THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT

“Calls from the Message of Fatima”

A RELATIONAL MORALITY

HONOUR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER

(Ch. 27, pp. 228-232)

« “Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you” (Dt 5.16)

« In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul reminds his disciples of this commandment, given by God to all human beings: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour your father and mother; this is the first commandment with a promise: that it may be well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on earth.” (Ep 6.1-3) We must observe this law, which requires us to honour our father and mother, not only in order to be happy on earth, but above all to avoid eternal punishment. To fail to observe this commandment is contrary to justice and charity, and thus is a grave sin, which can result in eternal damnation. “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.” (Ex 21.17)

« The severity with which God enjoins on us the observance of this commandment shows us the gravity of any infringement of it. In a liturgical celebration of the Law of God – for which Moses convoked the whole People of God, who took part in it by declaring their assent to each statement of the Levites – the maledictions which the latter had to proclaim against those who transgressed the divine laws included the following: Cursed be he who dishonours his father and his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen!” (Dt 27.16) And the Book of Sirach reminds us of this commandment, stressing the debt of gratitude we owe to our parents: “With all your heart honour, your father, and never forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; and what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?” (Si 7.27-28)

« Jesus Christ, confirming this commandment and emphasising how important faithful observance of it is to God, who has no patience with any of the many pretexts we invent for evading it, censures the Pharisees in these terms: “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded: Honour your father and your mother, and: He who curses father or mother, let him be punished with death. But you say: If any one tells his father or his mother: I have given to God the goods with which I would have been able to assist you, he will be exempt from his obligations to his father or mother. So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said: This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me; the doctrines they teach are only the precepts of men.” (Mt 15.8-9)

« Here is this commandment of God, as spelled out in a memorable page by the author of the Book of Sirach: “Listen to me, your father, O children, and do what I tell you, in order that you may be saved. For the Lord glorifies the father in his children, and He strengthens the rights of the mother over her sons. Whoever honours his father atones for his sins, and whoever glorifies his mother is like one who lays up treasure. Whoever honours his father will be gladdened by his own children, and when he prays he will be heard. Whoever glorifies his father will have long life, and whoever obeys the Lord gives satisfaction to his mother; he will serve his parents as his masters. Honour your father by word and deed, so that his blessing may come upon you. For a father’s blessing strengthens the houses of children, but a mother’s curse destroys their foundations. Do not glorify yourself by dishonouring your father, for your father’s dishonour is no glory to you. For the honour of his father is a man’s glory, and a dishonoured mother is the shame of the children. My son, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives. Even if his mind fails, show forbearance; in the prime of your life do not despise him. For kindness to a father will not be forgotten, and against your sins it will be credited to you. In the day of your affliction it will be remembered in your favour; as frost in the sun, your sins will melt away. Whoever forsakes his father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord.” (Si 3.1-16)

« All these sayings are the voice of God, which tells us how we should behave towards our parents. »

Sister Lucy practiced « these sayings » in a heroic way: for she has never felt resentful toward her mother, in spite of the bad treatment she suffered from her during the apparitions of 1917. On the contrary, in her Sixth Memoir, which has still not been published in French, she conducts the preliminary inquiry for her mother’s canonisation, so to speak, giving multiple testimonies in her favour from « important people who knew her and took care of her »:

« Doctor José Galamba de Oliveira, talking to me at Valença do Minho, told me: “Do you know that your mother looks more like a figure from the Old Testament than a woman of our time?”

« Father Joao De Marchi said: “She was a very respectable woman, a perfect woman; she had tact and intelligence.”

« One day, the parish priest of Fatima who was at that time Fr. Manuel Marques Ferreira, was questioning me in the presence of several priests, one of whom was the curate of Torres Novas. The latter, wanting to excuse some faults of which the priest was accusing me, asked him about my mother; the priest answered:

« The mother? The mother is a saint! »

Let us pick up the thread of the chapter of Apelos on the fourth commandment:

« The observance of this commandment goes further than this, however, and extends to all God-given authority. Thus St. Paul, having said that children should obey and respect their parents, exhorts subjects to obey their superiors:

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord (...). Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with merely exterior service that seeks to please men but in sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, work whole-heartedly, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. Serve the Lord Jesus Christ. (Col 3.20-24) These words are a call to faith inviting us to serve our superiors, seeing God in them and hoping that He will reward us with His inheritance.

