What We Owe God
one
Justice is the virtue in which we give to God and others what we owe them.
The first three Commandments delineate what we owe God; the next seven, what we owe others. The first three:
1. You shall have no other gods before me
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain
3. Keep the sabbath day holy
What Do We Owe God? Everything!
God created us from nothing
· He holds us in existence,
· He provides for our smallest needs,
· He became man, suffered and died to give us eternal life
· In return - we owe Him everything
Giving God what we owe Him is an aspect of Justice called - the virtue of Religion
Some people, however say: “I am not a religious person”
· I want respond - Oh, so you created yourself; you hold yourself in existence; you can save yourself from everlasting death – wow – I’m glad to have met such a god as you.
· But I don’t say it…
We can never attain a level of pure justice with God because we can never perfectly repay this enormous debt that we owe to God.
Pieper: “Man can never say to God: we are even.” Nevertheless, we have an obligation to at least try in gratitude to give back to God all that we are, body, soul, spirit; everything…
· Lk 17:10: When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'
two
The 3rd Commandment: Keep holy the Sabbath Day means that on Sundays we owe God worship in the way he chose on the day that He chose – we owe it to God to go to Mass – and we owe it to him to set aside time for rest, so that we can have a greater relationship with God and with one another.
But isn’t ironic that God must command us to take time to rest. That’s because the devil has no new tactics. He keeps us from friendship with God, breaks apart families and keeps us from deep friendship with others by keeping us so busy and distracted we have no time for anyone, even God – the result being isolation and loneliness and the beginning of hell on earth.
The Most important commandment God gave to Israel was the that of the Sabbath Rest. That one day a week we set aside a whole day for rest and a deeper relationship with God and with each other. God commands rest to set us free from slavery to busyness, to entertainment and to all our idols.
three
In the Book of Exodus Israel had been enslaved by the Egyptians. God sends Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh with this message: “Let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” Give my people a day off work, so they can rest, spend time in friendship with God, with their families and friends.
Pharaoh responds by doubling their work quota. Pharaoh fights back by making the Israelites so busy they have no time for rest so as to worship the Lord, be in friendship with him and no time for one another.
That’s the competition - The plan of Satan
· to make us so busy and so burdened by our work and entertainment
· We don’t have time for God, for that Sabbath rest
BUSY means Being Under Satan’s Yoke
God doesn’t command us to be so busy
· He does command us to take a Sabbath rest
· He does command us to lay aside our work
· Give time to him, to our spouse, to our family and friends
· But nowhere does he command us to be busy
When God sets Israel free He will command them to keep the Sabbath, because it’s the main way to safeguard them from falling back into the slavery of the devil. God is just trying to keep us free and we keep turning back to slavery.
CCC 2172 Sunday is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.
four
It is a grave act of injustice against God to skip Mass on Sunday unless you are contagious…It is a mortal sin, deadly, if you do so knowingly and willingly. Why is this?
Imagine I was never home, I never had a meal with my family. One day my wife says, “You know we haven’t seen you for weeks. Could we all sit down together at a meal as a family, just once this week?” And I roll my eyes and I say, “Ugh, sure. Fine. Alright, if it’s that important to you, fine, when?” And she says, “I don’t know, on the weekend, you know, when you’re not working?”
“Alright, fine, when do you want to do it?”
And my wife says, “We can build this family meal around your schedule. We could do 4 PM Saturday? We could do an early breakfast Sunday? We could do lunch at noon or even supper Sunday night?”
And I say, “Yeah, uh, don’t ask me to commit to one of those. I’ll show up to one of those, alright?”
And then the weekend goes by and I don’t show up to this one meal with my family that they’d asked me to come to, that they’ve made as convenient as possible for me to show up to. I don’t come and my wife sees me later and she says, “Hey, what happened? I thought we were set, why, I mean, did you get sick? Did you get in a car accident? Was there some emergency?”
And I say, “Oh, no. There was just some other stuff and I didn’t really wanna come to the meal.”
That would be a relationship killer. That is what we mean when we say skipping Mass without a serious reason is a mortal sin. A relationship killer.
five
Sunday is to be a day of grace and rest from work
CCC 2193 "On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound . . . to abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord's Day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body"
Family needs or important social services can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. But the faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.
To be just and give God and others what we owe them we probably need to reprioritize our week so that Mass, rest, relationship with family and friends and the care of the poor and sick are the priority on Sundays. This means No work or study on Sunday. But that will require that we live a Well-Ordered life Monday through Saturday and avoid all procrastination and wasted time.