One of the beautiful aspects of the Catholic faith is the collection of written prayers that many of us come to memorize from constant recitation. The effectiveness of written and memorized prayers compared to free-flowing prayer is that we know exactly the message we are giving to God. At the same time, it unites us as a community of believers when we recite it in unison. Something like the Nicene Creed recited at Mass by the whole congregation ensures that we are gathered for one common purpose (to worship God as His Church) and that we believe in one common creed with no room for error. 

There is a downside to recited prayers, however. When we repeat these prayers often out of sincerity, it allows us to memorize the words; but if we begin to recite the prayers out of memory and not out of sincerity, our faith in those words begin to lose strength. The Israelites had a prayer that they made sure each individual memorized and recited often called the Shema: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These are powerful words (and the greatest Commandment), but despite reciting them multiple times a day, writing them everywhere they could see, and even wearing them, many Israelites would neglect them in their own lives. Through sin and doubt, there was room left in one’s heart that was not completely filled with love for God.

Jesus taught us how to pray by giving us the Our Father. We pray it often, either in community or alone. However, how often do we gloss over the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? How often do we forget the words, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever”? These words are a statement of faith. Faith allows us to do great things, but it requires a constant commitment and a constant focus on our mission given to us by God. Jesus would get frustrated with his disciples when they lacked faith, because it meant their mission of doing his work would be done poorly. We are Christ’s disciples today and we have the same mission. We need faith in order to do his mission well. The first step towards ensuring we are faithful is praying thoughtfully and carefully.

Since society has become so intricate and complex over time, humans have been able to institute methods that allow us to live with each other in the best possible way. When humans come together to live in community, disagreements and conflicts will always naturally arise. It becomes a lot more significant when it is on a large scale in which many people are affected by it. The way we fix or prevent these conflicts from inflicting serious damage in the future is to come together at a time of peace and agreement and to set in place a plan for when those conflicts arise. In the modern age, this usually takes the form of a legally-binding contract. But humans are capable of something far more meaningful than simply legal protections against each other; how often do we hear of individuals entering a covenant with each other?

A covenant is not a contract. It is a solemn vow that attaches with it serious promises, and it cannot be broken. The Catholic Church upholds the sacrament of marriage as a covenant - it is incredibly solemn, and it binds you to your spouse until death. The purpose of such a serious foundation to the sacrament of Marriage is that it is a relationship built on sacrifice for the good of the community; it is not meant to be a “next step” in a relationship, but a solemn vow in which you will exercise the most complete form of love for another person in order that the community may flourish as a result. Marriage is sacrificial, but mutually beneficial. It is no surprise then, that even Scripture frames our relationship with God as one like a marriage. It began with the covenant that He established with the Jews, in which He marked them as “peculiarly His own”. The Covenant was not simply a coming together of two parties, because there were stipulations attached. Should the Jews follow the Law given to them directly by God, the Creator of the Universe would bestow on them a unique favor among all nations. However, it was required of them that they follow the Law with their whole heart and their whole soul.

In Christ, God decided that it was time for the world to be invited into this unique relationship with Him. But just as the Jews were expected to uphold their terms of the covenant, we are now expected to live by that same Law; in fact, Christ honed this Law to be more demanding, in order that we may more fully express just how much we desire to be in this unique relationship with God. It is not enough to merely complete the behavior that is expected of us as if we are checking off boxes. It requires us to follow this covenant with our whole heart (an active desire to participate in this covenant) and our whole soul (actively listening to our innermost being and our natural tendency to seek after God). A life dedicated to God, just as it is in married life, is a life of sacrifice. But it makes our lives better and it makes the lives of all those around us better if we authentically uphold this covenant. In return, God marks us as peculiarly His own.

God’s Law is not just meant for those who choose to follow him. During Lent, the Catholic Church asks her followers to adhere to certain observances that emphasize an increase in prayer, fasting, and charity. A rule that all Catholics are familiar with, such as abstaining from meat on Fridays, would not be expected to be adhered to by all people regardless of their faith background. But if we truly believe that all human beings are created by God and therefore are subject to His power and authority, shouldn’t following His Law be expected of every person? The truth is that the observances of the Church are meant to refine our life in God. They are minimal acts of obedience, but they are not the bare minimum. When we strip human nature down to its essential state, we recognize that humans are expected to follow God’s Law because recognizing it is written into our very being.