« So, we must look upon our superiors as parents, loving them, serving them, honouring them as sent by God to us so that, as servants of God and in His name – their mission to us being also a service – they may help us, guide our steps and lead us on the right road through life. »

In a few lines, Sister Lucy bases on the authority of Holy Scripture the principle and foundation of our “ecology”, already formulated by Mgr Freppel under the name of “patronage”:

« A head of industry cannot disassociate himself from the well-being and the morality of those who work under his supervision. He also exercises a sort of fatherhood; he carries out a duty of protection and oversight; he has responsibility for souls, in the true sense of the word. (He is Risen no 13, September 2003, p. 17)

« And let us remember, Sister Lucy continues, that we are all of us sent by God, each of us in our own particular place: children are sent by God to their parents to be brought up, educated and started off on the road of life; teachers are sent by God to instruct their pupils; pupils are sent by God to their teachers to be taught the arts, and the natural and supernatural sciences. In this way, everything is service, whether in the case of parents, teachers, children, pupils or employees. It is all service in the Lord’s name. »

This is what Mgr Freppel referred to as « a happy reciprocity of services, » in which he saw « a faithful expression of Christian economy, such as God desired it »

« Contractors and employers serve their employees, giving them work, paying their salaries, and providing them with a steady and honourable livelihood. In this way, we are all servants of God, serving Him in our neighbours. This doctrine is confirmed by the words of Jesus Christ: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever welcomes the one I send, welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One who sent Me.” (Jn 13.20) »

Sister Lucy is certainly not repeating Mgr Freppel, yet she speaks as he did. He said one hundred years before her, in his speech to the Œuvre des cercles catholiques d’ouvriers (Catholic Workers’ Circle) delivered in La Madeleine church on 30 April 1876:

« The ancient workers’ guilds were founded on the basis of this principle of social paternity; hence their strength and their duration: restoring it in all its fullness is a first and powerful element for the solution of the great question of which I speak », that is, the social question.

In Portugal, President Salazar, advised and encouraged by Sister Lucy, carried out a policy in keeping with these principles, by introducing a corporate system and by victoriously defending it until his death, in the mother country as well as in the over-seas provinces, despite all opposition from the international political, financial and even religious powers united against him.

« Furthermore, Sister Lucy continues, speaking to His disciples after the mother of the sons of Zebedee had asked Him to allow them to occupy the seats of honour in the Kingdom of Heaven, the Lord said to them: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise their power over them. It shall not be so among you; on the contrary, whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you should be your slave; even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20.25-28)

« Moreover, since we are Christians, followers of Christ, we must all become servants of our brothers and sisters; we must serve our neighbour with love, respecting his personality and dignity, because dignity does not come from the position one occupies but rather from the right that belongs to each person. In one case, it is a father’s right, in another a son’s; in one it is the right of a teacher, in another that of a pupil… It is true that some people are in charge and give orders, and others have to carry them out; but we are all of us beings created by God, in His image and likeness, destined for eternal life when we shall participate in the life of God. Therefore, God made us intelligent beings who can think and know, capable of discovering God. He also created us free, able to discern good and evil, to decide between the two and, on the basis of this choice, to merit either eternal reward or eternal punishment.

« We have all come from the mind of God. Thanks solely to the divine goodness, our intelligence is capable of knowing this creative thought, in the measure in which God wills to transmit it. Hence, we must use our intelligence to know God, the marvels of His creative work that are the objects of human science, and the divine mysteries which He has revealed to us. Above all, by availing ourselves of all this knowledge which God has conveyed to us in so many ways and, last of all, by means of His own Son, we must seek to love Him and serve Him in our brethren, who, like us and with us, are children of the same Father in Heaven.

« It was under this aspect of service that Jesus Christ founded His Church to bring the whole human race to the founts of salvation. All the members of the Church must consider themselves as servants of God, working in the interest of this plan of salvation like Christ, who came “to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20.28). For the benefit of the members of His Mystical Body, He set up the holy hierarchy, to whom He entrusted the mission which He had received from His Father: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” (Jn 20.21) This is why the Pope, the true and universal representative of Christ, leader and visible head of His Church, signs himself: “Servant of the Servants of God”.

« In this way, the commandment which orders us to honour our father and mother embraces all authority which, as in the case of our parents, represents God for us and was established by Him.

