time for God to walk you through your sins, shedding His light on the roots of your sinful behaviors. Don’t rush. Many saints advise a daily examination of conscience in order to recognize patterns in behaviors and in the tendency to sin. A daily examination of conscience shows what circumstances, encounters, people, times of day, places and activities present the greatest temptations or vulnerabilities. Only by tracing patterns of emotion and behavior can we best recognize the roots of our sins as well as how to avoid sin in the future.

The best way to avoid sin is to avoid temptation. It is helpful as part of an examination of conscience to ask God to show you the steps that lead to sinful acts. Every sinful act starts with a temptation — ask God to show you where temptation lives in your daily life, and to show you the choices you made that led from temptation to sin. Again, pray for the grace to want to change those behaviors that lead to sin, or the roots will still thrive. Pray for the grace to want to remove temptation, the occasion of sin, from your life.

In the Confessional

Armed with more than a list of sins, but with a confident trust in God’s goodness, an understanding of the motivations and causes of the inclination to sin, and better knowing how the path leads from temptation to sin, you can now enter the confessional with an open heart, soul and mind.

In the confessional, do not allow the enemy, the deceiver, to disquiet you or diminish your resolve to make a good confession. Some of his tactics are to tempt you to worry that the priest will think less of you if you mention all your sins, or to tempt you to think that you cannot change, or to tempt you to think that you are not worthy of God’s mercy. Satan hates when someone resolves to make a good confession, and he will work overtime to lure the sinner away from God’s mercy. Recognize the source of these thoughts and ignore them, resolved to open your soul completely to God. Instead, pay attention to the Holy Spirit, who is prompting you toward the peace and joy and healing of the Sacrament of Penance.

It is astonishing how many people stay away from confession out of fear of forgetting what to say or do inside the confessional. This is also Satan’s deception, to keep sinners away from the wonderful mercy of God. Two things are essential to the fruitful celebration of the Sacrament of Penance: the penitent’s admission of sin that springs from a heart that wants to change (contrition and firm purpose of amendment), and the priest’s absolution. All the rest is secondary, and there isn’t a priest alive who won’t help someone through the celebration of the sacrament once they’ve stepped through the confessional door.

Once inside the confessional, remember that the priest is acting in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”). Speak to Christ himself, baring your soul without fear of judgment, but instead with a hunger for mercy and grace. The priest is bound by the seal of the sacrament, so that nothing you say can be spoken of outside the confessional. No priest thinks less of a sinner who repents, but rather thinks highly of a person who simply trusts in God’s mercy.

Finally, take to heart the counsel of the priest and accept the penance he offers. He will invite you to express your contrition, the double-edged prayer that gives voice to sorrow for sins and the pledge of changing by God’s grace. The priest will absolve you from your sins in the name of the Church. With a lighter heart, walk out of the confessional with all your sins forgiven, a child of God whose soul is a weedless garden of delight.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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9 min read

Joy

On The Importance of Humor

Msgr. William J. King

February 2, 2023 7:00 am February 2, 2023

9 min read

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9 min read

Some years ago a noted scientific journal published an article on the geometry of humor. The author pointed out that all humor follows a certain geometric pattern, which was both…

Some years ago a noted scientific journal published an article on the geometry of humor.

The author pointed out that all humor follows a certain geometric pattern, which was both described in a mathematical formula and illustrated as a triangle. A joke, a riddle, a pun all conceptually lead a person up an incline and give the impression that the incline will continue, but with the punch line the path drops off like a cliff. In listening to or reading a joke, or in contemplating a riddle, a person’s mind begins to project where the story line is headed, but the surprise trajectory — an unexpected and rather sudden change in direction — is what causes the reaction: laughter.

