On a hot day in the middle of the Sinai Desert, a man by the name of Moses climbed a mountain to commune with God: and in the midst of thunder, lightning and wind. He shuddered as the hand of God carved out the Ten Commandments on the side of the mountain. As he descended that mountain, the Commandments he had just received were being broken. And Jesus said: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Where is your heart?
From the time of Moses, through the age of the Old Testament prophets, and the public ministry of Jesus up to this very moment, there are broken hearts, broken relationships and broken Commandments!
We have not learned from the people of the Old Testament. We have not learned from the failure of the people of Jesus’ day to listen to Him. We have not learned from the history of the Church that the Commandments of God are to be obeyed!
The Commandments of God are part of our faith. The commandments bind us as they bound the people of Israel and they bind all men and women of every Faith of every century and of every nation. “Hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live. You shall not add to what I have commanded you nor subtract from it.”
The official stance of our culture and our government is to separate God from life outside of the confines of our church buildings: We do not want to hear God’s law. We do not want to be bound by God’s law. We do not want to obey God’s law. Nevertheless, the commandments are still there as a reminder of what we owe to God; what we must give to God; of what God in his own right demands of us!
From the first moment when Adam and Eve listened to the prompting
of Satan in the Garden of Eden; throughout the days when the Old Testament Prophets of God were murdered in the streets of Israel. Through the day on which the Roman soldiers dragged the scourged Lord through the streets of Jerusalem to the hill of Calvary. Through the indifference shown to God and to His Church today. The world is broken by sin!
We as individuals and as a nation, often stand in defiance of God’s law. We often scoff at the Ten Commandments as we worship gods of our own making. Often the God of alcohol, or the God of sports, or the God of fashion, or the God of money and position takes preference to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the one true God who thundered from Mount Sinai: “I am the Lord thy God! Thou shalt not have strange gods before me!”
We mock the name of God or of His Blessed Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by our jokes, our flippant use of God’s name, by our cursing rather than praising, by our desire to be like everybody else; and we drag the holy name of God through the gutters of the earth.
Most of us would never miss a Sunday afternoon football game on the TV or a golf match or the chance for an hour visit with a good friend, but sometimes, we don’t even think twice about missing the Sacrifice of the Mass on Sunday or a Holy Day; well, we didn’t have to go to Mass during covid! Our priorities can get tainted by the darkness of the Evil One.
And Jesus said: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you.” We are losing our reverence for the aged. When people get to be a bother to us, they are often whisked off to a nursing home or they are ignored by the very children they gave life to; and God said: “Honor your father and your mother.”
We no longer have respect for life as millions of Americans have been exterminated by abortion. We no longer have respect for life as State Legislatures debate bills that recommend the elimination of the terminally ill, the socially unacceptable, and the aged.
Our entertainment industry, whether it be the television networks, the Hollywood movie industry, or the internet – is filled with seduction and the deliberate intention of dismantling our moral values: anything goes – nothing is wrong – just don’t get caught.
Stealing has become one of the white-collar crimes that has become acceptable in many circles of the business world. We lie and gossip and destroy the good name of another and think nothing of it.
We get caught up in jealousy: over things that are not important, over things from the past, and we miss the present moments of our lives to love and enjoy one another.
We get all kinds of ideas about the beautiful woman or the handsome man down the street, and we are filled with lust and greed. Or we hate the man next door: because his house is bigger, or better, or because his car is newer, or because he makes more money than we do. And God says; “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife or goods”.
If we examine our consciences, we just might discover that some of our attitudes, our deeds, our desires fall under one or another of these Commandments. We may discover that there are areas in our lives that need to change. We might even discover that we could be included with the Scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus spoke about in today’s gospel when He quoted the prophet Isaiah: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.”
Do WE?
Before Moses died in the desert wilderness, he spoke these words to his people and us: “Seek the Lord that you may live! Take to heart all of the commandments which God has given to you, and which you must impress upon your children. These commandments are not trivial matters – they are the means of your very lives.”