« Thus, the Church was instituted by Christ, to serve God and the People of God. We should, therefore, respect it, love it and follow its teachings. Just as, in the Old Testament, God sent His prophets to instruct and guide the Chosen People in the way of His commandments, so also Jesus Christ has given us the Church in order to continue, by means of it, the work of our redemption. Hence, we must love this Church of which we are the members and the children, serve it, and venerate it as the spiritual Mother given us by God for the glory of His Name and for the glory of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, His Son and our Saviour. »

« Ave Maria! »

COMMENTARY

This chapter can be read at one sitting, as a brilliant and providential answer to the first episode of a televised series called The Origin of Christianity, broadcasted on Saturday, 3 April on the channel Arte, entitled “Jesus after Jesus”. Claiming to draw their inspiration from Alfred Loisy’s formula in The Gospel and the Church, according to which « Jesus announced the Kingdom, and it is the Church that came », the authors of the first series, entitled “Corpus Christi”, –broadcast in 1997 – once again gave the floor to « scholars ». These included Protestants from Lausanne and elsewhere, Jews from Jerusalem and Boston, Catholics from Lyon and Toulouse, who all asserted that Jesus did not want to found the Church. While listening to this long and intolerable blasphemy against Our Mother the Church, I recalled the disillusioned observation of our dear and lamented Fr. Trinquet, the co-author of the Osty Bible:

« The exegetes do not read the texts! »

« Jesus announced the Kingdom », that is true. However, we only have to read the texts to see that He was not announcing it as something to come, as St. John the Baptist did, but as already being present in His own Person: « Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them: “The Kingdom of God comes unobserved; nor will it be said: Lo, here it is! or There it is! for behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” » (Lc 17.21) And He gave proof of this through the miracles He performed in the sight of all.

Once more, we must take note of the perfect agreement of the Abbé de Nantes with the messenger of Our Lady. They two, they alone, crush the Modernist heresy:

« Jesus alone was the kingdom, wrote our Father. He was everything for His disciples; He remained so after His Ascension: ideas and strength came from Him. Therefore, their assembly, in Hebrew qahal, in Greek ecclesia, gathering of the faithful in Christ for the liturgical life and life in common, their church then, will remain completely centred on Him. Quite naturally, finding in this way « its roots in Heaven », it will be submitted neither to the Jewish religion nor to Roman politics, nor to the affairs of this world, nor to any human solidarity. The “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” will be its rule, because it will be entirely engrossed in that other fidelity: “Render to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22.21). The Church will live – read the texts! – by Jesus-Christ, with Him, in Him, and for Him alone, just as He Himself is totally devoted to His Father’s business. » (Georges de Nantes, Christ’s Church, a Holy Utopia, a Permanent Miracle, CRC n^o 155, July 1980, p. 6)

Our Father’s love for the Church is boundless, making him the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the twentieth century: « The very thought of belonging to the Church is enough to renew the soul’s jubilation, for the Church is holy, like Her Spouse Jesus Christ, whom She so resembles that there is nothing in the world so beautiful, so wise and so majestic as Her face and Her whole being. She is our Mother, and I add: She is the unique incomparable Spouse; She alone is holy, wise, and sublime, leaving false religions and philosophies far behind in their deceptive darkness [...].

« But it is neither good nor just for Her children to become disgusted with their Mother and to talk of changing Her. How can we follow them along such a path? To set what is newly invented against what is ancient and immutable, to set the latest idea against what is universal, is an impiety. “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus teneamus.” This ancient principle, enunciated by St. Vincent Lerins, still sings in our hearts after having been our light for fifteen centuries. That is still the lifeline to which we hold, after the example of so many others who sought in it their security in the great vicissitudes of history. “What has been held everywhere, at all times, and by everyone, that is our faith!” He who refuses this sacred maxim is a heretic, an innovator or an apostate! He who holds to it is a son of the Church. Let those who find this “integrism” ridiculous, outmoded, sterile and dull know that they have come to ruin in the Faith, because contempt for the Church of all time is an insult to Jesus Christ. Fidelity, on the other hand, is inexpugnable and no one, not even an angel, could drive from the Church one who holds to it with love. » (Letter to my Friends, no 134, March 19, 1963)

YOU SHALL NOT KILL

(Ch. 28, p. 233-235)

« “You shall not kill.” (Dt 5.17)