Parables

There’s something sterile about describing humor in a mathematical formula, even if one might find the effort humorous in itself. Even so, it seems that the parables of Jesus follow the same geometry: presenting a scenario, leading the listener to project an ending, then suddenly delivering a punch line that surprises or shocks. Several authors have suggested that those who first heard Jesus’ parables in first-century Palestine might actually have found them humorous, in part because of the surprise endings, but mostly because of the fanciful or unusual situations Jesus depicted. The master parable teller painted a story with familiar details that may have led the hearers to look forward to a predictable ending, only to see the story’s trajectory changed to an unforeseeable conclusion.

As soon as you recognize that a joke is in the works, you know you’re no longer on safe ground. The punch line could come at any moment: a twist, a surprise, a play on words. In the telling of a joke, everything changes for a moment. Assumptions aren’t safe. The familiar becomes unfamiliar. The listeners are anxiously expecting the surprise at the end.

It’s difficult to imagine anything that comes closer to an encounter with the Jesus of the Gospel.

Humor, however, has not always been a laughing matter in the history of the Church.

Although Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us that there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh,” and although Sarah famously laughed when angelic visitors told her husband Abraham that she would bear a son within the year, most biblical references to laughter do not bring a smile to the face. When the Bible refers to laughter it is often the scornful laughter of a sinner reviling God, or — since God gets the last laugh — the response of God to such scorn.

Similarly, the Church Fathers give short shrift to laughter, seeing an incongruity between the awareness of one’s sins and the willingness to laugh. St. John Chrysostom, one of the dour Fathers, suggests that weeping is preferable to laughing in this vale of tears.

Yet the shared experience of every human is one of both weeping and laughing, of mourning and of dancing. The author of Proverbs reminds us that laughter and sadness abide together, one never far from the other. Together with the pain of separation from God, humanity’s experience of God is replete with joy: the delight of Adam discovering Eve; the unbounded glee of King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant; the happy leap of John the Baptist in the womb; heaven’s elation at one repentant sinner; and, ultimately, the words we all long to hear, “Come, share your master’s joy” in heaven, where “there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain” (Rv 21:4). A walk through the Bible shows that references to joy far outweigh the mention of sadness.

Part of God’s Love

Without disagreeing that our sins are cause for sadness and repentance, serious Christian thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Neibuhr suggested that the ability to laugh at ourselves and at the foibles of the world is both a prelude and a result of true contrition for our sins. The influential 20th-century theologian Father Karl Rahner saw laughter as a gift from God, a tutor to help us understand God’s love for us. Humor helps to keep us humble, recognizing and admitting our imperfections before God.

G.K. Chesterton, a prolific essayist and author of fiction, biography, poetry and plays, finally converted to Catholicism in 1922 after his faith grew in a lengthy germination. He valued humor as a sign of wonder, and wonder as a doorway of spirituality. No reader of Chesterton’s essays can come away without a smile and perhaps a hearty laugh. And no one can doubt his faith in God’s goodness. Another convert to Catholicism late in life, Malcolm Muggeridge, saw humor as God’s therapy and looked forward to hearing “the unmistakable sound of celestial laughter” in heaven.

Joy and laughter are part of our heritage as children of God, just as they are part of our experience as human beings. Together with weeping and sadness they frame our experience of life.

Though the Gospel writers note the tears of Jesus as He wept over Jerusalem, at the tomb of His friend Lazarus and certainly in Gethsemane’s garden, no one can doubt the joy which permeated Jesus’ public ministry. It’s impossible not to picture Jesus and His apostles as joyful at the wedding feast in Cana. Joyful feasting was a common image of the Lord in His parables.

Indeed, in His priestly prayer in John’s Gospel, the Lord is clear about His mission: “That my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete” (Jn 15:11).

Joy Is First

St. Paul reminds the Galatians that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, a sign and symptom of a life lived in the Spirit of God. He also gives us an instruction toward the end of his First Letter to the Thessalonians, a practical lesson for how to live in a world that is passing away. After urging the Christians in Thessalonica to “cheer the fainthearted” who worry unduly about the final judgment, he gives a three-part instruction for life: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks” (5:16-18).

Notice, joy is first.

