Day 319: Summary of the Seventh Commandment (2450-2463)

• It’s Day 319!!

• MCNUGGET DAY!!

• Why do we read them?

• There is something pedagogically effective about it

• If you can’t summarize what you just said in one sentence, then you probably don’t even know what it was you were trying to communicate

• Hopefully our appreciation for MCNUGGET DAY has grown over the last 319 days

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing us all the way through this Catechism in a Year to this day. And I thank you for bringing us through life to this day. Lord God, we ask that you please continue. Continue to challenge us. Continue to convict our hearts where our hearts are not like yours, where we don’t love what you love, where, how, when we don’t see the way you see, when we don’t act the way you are calling us, and you have created and redeemed us to act, we ask that you please send your Holy Spirit to come and meet us in this moment. Send your Holy Spirit to come and continue to guide us, to continue to convict and console us as we are reminded of your high call, the high call of the disciple when it comes to the use of goods. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• This summary makes it absolutely clear what we are called to do

• We do not take other people’s property

• There is a right to private property

• The universal destination of goods

• The resources of this world are meant to meet the needs of this world

• If that is the case, then we might need to have our lens reshaped

• When we did Bible in a Year, it gave us a Biblical worldview

• This is what Catechism in a Year is doing as well

• It is giving us a Scriptural and Catholic worldview, which is meant to be the worldview of God Himself

• How does God look at the world?

• How does God look at stuff?

• How does God look at labor?

• How does God look at Creation?

• How does God look at need?

• How does God look at the poor?

• We have a right to private property because we have dignity

• We have a right not to have that property stolen

• If that property is stolen, then you have a right to reparation and restitution of stolen goods

• If you steal someone else’s stuff, you have a duty to give them reparation or give them back their stuff

• Human beings, with their dignity, may never be enslaved or treated like merchandise

• Human beings are always meant to be loved

• Things are meant to be used

• It is never the other way around

• We are meant to treat animals with kindness

• We can have just use of animals provided that we remember that we are stewards

• By their very existence, animals bless and glorify God

• Paragraph 2458 says, “The Church makes a judgment about economic and social matters when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it. She is concerned with the temporal common good of men because they are ordered to the sovereign God, their ultimate end.”

• How we live this life matters for Eternity

• If people are being objectified and trodden upon…

• If people are not being lifted up and not treated as individuals made in God’s image…

• Then the Church will weigh in

• If those economic systems are unjust, the Church will weigh in

• Because that has to do with the dignity of the rights of the human person and the salvation of souls

• Paragraph 2459 says, “Man is himself the author, center, and goal of all economic and social life. The decisive point of the social question is that goods created by God for everyone should in fact reach everyone in accordance with justice and with the help of charity.”

• All labor has value and is a gift

• Jesus worked with His hands for years as a carpenter

• The Greek word that is used in Scripture for how Jesus and Joseph made their living is “TEKTON”

• It can mean “craftsman”

• It also simply means “laborer”

• It could mean someone who works in wood or someone who works in stone

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about a book written by Fr. Benedict Groeschel that is about Joseph…

• Jesus and Joseph carried rocks all day

• Paragraph 2460 says, “The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and beneficiary. By means of his labor man participates in the work of creation. Work united to Christ can be redemptive.”

• There is no such thing as work that is beneath you

• Before God Himself preached and healed and saved the world, He worked as a tekton, carpenter, mason, and a guy who carried rocks

• God Himself has sanctified all labor

• God has a preferential option for those who are the weakest and most vulnerable among us

• God has a preferential option for the poor

• Paragraph 2463 says, “How can we not recognize Lazarus, the hungry beggar in the parable (cf. Lk 17:19-31), in the multitude of human beings without bread, a roof or a place to stay? How can we fail to hear Jesus: ‘As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me’ (Mt 25:45)?”

• Lazarus was ignored by the rich man

• Lazarus ended up in a place of peace in Abraham’s bosom

• The rich man was in a place of torment because he saw Lazarus and ignored him

• Who are the people around me who are in need?

• I don’t want to ignore Jesus

• I don’t want to see Jesus in “the distressing disguise of the poor” (Mother Teresa) and just walk by him

• If that’s Jesus, I don’t want to miss him

• So what do we do?

• What do we do when we see the Lord in the distressing disguise of the poor?

• Do we stop every time we see a person on the side of the road?

• Do we stop every time and give something to someone every time they ask for it?

• If this was Jesus asking me, what would I say?

• The challenge is to see Him in the least of these

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…