« With this commandment, God forbids any attack on human life. To decide when a life is to end is a right that God has reserved for Himself alone. Therefore, it is not lawful for us to destroy a human life, even if it is only in the embryonic state. »

Straightaway, Sister Lucy indicates the only necessary and sufficient reason for man’s respect of human life and the proscription of homicide. « This inviolability, not of human life, but of God’s right over the life and death of human beings, the Abbé de Nantes wrote, – and if we are well instructed in Biblical revelation, we shall prefer to say over the death and life of man; over death in order to give man life – excludes suicide, including intentional euthanasia, which is merely a disguised form of suicide; it excludes murder, including imposed euthanasia and abortion – the assassination of innocent defenceless beings, which is as much a criminal act as any other form of murder. » (The Church, War, and the Death Penalty, CCR 84, March 1976, p. 7)

Indeed, Sister Lucy proves herself to be « well instructed in Biblical revelation. » She goes on:

« This prohibition against murder, which God has laid on humanity, is placed before us in various parts of Sacred Scripture. The story of Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve, is a clear example: “Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the soil. In the due course of time Cain brought to Yahweh an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And Yahweh had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. Yahweh said to Cain: Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, you will certainly lift up your head. If you do not do well, sin will lie at the door and spy upon you. Take care! It desires to have you, but you must master it.

« “Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go out; and when they were in the field, Cain threw himself upon his brother Abel and killed him.” »

This is not ancient history. Ten years ago, Rwanda was the scene of a similar fratricide. On the eve of 7 April 1994, in the country of “the thousand hills”, villagers were going to church together to pray, to sing and to celebrate the Holy Mass. Suddenly, armed with guns and machetes, one group threw themselves at their brothers. Nothing could stop them. Churches, chapels and sanctuaries, which had been respected by everyone until then, were transformed into « slaughterhouses of the innocents » according to Cardinal Etchegaray’s expression. Yet they had all learned God’s Commandments: « Honour your father and your mother! You shall not kill! You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour! » How can it be explained that the devils exorcised by the first missionaries had come back worse than before? How can we explain that the Tutsis and the Hutus, who were brothers before, with the Hutus traditionally submissive to the Tutsis, became mortal enemies? The explanation is quite simple: it can be found in the previous chapter, where Sister Lucy extends the commandment to honour one’s father and mother to the submission due to social and political authorities. Colonial and Catholic Rwanda, which had become a veritable Christian kingdom after the conversion of King Mutura III in 1931, lived in peace until 1957. In that year, during Lent, the bishops of “Rwanda-Urundi” denounced the Tutsis’ power as being « undemocratic », thus attacking and condemning the entire patriarchal structure of the Kingdom. The final breakdown was brought about in 1959 when Mgr Perraudin, a Swiss bishop living in Kabgayi, published his famous Letter on charity, in which he wrote that the domination of the Tutsi minority over the Hutu majority could no longer be accepted by the Church. Let us listen to Sister Lucy who gives us a lesson of this eternal tragedy:

« Then Yahweh said to Cain: Where is Abel your brother? He answered: I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper? And Yahweh said: What have you done! The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground! Now you are cursed and driven from the fertile ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand (...). You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to Yahweh: My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, You have banished me this day from the fertile ground, and from Your face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me! Then Yahweh said to him: Not so! If any one slays Cain, he shall be punished (…). And Yahweh put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” (Gn 4.2-16)

« This passage in Sacred Scripture gives us some marvellous teaching about this commandment of God: “You shall not kill.” The first thought that occurs to me is this: in spite of the fact that Cain was his brother’s assassin, the Lord did not allow anyone to kill Cain himself. The right to send death to anyone when He so wills it is one that God reserves to Himself. God acts in this way so as to allow time for repentance and penance.

« If, instead of becoming embittered because of his punishment and fearing to be killed himself, Cain had acknowledged his sin and humbly asked the Lord’s forgiveness, he would certainly have been pardoned. But, instead of this act of humility and confidence in the goodness of God, he became embittered!

« Probably Cain was afraid that someone, knowing what he had done to Abel, would want to treat him the same way. But God also forbids murder as a form of revenge, so He took steps to ensure that this would not happen and that the sin would not be repeated. With this commandment, God forbids the sin of vengeance, because this is an act of rebellion, provoked by impassioned pride. We cannot, therefore, take revenge on our neighbour, nor punish offenders in a spirit of vengeance.