The ability to find joy in all circumstances — to laugh at the vicissitudes of life knowing that God has conquered all in Christ Jesus — is indeed a sign and symptom of sanctity. The saints show us this.

St. Lawrence, deacon of the church of Rome, was arrested three days after the seizure and martyrdom of his bishop, Pope St. Sixtus. When the pagan prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence, who as a deacon was responsible for providing aid to the poor and needy, produce the hidden wealth of the Church, Lawrence asked for three days to assemble it. At the appointed hour he gathered the poorest and neediest persons from around the city and told the prefect, “This is the Church’s treasure.” The prefect saw no humor in that and ordered Lawrence be tied to an iron grill and burnt slowly over a fire. God gave Lawrence the gift of humor in the midst of his torture, such that he is said to have joked with his torturers, “Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”

The humor of Teresa of Jesus, the Spanish Carmelite reformer from Ávila, is well known. Among the quotes attributed to her is a smiling retort to God when the saintly nun was thrown off a cart into a mud puddle as she traveled to visit a monastery. Looking up from the muddy road, Teresa said to God, “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!” St. Teresa is also said to have given the following advice to a young novice who admitted falling asleep every day at prayer: “If you go to prayer and find yourself falling asleep, accept it as a gift from God. If, however, you fall asleep at prayer every day, find another time to pray.”

Indeed, it may be the deep holiness of St. Teresa that allowed her to maintain a sense of humor even in the midst of turmoil. Only one with a deep and passionate trust in God’s goodness could seek and treasure humor in the midst of travails and disappointments such as Teresa experienced. She wrote: “Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who possesses God lacks nothing: God alone suffices.” Such confidence buoys the soul and produces a light heart. It is the truest font of joy and humor for the believer.

Why is humor important? Principally because it keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. If we recognize that here on earth we have not a lasting city, it’s perhaps best to laugh at the incongruities while joyfully accepting God’s grace to act as agents of His redemption. In other words, perhaps a believer’s best attitude in life is to change what we can change and laugh at what we cannot, completely confident that God has already bested whatever tries to keep us from joy.

Msgr. William King is a priest for the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Pope Francis on Joy

“Instead of imposing new obligations, [Christians] should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet.”

“Be courageous in suffering and remember that after the Lord will come; after, joy will come, after the dark comes the sun. May the Lord give us all this joy in hope.”

“Christianity spreads through the joy of disciples who know that they are loved and saved.”

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4 min read

Lent

Giving Something Up?

Msgr. William J. King

January 30, 2023 7:00 am January 30, 2023

4 min read

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4 min read

Lent is considered a “penitential time” within the Church. Penitential days are every Friday of the year and the entire season of Lent (see Canon 1250 of the Code of…

Lent is considered a “penitential time” within the Church. Penitential days are every Friday of the year and the entire season of Lent (see Canon 1250 of the Code of Canon Law). We observe Fridays as days of penance in memory of the passion and death of the Lord — the act of our salvation. The U.S. bishops have strongly urged that Catholics abstain from eating meat on every Friday of the year, along with prayer and self-denial, for the sake of world peace (see the 1983 pastoral statement “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response”). The liturgical season of Lent signifies our path of conversion and promotes our continuing walk along that path. The three traditional pillars of Lenten discipline — prayer, fasting, almsgiving — help to reinforce our conversion to Christ and our dependence on God’s grace.

Each of the three touches upon an element of life that is important to us as human beings: our use of time, our use of material resources, and our attention to our own selves and needs. The disciplines of Lent help us to remember that all of these things have their origin in God’s gracious love, and all are given to us for service to that love.

The Church obligates Catholics to certain minimal requirements during Lent as a means of guiding us along the path of conversion. People 14 years of age or older are bound to abstain from meat on all Fridays of Lent, and those from ages 18 to 59 are bound to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Fasting means partaking in no more than one full meal and two light meals as needed to maintain health or strength. Consumption of solid foods between meals is prohibited, but liquids may be consumed at any time (see the Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, on fast and abstinence, by Pope Paul VI). Of course, individuals with medical conditions prohibiting these dietary restrictions are not bound by them, but are asked to substitute other penitential practices. There is no Church requirement to “give up” anything other than what is described as fast and abstinence, but it has become part of the culture of Lent for many Catholics.