Moses presents two options for the Israelites: follow the laws laid out by God that were handed down to Moses to share to his people, or turn away from the law and perish bodily and spiritually. Those laws, which we recognize as the Ten Commandments, were handed down specifically for the Israelites to follow. But when we really study the core of each one of these laws, we recognize that these are not like the observances of refinement we follow today from the Church. These instead are the bare minimum of human behavior. These laws are the entirety of the natural law that we all inherently recognize because it is part of our innermost being. Recognizing and loving our creator is the first and most essential of these laws. Observe what He asks of you. Honor those who authentically model His authority domestically and communally. Preserve life by recognizing the dignity of those just like you. Value people for who they are, not for what they can offer you. Respect the fruits of others’ labor, and use it as a motivation to improve your own labor habits. Live in truth and defend the truth. These are obviously not meant for one single group of people; these are the foundational laws of any community that expects to survive.

When we choose to diverge from the observances that are meant to refine our life, we open ourselves up to the possibility of straying further away from what God calls us to be. When we choose to diverge from the foundational laws of human nature, we cause irreparable damage to our souls that can only be mitigated by the saving power of Christ. Christ offered himself up for us specifically because we have consistently rejected what makes our human nature so beautiful. God’s Law is not restricting; it frees us to express our human nature to its fullest extent. Do we want to do the bare minimum for what it means to be a proper human being? Then we must follow God’s Law. Do we want to try to do more than the bare minimum? Then we must refine our life choices. Do we want to express to God that we are completely giving our lives for Him and His will? Then we must take up our crosses daily and follow Christ.

Throughout the world, biological life seems to be seeking out preservation first and foremost. In plants, growth is dependent on how the plants can maneuver towards rich soil and a prime position under the sun. In animals, every waking moment is either spent conserving and building up energy through food, or trying to live longer in the form of offspring. In our most animalistic expressions, humans are essentially no different: we try to conserve energy, we try to build up energy in what we put into our bodies, and we prioritize having offspring. However, we are so much more than the animals around us precisely because we do not spend our existence trying to survive. Through our intellect and through harmoniously living with one another, we have developed a powerful weapon against the prison of mere survival - leisure. Leisure is how we find the meaning of life, how we find God, how we overcome the simple animalistic urges and live according to our human potential.

Life feeds on life, and life will stop at nothing to preserve itself, even if it means ending life elsewhere. Biology can seem cruel to us human beings, but that is only because we are called to be so much more. The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen said, “death, though natural to the plants and animals, has the peculiar added quality of being penal in the case of man.” This is an interesting perspective: we seem to justify our descent into the realm of the dying by claiming that it is natural since the plants and other animals share in it and did so even before humans existed. But we were called for so much more when we were created; in Genesis, Adam simply could not be satisfied with the company of the animals that already existed because he sought after being built up through the company of one like him, one with the same reason and the same intellect, one who could understand the unique relationship he had with his Creator. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, death would not have been introduced into the world for human beings. How is this possible? We only need to look at the animals to understand this - animals, just like plants, are part of this world. They live, then give themselves back over to the earth so that the next generation of life can live off of them; therefore, death is part of their nature, not a punishment. Humans are clearly different; death is a result of sin, an abasement of ourselves, stripping us down to only our most basic earthly qualities and neglecting the divine intellect with which we were instilled. Man was given dominion over the earth. We were meant to care for the plants and animals, but they ultimately were willing to give themselves back to the earth according to their nature for us.

There is only one cure for death. For all the efforts that humans try to prolong life, only one thing has proven to be eternal: that which is in total conformity to the nature of the Divine. Jesus instructed us with pleading in his heart that we must “be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” As impossible as this might seem, it was exactly what we were created to be. Now that sin and temptation exist to reduce us to mere animals, we have to descend down into the sufferings of this world, just as Christ did, to rediscover immortality. What we will find is that immortality is not a prize of perfected preservation tactics; it is the natural fruit of pure love, of living for others, of being preserved by knowing God and living for others. If we want to act as animals, we will live and die as animals, desperately seeking selfish self-preservation. If we want to be like God, we must do what God does - we must love, and live for others.