« In cases where those in authority find themselves obliged to punish crime so as to maintain order, the punishment must always be accompanied by a spirit of charity with regard both to the common good and to the guilty person, so that he may acknowledge his crime, repent of it and be ready to amend his life.

« Normally, we do not take into account certain kinds of slow death inflicted on people and, yet, these, too, are weighed in God’s balance. Thus, by injustice a neighbour is often made to suffer; through calumny he is deprived of his good reputation, and of the personal dignity and respect which is his due; by abuse he is deprived of his rights and, by many other things of this kind, our neighbour suffers a kind of martyrdom and a slow death. »

Sister Lucy speaks from experience. The “Calumny” of Father Édouard Dhanis, who impugned her testimony, has deprived her of her good reputation as the faithful messenger of Our Lady. Paul VI made the same Father Dhanis and three other Roman theologians responsible for conducting the proceedings of the Abbé de Nantes’ trial at the Holy Office in 1968. Thirty years later, Mgr Daucourt, the Bishop of Troyes, took over from the Belgium Jesuit,, inflicting on the Abbé de Nantes an exile in Switzerland that was, for him, the beginning of his “martyrdom” and of that “slow death” of which we are now the powerless and resigned witnesses. Three months after the beginning of his reclusion, our Father wrote: « First of all, please excuse this school notebook paper and this old man’s handwriting. I must have something wrong with my right hand. But it is nothing. »

We now know that it was not “nothing”. It was the first symptom of an illness triggered by the « stress » of the brutal expulsion from Maison Saint-Joseph and of the exile. The order received from the Bishop requiring him to disappear for the good of the Church, an order which our Father wanted to obey punctually, had a terrible internal impact, which the progress of the illness would rapidly reveal. I say this without acrimony, knowing that it was God’s will, and admiring the conformity of our Father to Our Lord carrying the weight of our sins in His agony, so much so that all the blood of His Heart and mind fell like sweat. No, I will not imitate St. Peter whose example as it happens comes from the pen of Sister Lucy:

« When Jesus Christ was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, St. Peter, wanting to defend his Master, took a sword and attacked one of the soldiers, cutting off his ear. But Our Lord healed the wounded man and said to Peter: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” This means that every crime will receive the punishment it deserves because God forbids and rejects it. Not even in His own defence did the Lord allow St. Peter to use a sword. That does not mean that, in case of attack, we cannot defend ourselves, but it does mean that we cannot attack our neighbour unjustly and can do so only if forced by necessary and legitimate self-defence. »

Sister Lucy, as a strict catechist, is careful not to include in the definition of homicide « the acts of legitimate defence, whereby a man wounds or kills in order to prevent himself or a third party from being killed, wounded, dishonoured or robbed. It would be unreasonable to impose on individuals, in the historical condition of humanity, a law proscribing all legitimate defence as though it were contrary to the Law of God and natural law. No society could ever survive the official impunity thereby granted to robbers, aggressors, assassins and brigands of all sorts. Christian morality has merely ennobled common morality by saying that a generous person may, out of charity and for the spiritual good of his aggressor, prefer to be killed rather than to kill, when he is the only one to incur the risk. If, however, a third party were in danger, then the right to legitimate defence would prevail and would become a sacred duty. » (CCR n^o 84, p. 7)

« Returning to the case of Cain and Abel, we find there an admonition combined with an order given to Cain by God, that we cannot pass over without serious reflection: “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, you will certainly lift up your head. If you do not do well, sin will lie at the door and spy upon you. Take care! It desires to have you, but you must overcome it.” (Gn 4.6-7). We should all identify which temptation it is that assails us most frequently, and tries to drag us on to the path of evil; in other words, which is the sin that, as God said to Cain, has the strongest hold on us. We must overcome it, as God asked: “You must overcome it.” In fact, every sin brings with it a sentence of eternal death because it is a transgression of God’s Law: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gn 2.17). We can read this phrase as follows: if you transgress My commands, you will incur the penalty of death, which is to say eternal damnation. Every sin falls within the scope of this sentence, because all sin is a transgression of God’s law, bringing with it eternal death and, very often, temporal death also; so it is never lawful for us to take either our neighbour’s life, or our own. This commandment is absolute: “You shall not kill.” »

In her Sixth Memoir, Sister Lucy relates:

“My mother used to say that God had forbidden Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of life. This fruit was life. Life belongs to God alone and He alone could transplant it from time to eternity. For this reason, He gave us the precept not to kill: “You shall not kill.”