In “giving up” something during Lent, whether that something is food or drink, a form of entertainment or something else pleasurable to us, we turn away from our selfishness and recognize that God alone will ultimately satisfy our needs and wants and cravings. For the briefest of time — just 40 days — we acknowledge that we do not and cannot fully provide for ourselves. Everything comes from God.

Along with Jesus in the desert, we acknowledge in the face of temptation that we do not “live by bread alone, / but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). As Jesus found strength and virtue in facing temptation in the desert, so the disciplines of Lent aid us in strengthening our will and our ability to say no to sin.

St. Augustine famously prayed, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (“Confessions”). By giving up something during Lent we face our inner restlessness by removing the things or actions we often use to cover up our neediness and give us comfort. We acknowledge that only God will ultimately satisfy us in both body and soul, and at least for 40 days we can place our hope in God alone, trusting that our wants and dreams will be fulfilled in heaven by the providence of God.

At the end of our lives we will leave the gifts of time, treasure and our bodies in the grave until the Resurrection. Lent affords us the opportunity and challenge to live now as children of our heavenly Father, reliant on His grace and providence and eager to find our hopes fulfilled in God alone.

Msgr. William J. King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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9 min read

Sin

Concupiscence: Our Inclination To Sin

Msgr. William J. King

January 29, 2023 7:07 am January 29, 2023

9 min read

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9 min read

The mechanic at the repair shop explained to the frustrated vehicle owner that the wheels of his car were out of alignment. The mechanic asked if the driver had recently…

The mechanic at the repair shop explained to the frustrated vehicle owner that the wheels of his car were out of alignment.

The mechanic asked if the driver had recently driven through a pothole or perhaps had hit a curb. He explained that this could be sufficient to have forced the wheels out of alignment. All the driver knew was that it took a lot of work to drive straight down the highway with the car constantly pulling off center. Without constant attention and constant adjustment of the steering wheel, the car tended to drift off the road. “One big pothole can do that,” the mechanic informed the puzzled driver, “and after that, it’s almost impossible to go straight without constant correction.”

What’s true for an automobile is, in this sense, also true of the human soul.

Theologians have long attempted to explain humanity’s tendency to veer off course: one big sin (that of our first parents in the garden) and it’s almost impossible to go straight without constant correction. Keeping in mind that the New Testament word for sin is hamartia, a Greek word that literally means to miss the mark or to veer off course, we might say that after original sin it’s nearly impossible to stay on the “straight and narrow.”

Theologians call this tendency to sin “concupiscence.” The word concupiscence is defined as a strong desire, a tendency or attraction, usually arising from lust or sensual desires. It is, morally speaking, the tendency to go off course.

Concupiscence is understood as an effect of original sin that remains after baptism. The waters of baptism cleanse us of original sin itself, but concupiscence remains as a lingering effect. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death … as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence” (No. 1264, emphasis in original).

To use another analogy, medical research cautions that a severe sunburn early in life will render a person more susceptible to dangerous skin cancer throughout life. That early sunburn may heal fairly quickly, but its effects last through life, increasing vulnerability to cancer. Precautions must be taken to shield the skin from the damaging effects of the sun’s radiation, since there is a greater susceptibility to skin damage after that major sunburn.

Original Sin

Original sin — passed down through the generations of humanity — brought to our first parents the alienation from paradise, and with it all the effects of mortality: pain, illness, suffering, aging, death and decay.

Original sin caused a rupture, or break, in the harmony between body and soul that was part of God’s creation of man. In the original innocence of our first parents, there was perfect harmony: harmony with God, harmony with the surrounding world, harmony with one’s self. The decision to break away from God’s will also broke the original harmony in creation, and there has been tension ever since.

