new church life: september/october 2015
have a responsibility and a duty to know the doctrines and stand up for them.
There is no other way to be truly free.
Now it can be quite daunting to try to remember every single teaching in
the Church. However, there are specific teachings that are core to all religion
and life that should not be taken lightly. For instance: We have clear teachings
on humility. Humility involves a heartfelt acknowledgement that of ourselves
we have no life of our own and that God alone is the Creator of all life. As soon
as anyone decides that he lives life of himself despite what he knows from the
Word, he is going against that teaching.
We have clear teachings on freedom and reason, that according to Divine
Providence 71 we are to act in freedom according to reason. Everyone is given
freedom, but this does not grant us to do or say whatever we want. The “reason”
aspect must be there in order for freedom to be truly free. When someone
abuses reason and freedom, he turns away from the Lord.
We have clear teachings on marriage, how all marriage comes from the
Lord and is the perfect union between love and wisdom, goodness and truth,
charity and faith, willing and understanding. And this union descends to the
world on a natural level with the marriage of one woman with one man as
to their souls, minds and bodies. All this makes up the “precious jewel” of
conjugial love.
Each pair (Love + Wisdom; Good + Truth; Charity + Faith; etc.) are like
perfect puzzle pieces that are meant for each other. Just as you cannot put two
identical puzzle pieces together, you cannot marry love with love, or truth with
truth, and so on. Any “union” outside of marriage goes against the Lord.
We also have clear teachings on repentance. This involves a person
examining himself and acknowledging his
evils, then asking the Lord for help so he can
effectively “go and sin no more.” Knowing
about evil from the Word but refusing to
see whether these evils might reside within
our thoughts and intentions goes against the
teachings on repentance.
These and plenty of other teachings
clearly show us the way. Let us not go against
them. The moment we try to make exception
or say that a particular kind of evil is actually
okay becomes the first step to a steady decline
within the individual and eventually in society
at large. Let us be reminded from Divine
Providence 81 of the danger of allowing certain
evils:
Heavenly freedom
is basically freedom
from the influence
and torments of
hell. And we can get
heavenly freedom
because we are all
given freedom in
the first place.
512