« This was admirable reasoning, which conveyed respect for the gift of life, and the idea that it belongs to God alone to take us from the earth to bring us to Heaven. May it please God, in spite of all our weaknesses, to grant this grace to everyone: may God carry us in His fatherly arms from earth to Heaven. »

Sister Lucy concludes this chapter with a call to penance, which shows that she never loses sight of the Third Secret:

« Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, confirms this divine commandment, saying: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old: You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment before the court of justice. But I say to you that anyone who is angry with his brother shall answer for it before the court of justice; but whoever says ‘Imbecile!’ to his brother shall answer for it to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ must answer for it in the Gehenna of fire.” Mt 5.21-22)

« The Lord said: “He will be liable to judgment.” Thus, anyone who commits these sins can still be saved, if he is willing to repent, ask pardon and undertake some penance, making reparation as far as possible for the harm caused to his neighbour.

« Ave Maria! »

YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY

(Ch. 29, p. 236-241)

« You shall not commit adultery. » (Dt 5.18)

« In these days when society seems to want to make a law of this sin, Sacred Scripture continues to repeat the commandment of God: “You shall not commit adultery.” It is the word of God, and the word of God does not change, nor does His Law: “It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass away, than for one dot of the law to become void.” (Lk 16.17)

« This commandment obliges us all, each one according to his state in life, to preserve chastity. Those who feel they are called to the state of matrimony are obliged to preserve chastity until they contract a permanent union blessed by God in the Sacrament of Matrimony; in the meantime, they must treat each other with respect, like a tree with green fruit that must ripen so that it may be gathered at the proper time. »

In her Sixth Memoir, Sister Lucy relates how her mother used to say in her catechism lessons: « As for me, God granted me the grace of being able to offer to Him, intact, the flower of my chastity, on my wedding day, laying it upon His altar to receive from Him in exchange all the other flowers, those of the new lives that He wished to give me. »

Lucy’s father completed this maternal confidence by adding: « I am going to tell you something that maybe I have never told you before: when I wanted to court your mother, the first thing on which we agreed was to keep the flower of our chastity intact until our wedding day in order to offer it to God in exchange for His blessing and the children that He would want to give us. »

Strengthened by these examples, Sister Lucy goes on with her lesson for « marriage preparation »:

« Once they have received the Sacrament of Matrimony, the union between the couple is permanent and cannot be shared with others; it is indissoluble while the spouses live. It was thus that God instituted the marriage union, and no one has the right to modify or transgress what God has ordained. We know about this divine institution from Sacred Scripture, when it describes the creation of the human race: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gn 1.27-28)

« Let us look at the order according to which God established the marriage bond. He created man and woman, next He blessed them, and only after blessing them did He allow them a definitive union, expressed here by its fruits – that is, the growth of the human race. This blessing of God, which must precede the union of spouses, has today, for those who are baptised, a concrete form: the Sacrament of Matrimony. Only after the couple have received this sacrament can their union be considered lawful and sanctioned.

« God instituted this union, formed of two persons only, and not to be shared by any other person while the couple are alive. This is the order given by the Lord from the beginning: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Gn 2.24) “The two become one flesh”: the two and no more!

« These two, blessed by God and now one body, remind us of the tree of life planted by the Creator in the earthly paradise so that, it might be cultivated and yield fruit in due time. If we look for fruit on a tree outside its proper time, we will not find it. And if we pluck the fruit before it is ripe, it will be green, tasteless and harmful to our health if we eat it; if, on the other hand, we pluck the fruit when it is ripe, in the proper season appointed by God, then the fruit is delicious, a source of life and felicity. New flowers will blossom on the tree, new springtimes will smile in our homes and new lives will intone hymns to their Creator. »

In her Sixth Memoir, Sister Lucy relates:

« My mother used to say that marriage was the fruit of the tree of life that God had planted in the garden of the world, and that the fruits of these trees were children. She said that they had to be raised with much love and carefully educated because they brought to earth the new life with which God enriches us, and because they are the ones who will take care of their parents in sickness and old age, while waiting for God to take them from earth to Heaven. »

Sister Lucy is the faithful echo of her mother’s teaching when she continues:

« This is the principal reason why God instituted the marriage bond, and all who choose this way of life must fulfil this obligation. God has willed to associate humanity with His creative work through marriage. He has given it, we may say, a position of honour; but if God has honoured it, He has also imposed on it laws which must be observed very faithfully. Each family, like a tree, has a single trunk, and from that trunk grow many branches that are its children; growing from the tree, they will cover it with fruit.