The first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis reveal the growth of tension and discord: starting with the perfect harmony of the garden, through the first sin, then the sin of brother against brother, and it ends with the tower of Babel — a point in human history where no two persons could understand each other.

In the original innocence of our human nature, there was perfect harmony between body and soul. Since death entered the world as a consequence of sin, the separation of the soul from the body at death is a consequence of original sin. We profess our belief in the resurrection of the body, at which time soul and body will be restored to the perfect harmony that existed before original sin. Concupiscence is a symptom of the disharmony between soul and body, since the body and its appetites, or desires, wants to pull us a certain way, and the soul wants to cling to the higher things of God and grace.

In heaven, the harmony between body and soul will be restored, as will the harmony with God and the world around us. Sin will be no more.

The Sacrament of Baptism washes away original sin, yet there remain the effects of original sin. One of them is an innate tendency to be vulnerable to temptation, to be inclined to sin, to be predisposed to desires that do no honor to the grace of God.

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) taught that concupiscence “comes from sin and induces to sin.” Yet, concupiscence is not itself sin. Concupiscence makes us vulnerable to sin, but susceptibility to temptation is not sin. How we act in response to the temptation determines the rightness or wrongness — the sin. With constant attention, or more accurately with the acceptance of God’s constant outpouring of grace, the human person can be unaffected by this tendency to drift off course.

A driver who is attentive to the path ahead can constantly adjust for a misalignment in the car’s front end, keeping the car moving toward the goal of the driver. Indeed, the Council of Trent noted that concupiscence “cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ” (Catechism, No. 1264). It is prevenient grace that precedes our thoughts and actions, waiting for us when we are tempted by concupiscence to go off course. By availing ourselves of that grace, we are enabled by God to resist the tendency to sin and instead to stay on the morally proper course.

How Do We Respond?

The story is told of the priest who asked a man in the confessional, “My son, do you entertain evil thoughts?” The penitent quickly responded, “Oh no, Father, they entertain me!” It is concupiscence that makes our minds more vulnerable to thoughts that incline us to sin and to sinful actions, but neither concupiscence nor those thoughts are sinful in themselves. The morality is determined by what we do in response: to beg God’s grace to turn away from thoughts of sin is meritorious, but to offer no resistance and give in to immoral or disordered acts is the very definition of sin itself. Concupiscence corrupts the will to the point that we are tempted to conclude that something less than God will ultimately satisfy.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught clearly that concupiscence is a consequence of original sin. Once human beings made the decision to be unbound from the will of God, the harmony within human nature also became unbound.

Desires and appetites were no longer in harmony with the intellect or reason, and the two — desire and reason — fought against one another.

St. Paul understood this, and described it in his Letter to the Romans: “I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (7:23). As a result, St. Paul could write, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Rom 7:19). Even Jesus observed concupiscence in action when He said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41; see also Mk 14:38).

The prophets of the Old Testament understood this interior tension. Jeremiah asked the piercing question, “More tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). Jeremiah understood human nature and spoke often of the stubbornness of their evil hearts (see 3:17 and many other passages), “evil thoughts” (4:14, RSV), and humanity’s “stubborn and rebellious heart” (5:23, RSV).

The psalms of David offer lament for sins committed as well as penetrating insight into the lived dichotomy between weakness and grace, the lusts of the flesh and the longing for holiness. “Sin directs the heart of the wicked man; his eyes are closed to the fear of God” (Ps 36:2). In a plaintive cry for God’s mercy, the psalmist acknowledges the dueling desires within him, and acknowledges, “I have been mortally afflicted since youth” (Ps 88:16).

Staying on Course

From the earliest reflection on life lived in relationship to God — the Book of Genesis — to the present day, the tension between good and evil is well-known. Whether presented as a life or death struggle in the psalms, or a comedic conversation with an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, it is innately understood that we all experience concupiscence on a daily basis.

Have you noticed that the temptation to eat meat seems to be the strongest on a Friday in Lent?

