Rendering Unto God
Our Lord gives us two commandments in today’s Gospel. Not the famous “Love God and Love Thy Neighbor” commandments, but two other distinct duties we must fulfill towards God and Caesar, or in other words, towards Church and State. As our Lord pointed out, all laws depend on the first two commandments to love God and neighbor, and these other laws about Church and State are no exception. The Church is, after all, the Mystical Body of Christ, and so our duties towards her are on a par with our duty of loving God himself. Similarly, the State can be identified as the natural society of our neighbors, where We the People supposedly have the authority and powers of Caesar. Thus, we love our neighbor by loving the State which represents the totality of our fellow-citizens, our neighbors. Our bulletin today focuses on one of those civic duties towards the State, one by which we’re able to love our neighbor as ourselves, so we’re left now with a brief examination of what we owe to the Church and thus to God himself.
It was our Lord himself who told us how to love God. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments, he said. We can look at any of the laws he gave us, most importantly the Ten Commandments, and see that, in our obedience to them, we are obeying the laws of God and thereby showing our love for him. The Church has given us some extra laws, those we call the Six Precepts of the Church, and today, we can take a quick look at these and by doing so, understand how we may render unto the Church the same obedience that God requires of us, the same willingness to place God’s will above our own. We are bound under pain of sin, in most cases mortal sin, to observe these six precepts.
The first precept of the Church is to hear Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. To miss Mass on these days without reasonable cause is to imperil one’s soul. So we should ask ourselves how sick or contagious or exhausted we are, whether our obligation to work on these days overrides this precept, and if so whether there is a Mass at another truly Catholic Church at a different time. Obligations to children’s parties and sports’ teams, are not sufficient. They also give scandal to the children as they appear to make a party or game more important than the Mass and their obligations to God. Vacations should be planned, if possible, after making sure your destination has a Mass it would be okay to attend. This first precept also includes the obligation to avoid unnecessary servile work, shopping, and any other time-consuming activity that prevents us from sanctifying the Sunday. Recreational pursuits are fine, providing they do not become obstacles to our attendance at Mass.
The second precept is that of fasting and abstaining from meat on the days appointed. We provide the full rules of fasting and abstinence in our calendar, along with reminders on each day they apply. It was understood in the days before Vatican II that it would be a mortal sin to deliberately eat meat on a Friday, for example, if there were no proportionate reason for doing so, and we should keep to these traditional rules today, in spite of their relaxation by the Church of Vatican II.
Thirdly, we are commanded to go to confession at least once a year. Again, this is binding under pain of mortal sin, so let’s make that effort to receive this sacrament not only according to this bare minimum of once a year, but regularly and at least often enough to allow us to receive Communion every Sunday.
The fourth precept follows naturally from this, and is commonly known as Easter Duty. It is the commandment to receive Holy Communion at least once a year, and failure to do so would be mortally sinful, a deliberate negligence of our spiritual salvation. The starting day for Easter Duty is the first Sunday in Lent and the last day is Trinity Sunday.
Our fifth precept is to support our church and its pastors. Priests have financial obligations like anyone else, and receive the same extortionate bills as you do every week. Unlike most of you, however, they do not receive a salary and depend on the kindness and generosity of their parishioners to support them. Likewise, the church building itself has many financial needs that must be met. Here at St. Margaret Mary’s we have to pay rent, electric and heating bills, we need to buy and maintain cleaning equipment. Consumable items like paper towels, hand soap and so on must be maintained, as well as consumable items for the Mass itself, such as altar wine and hosts, candles, flowers and so on. Your weekly contribution is the only income we have and we are very grateful to you all for your generosity in ensuring we can keep things going.
Finally, the sixth precept commands us to observe the Church’s rules governing the Sacrament of Matrimony. There are quite a few, but the main ones are to make sure we marry within the Church (preferably to another traditional Catholic) and by a traditional Catholic priest. To get married by a non-Catholic minister or Justice of the Peace is considered not only invalid but would also incur excommunication, one that can be lifted only by the bishop of the diocese. Nor are we permitted to marry within certain degrees of kindred, or to a person who is unbaptized. If in doubt, consult your pastor or confessor if you are considering marriage. He will help you discover what options are available to you, depending on the impediment. Annulments were extremely rare in the past, only a few dozen or so worldwide per year. Today, we have no resource to the Church to apply for or receive an annulment, so we must accept the probability that it will not be an option for us. Civil divorce is not acceptable, other than for the civil benefits it might afford. It can never be recognized as a path to remarriage, even though the state has no problem with it. Other sins against the Sacrament of Matrimony include marriage during the so-called closed times of Advent and Lent, artificial means of preventing conception, and of course adultery which coincides with the Sixth of the Ten Commandments.
Rendering unto God is something our Lord himself commands. Our Six Precepts give us the opportunity to show our love for God and should therefore be held in high esteem. Life is full of many other opportunities and we should take advantage of anything that comes our way to do God’s will and not our own. To refuse them would usually not be sinful, just one of our multiple imperfections, but in the case of specific precepts of the Church, we would be jeopardizing our immortal soul to defy them. Let’s take our responsibilities seriously and render everything to God of the things that are God’s.