« It is necessary, then, that this tree, which is the family, should give God all the fruit He wants from it. It is not lawful to render unproductive buds which are the germs of new lives, because this means destroying and impoverishing the tree and rendering it barren, thus incurring the same condemnation that Jesus Christ uttered in the case of the barren fig-tree. One day, early in the morning, Jesus was on His way to the city of Jerusalem and, “seeing a fig tree by the wayside He went to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And He said to it: May no fruit ever come from you again! And the fig tree withered at once.” (Mt 21.19)

« Now, who would want in his field a fig tree covered with fresh, green foliage, but never yielding fruit? Its wood is of no use for building; it is taking up space on the land to no purpose. It is fit only to be cut down and thrown into the fire, because it has not fulfilled the mission entrusted to it by God, which is to yield fruit in due time. God has laid down the appropriate time for everything; a time for sowing, a time for planting, a time for weeding, a time for harvesting; and the whole of creation, which has been given us to contemplate, follows the laws which God has prescribed for it; all creation except human beings! »

Sister Lucy is keen on emphasising this docility of creation:

« My mother said that a woman who had had a baby and who was unable to breast-feed him, accustomed him to nurse a nanny goat. The animal felt such a love for the baby that when it came time to give him milk, she would run off from the pasture to the house; there she would lift one of her legs over the crib and put herself in suitable position for the baby to nurse. The child grew up healthy and became stronger than many other people.

« Then my mother commented: “What a beautiful example for those parents who abandon or kill their children. Animals have more love for their offspring, and even for those who are not their own, than do these heartless men and women.”

« At that time, these cases were as yet rare! What would my mother say if she lived nowadays when this is done with the greatest indifference, with sangfroid, as if it were no more than drinking a glass of water!

« Times have really changed, that is for sure, and for the worse; but God’s law has not changed and never will. Neither a letter nor an accent will be omitted from the Law: “You shall not kill” (Sixth Memoir)

Let us go back to the indissolubility of marriage:

« One day, the Pharisees wanted to know Jesus’ opinion about all this and “asked whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. (…). He answered them: “What did Moses command you?” They said: Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away. Then Jesus said to them: It was because of your hardness of heart that he wrote that commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk 10.2-9) We have here a confirmation of the law imposed by God from the beginning: the two are one flesh; they are the trunk of the tree of life which cannot be divided. And if, on account of the hardness of the human heart, the two are forced to separate, each of the two is nonetheless required to keep the law of chastity because, as Jesus says: “Every one who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman who has been put away from her husband commits adultery.” (Lk 16.18)

« This law of God, restated by Jesus, is very clear, and it is not lawful for anyone to give it an interpretation which distorts it. Only the Church can interpret the Law of God, and, hence, we have to follow the teaching of the Supreme Head of the Church, who is the Pope, Bishop of Rome. And if anyone happens to proclaim to us a doctrine which is different or contrary to his, we must not believe it or follow it, because only to the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church has Christ promised, and granted, the help of the Holy Spirit; therefore, it is the Church, in the person of its Supreme Head and Vicar of Christ on earth, which has the light and grace necessary to define, teach and govern spiritually the People of God. There is no shortage today of people who interpret this law of God in a sense contrary to the teachings of the Head of the Church. »

Beginning with the French bishops who were opposed to the encyclical Humanæ vitæ, at the same time that Sister Lucy was writing these lines (CRC no 16, Jan. 1969, pp. 7-11)

« But these false doctrines were, at all times, condemned by God. Already in the Old Testament, God complained and accused His people of profaning the sanctuary of the family, saying to them, by the voice of the prophet Malachi, that this was the only reason that their offerings were not acceptable to Heaven: “You cover Yahweh’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer regards your offering or accepts it with favour from your hands. You ask: Why does He not? – Because Yahweh was witness to the covenant between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and wife by covenant. Has He not made one being, with flesh and life? And what does this unique being desire? A posterity given by God! Therefore respect your own life, and let none be faithless to the wife of his youth! For I hate divorce, says Yahweh Sabaoth, and covering her garment with injustice, says the Lord of hosts. So respect your own life and do not be faithless.” (Ml 2.13-16)