That’s concupiscence at work, the body at war against the soul, each pulling in a different direction. Whether we entertain evil thoughts or they entertain us, that’s also concupiscence at work: the desires of the flesh are not in harmony with the desires of the soul.

While we cannot vanquish concupiscence in this life, we can open our lives to the grace of God that provides the strength to resist the weakness of our fallen nature.

Despite the choice of our first parents to “throw off the yoke of God’s will,” as St. Thomas Aquinas described it, we can today choose to take upon ourselves a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light (see Mt 11:30). The grace of God that goes before us and anticipates our weakness — prevenient grace — is ours if we but open ourselves to it when concupiscence tempts us off course.

Modern highways help drivers stay on course with painted lines and with a rumble strip when they veer out of the lane. In the moral life, prevenient grace and our free will to do what is right perform for us the same function, and if we veer off course, the rumble of conscience will gently prod us back.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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9 min read

The Church

Too Many Rules In Catholicism?

Msgr. William J. King

January 8, 2023 1:01 pm January 8, 2023

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9 min read

In truth, there are not that many rules at all in the Church, when we consider that we are a society of over a billion members globally, with a history…

In truth, there are not that many rules at all in the Church, when we consider that we are a society of over a billion members globally, with a history spanning several thousand years (if we include our pre-Christian biblical roots and traditions).

In a sense, the question is like asking why a car’s GPS system keeps telling the driver when to turn right or left: Is it providing guidance or giving a rule?

Pope John Paul II reminded us when he promulgated the Church’s current Code of Canon Law in 1983 that the Old and New Testaments form the first source of law for the Church. Turning first to the Bible, then, let’s consider what St. Paul taught about living the message of Jesus.

In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul takes the first 11 chapters to present a well-developed theology of grace and redemption, culminating in the gift of salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus, through the mercy of our heavenly Father. Then, Paul presents a challenge: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). The challenge is to allow our faith to change our behavior: since God has done so much for us, we should respond by conforming our behaviors to the higher standard of God’s grace.

Mercy and Grace

If we understand the depths of God’s mercy and grace, we cannot but be compelled to examine our behaviors in response. In other words, we can’t go on living as unbelievers. However, this change in our external behavior arises from within, a grateful response to all that God has done and continues to do for us. It is a change motivated by loving God and understanding His loving will for our lives. It is not a change mandated by law, but by love.

This was also the message of Pope John Paul in giving us the current Code of Canon Law. “The Code is in no way intended as a substitute for faith, grace, charisms and especially charity in the life of the Church and of the faithful,” he said.

Jesus commissioned the Church to go into the world and teach, not to legislate. For all of the Christian centuries, that is what the Church has done. The teaching of the Church, flowing from Divine Revelation in the Bible and through the Holy Spirit in the tradition of the Church, leads to the development of doctrine and dogma.

At the same time, as the Church has grown and encountered new questions, it has dealt with questions of Church organization and discipline. This led to the development of law in the Church. We call this canon law, from the Greek word for a measuring rod. Canon law is always a servant of theology, however, and as the final canon of the Code of Canon Law reminds us, the salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church.

Doctrine and Law

There is a difference between doctrine and law. They call for two different responses. In the end, though, they should both have an influence on how we live our lives.

Doctrine, or Church teaching, helps us understand the meaning of the Gospel and the action of God in our daily lives. Doctrine may be purely theological — that is, focused on the mysteries of God such as the Divine Trinity, or the nature of Christ (Christology), or Divine Revelation. Doctrine may also deal with the practical application of the Gospel to daily life, as in moral theology, or the social doctrine of the Church. It may deal with the nexus between God and humanity, as in sacramental theology, or divine worship, or the nature of the Church (ecclesiology).

The Church asks us as Catholics, first of all, to understand doctrine. We’re asked to inform our minds by reading the doctrinal statements of the magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church. Only then, after we have read and understood the teaching, does the Church next ask us to assent to the teaching intellectually. This is the basis of a properly formed conscience: knowing, understanding and assenting with our minds to the teaching of the Church. Next follows the impact of that teaching in our lives — namely, putting it into practice.

