The Mission of Saint Matthew Catholic Church

is to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God, celebrate the Sacraments, and foster a family-friendly environment that will serve the needs of the community in the name of Jesus the Lord.

The moral pathway for the followers of Jesus

The great British intellectual, G.K. Chesterton, once said “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” In other words, there are many people who call themselves Christian. After all, it is a fairly easy thing to become baptized either as a Catholic or in any other denomination. What is difficult is to live the Christian ideal. But just what is the Christian ideal? One sure place to find it is in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as given to us in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5 through 7.

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Christian spirituality has always revolvedAlmsgiving and the practice of tithing
around the three pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Prayer’s purpose is to grow in intimacy with God through honest conversation, much as we would do with a friend. Fasting is a way of being in solidarity with those who go hungry each day, reminding us to appreciate the blessings that we have. But why give alms?

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Why does God give us freedom to choose?freedomToChoose

freedomToChoose

On a water safari in Africa, you can see how a mama hippo is surrounded by her babies which she keeps in a separate group in the river, away from a marauding male who might try to harm one of them. The mother sparrow brings worms to the nest to feed her young.

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Both instinctively know what they must do to feed and protect their young. They have no “freedom” to do otherwise. Wouldn’t it be easier to live like a hippo, or a sparrow, or any other animal? There would be no difficult choices to make, and we would perfectly live our nature. And yet that is not how God made us. God gave human beings a free will, a freedom to choose right or wrong. Why? Perhaps because an act of goodness is truly only an act of love if there is a possibility of choosing an act of un-love or of evil. An act of love is much more meaningful if it is a choice made between loving and not loving. If our children were “pre-programmed” and had no choice other than to obey us, we would be happy, perhaps. But we would never know if they truly loved us. Light only can really be seen if it shines in the darkness. Love can only truly be love if it is freely chosen over hatred or unconcern or selfishness. The morality – right or wrong – of every act, then, depends on the freedom of a person to choose. If a person is not free to choose or is made to think that she is not free to choose, then she is not held culpable (guilty) in the eyes of God. As the Catechism says: “By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.” (CCC, #1731)
- - - Fr. Jim

¿Por qué Dios nos da la libertad de elegir?

En un safari acuático en África, puedes ver cómo una mamá hipopótamo está rodeada por sus crías, a las que mantiene en un grupo separado en el río, lejos de un macho merodeador que podría intentar dañar a una de ellas. La mamá gorrión trae gusanos al nido para alimentar a sus crías. Ambos saben instintivamente lo que deben hacer para alimentar y proteger a sus crías. No tienen “libertad” para hacer lo contrario. ¿No sería más fácil vivir como un hipopótamo, un gorrión o cualquier otro animal? No habría que tomar decisiones difíciles y viviríamos perfectamente nuestra naturaleza. Y, sin embargo, no es así como Dios nos hizo. Dios le dio a los seres humanos el libre albedrío, la libertad de elegir el bien o el mal. ¿Por qué? Quizá porque un acto de bondad es verdaderamente sólo un acto de amor si existe la posibilidad de optar por un acto de desamor o de maldad. Un acto de amor es mucho más significativo si se trata de una elección entre amar y no amar. Si nuestros hijos estuvieran “preprogramados” y no tuvieran más remedio que obedecernos, tal vez seríamos felices. Pero nunca sabríamos si realmente nos amaban. La luz solo se puede ver realmente si brilla en la oscuridad. El amor sólo puede ser verdaderamente amor si se elige libremente sobre el odio, la indiferencia o el egoísmo. La moralidad, correcta o incorrecta, de cada acto, entonces, depende de la libertad de elección de una persona. Si una persona no es libre de elegir o se le hace pensar que no es libre de elegir, entonces no es culpable a los ojos de Dios. Como dice el Catecismo: “Por el libre albedrío uno moldea su propia vida. La libertad humana es una fuerza de crecimiento y madurez en la verdad y el bien; alcanza su perfección cuando se dirige hacia Dios, nuestra bienaventuranza”. (CIC, #1731)

- - - P. Jim