« All these divine words show us the seriousness of sins against the commandment which forbids adultery. The answer that Jesus Christ gave to the Pharisees when they asked Him about divorce is worth our consideration: “It was because of the hardness of your hearts that Moses allowed a writ of divorce.” Hence, this hardness of heart is something that should not exist because, apart from anything else, it is contrary to justice, since it violates the promise that the spouses swore to love each other forever. Let us not forget what the Lord went on to say: “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder,” and then: “Whoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery. ” Hence, all acts against this commandment are grave in the sight of God.

« It is therefore alarming to see, in today’s world, the disorder that prevails in this respect, and the ease with which people plunge into immorality. To remedy the situation, there is only one solution: that people should repent, reform their lives and do penance. For those who do not want to take this road Jesus Christ says: “Unless you do penance you will all likewise perish.” (Lk 13.5), that is to say, like the eighteen victims who perished when the tower of Siloe collapsed. »

It is striking to think that this very warning was read in all the churches of Christendom on the Sunday that followed the attacks in Madrid.

« That the solution lies in repentance and a change of life is confirmed in the case of the adulterous woman, whom Jesus succeeded in saving from death by stoning, as St. John describes. He tells us that when Jesus was teaching in the Temple, the Scribes and Pharisees came to Him bringing a woman who had been caught in adultery. Presenting her to the Lord, they asked Him whether He thought she should be stoned, as the Law of Moses commanded. At first, Jesus did not answer, so they persisted: “He said to them: Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone! (...) But when they heard that, they went away, one by one (...); and Jesus was left alone with the woman who was still there in the midst (…). Jesus said to her: Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? – She said: No one, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on, sin no more.” (Jn 8.7-11)

« We see here, in Jesus Christ, what the mercy of God to a repentant sinner is like. Most certainly He saw repentance in that woman’s heart and He pardoned her, promising not to condemn her if she did not begin again to sin: Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on, sin no more.” The interpreters of this passage of the Gospel may say that these words of Jesus referred to the death sentence laid down in the Mosaic Law for such cases. That may be so, but I think that, when the Lord ordered the woman not to sin any more, He was stating the condition for not being condemned to eternal death. For every sin we commit puts us in danger of eternal damnation, since we do not know whether God will give us the time or the grace to repent and do penance. “Go in peace and sin no more!” is the road marked out by God for all those who, having sinned, want to repent and change their lives in order to be saved. »

In her sixth Memoir, Sister Lucy relates how her mother practiced the mercy taught by Jesus (below, p. 11) Here in the Apelos she quotes her dear St. Paul:

« With reference to what we have been talking about, consider these words of St. Paul: “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband; but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and that the husband should not divorce his wife.” (1 Co 7.10-11) Here again we have a clear affirmation of the indissolubility of marriage; it is not lawful for anyone to separate what God has joined together. And if, because of the hardness of the human heart, a separation becomes necessary, then each partner must observe chastity, that is to say that we must keep our passions under control, as well as our unruly inclinations and vices, because God did not create us to satisfy the passions of the flesh, but to save our souls and with them our bodies, for the day of resurrection.

« Thus, we must avoid falling into the slavery of sin, because, as the Lord says: “every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8.34). This will drag us down to Hell. The Apostle St. Paul warns us against this danger, saying: “Immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be mentioned among you (...). Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or covetous one – who is like an idolater – has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the rebellious. Therefore do not associate with them- (Ep 5.3; 5-7)

« The Apostle urges us not to have anything to do with immoral people, so that they will not lead us into impure ways. The Portuguese have a proverb, which is perfectly true: “Walk with good people and you will be like them; walk with evil people and you will be worse than they are.” Therefore, we must keep away from bad companions, so that they will not lead us into discreditable ways. Let us, however, continue to love these brothers and sisters of ours and treat them with discretion, seeking to help them with our prayers and to win them with our words and our good example, so that they may follow a better path, the path of purity, truth, justice and love. We must do so in imitation of Jesus Christ, who loved sinners while detesting sin, and gave His life for our salvation: “For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (Jn 3.17)

« Ave Maria! »

Taken from  He is Risen n^o 21, May 2004