A Catholic employer who understands and assents to the long history of Catholic social doctrine would want to respect the dignity of workers and provide a decent salary and working conditions. However, there is no “rule” that specifies exactly how to do this. Canon 222.2 says, generally, that the Christian faithful are “obliged to promote social justice,” and Canon 1286 obliges many Church employers “to pay a just and honest wage,” but these general provisions flow from the broader history of social teaching.

Similarly, a lengthy history of doctrine on responsible human sexuality and the gift of life asks Catholics to understand and give assent to the fact that artificial contraception is incompatible with Christian morality. This doctrine is repeated in many teachings of the Church, but scour the Church’s legislative texts and one discovers that there is no law which explicitly proscribes artificial birth control (except for the result of abortifacients). The clarity and persuasiveness of the doctrine should lead us to understand the teaching and to choose to put it into practice in our lives, in an evolution from mind to conscience to action. Immoral does not mean illegal since the role of law in the Church is very narrow compared to the broader roles of doctrine and conscience.

Law is different. Law does not ask that we first understand it and then give assent to it. Law asks instead that we obey first and then look for the values and teachings behind the law. The Ten Commandments, for instance, are law, not doctrine. However, it helps us as Christians to try to understand why avoiding these 10 behaviors is important to God. What is the history behind these commandments? What is their context in the Bible? That kind of questioning is also helpful in understanding some of the disciplinary norms and practices of the Church. Why are these behaviors so important to my spiritual or religious growth that they are mandatory?

Jesus himself did not avoid giving His disciples guidance on how to live their lives, whether dealing with paying taxes or forgiving others. But Jesus put law in its proper context for His followers: “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love” (Jn 15:10).

The Church is not free to ignore the teaching of Jesus in the Bible, and certainly not free to ignore the rules that He gives us. His teaching on divorce and remarriage often causes people to express concern about the “rules” of the Church: “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32). However, this is a rule of Jesus and cannot be ignored.

Doctrine exists to help guide our understanding of God, the Church and the life of grace. Both doctrine and law are given to us by the Church not as roadblocks or hindrances in our life, but as helps to us in our spiritual journey. They are actions to do (the obligation of Sunday Mass) or things to avoid (desecration of the Holy Eucharist) so that we can arrive more easily at our spiritual end — namely, the salvation of our souls.

If I ignore my car’s GPS direction to turn right at the next corner, it takes a moment to recalculate how I can get back on track. Depending on the route, I might have to make a detour or U-turn. In the same way, if I ignore a rule of the Church I can recalculate how to get back on track in my religious or spiritual journey, and if need be go to confession when I’ve sinned.

It is important when we encounter a “rule” in the Church to ask first if it is really a rule at all. Perhaps it is instead a practical application of a moral or theological doctrine. Either way, we ought to try and understand the teaching and reasons for it before questioning a “rule” of the Church.

The Issue of Penalties

There is another important point to keep in mind when we consider law in the Church. Very few rules carry a penalty. Only those few actions that injure the life of the Church or seriously imperil the soul of the offender carry a penalty. For instance, a completed abortion carries the penalty of excommunication from the Church. A priest’s direct violations of the seal of confession or the sexual abuse of minors are other examples of acts requiring severe penalties. You can see that these rules exist to protect the most important values of the Church.

Most Church “rules” don’t impose a penalty for violating them. For example, it is a spiritual and penitential practice to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. If I were to eat a hot dog on one of those days I would not be excommunicated or otherwise punished by the Church. I may have violated a rule, but the rule exists to help guide me spiritually in understanding that I can depend on God’s goodness and providence while denying myself something of this world. The sin in eating meat is not about ignoring the rule as much as ignoring the opportunity to grow in my dependence on God.

Some Catholics question why there are so many “rules” in the Church. When asked to identify a problematic rule, it is often not a “rule” at all but a matter of teaching or doctrine that is at issue.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa.

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