Living the Faith: Christian Morality

By: Noel P. Miranda; Philip S. Javier III

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

As we grow up, we are faced with more and more choices in our world of lights and shadows.
While some choices may be easy to make, others, being more difficult, may be easy to make, others,
being more difficult, may prompt us to stop and ask, “What should I do?” On these occasions, we know
that the choice before us is truly important. It a choice that will reflect the kind of person we are and
affect the kind of person we will become. When faced with such choices, we often seek the counsel of
our parents, friends, or teachers. We trust them because we know that they love us see more clearly
how our choices affect not only ourselves but also others.

To the question “What should I do?”, our Christian faith gives this answer: “Follow Christ!” This
is because we know that God loves us and has revealed to us that only in loving as Christ has loved us
can we be truly happy and truly free. Christ Himself said, “I came so that they might have life and have it
more abundantly” (Jn 10:10). He lived this mission in His loving service of others. He freed people from
their bodily ailments by healing the sick, the blind, and lame. He freed people from their sins by forgiving
them and calling them to lead good lives. He freed us from self-centeredness by giving us His grace, His
example, and His laws of love. But most of all, He opened the way for us to share in His divine life by His
Suffering, Death, and Resurrection.

Christian morality is about our daily following of Jesus Christ as His disciples, strengthened by
the Holy Spirit. It is about living and doing what makes us truly free and reflecting on our human
experiences in the light of the life and teachings of Jesus. As followers of Christ, we need to turn to what
God has revealed to us in Sacred Scripture, as well as in its faithful interpretation through the Tradition
of the Church. These two sources, Sacred Scripture and Church Tradition, are important to us because
they make up the single sacred deposit of the Word of God (Dei Verbum 10). This is because the Bible
and the living Tradition of the Church, while different, are bound closely together because of their
origin, formation, and purpose. What does this mean?

Before there was a written Bible, there were God’s people and their living experience of God.
Through divine inspiration, the Scriptures then arose as the inspired record of the people’s encounter
and relationship with God – how God revealed Himself and related to them, how they responded to
God, and how they remembered and interpreted their experiences. As such, the Bible can aptly be
called “The Book of the People of God” or the book of the Church because it was written by individuals
from the people of God (CFC 81, cf NCDP 131). Sacred Scripture grew from the Tradition of the early
Christian community, and it continues to be interpreted today through the living Tradition of the Church
– the life, worship, and teaching documents of Church councils, and other official teachings throughout
the centuries aim to bring the message of the Scripture to respond to bring the message of the Scripture
to respond to the changing challenges, contests and issues of the times (CFC 84). Therefore, throughout
our course, we will constantly turn to these two sources: Sacred Scripture and Church Tradition as
expressed in the Church’s teachings.

What is Christian Morality?

A rich young man once asked Jesus a question central to our course Christian Morality: “What
good must I do to gain eternal life?” To prepare ourselves to encounter God’s Word, let us first reflect
on the following question:

1. What kind of relationship do I have with Jesus Christ at present?

 2. What experience have I had that is similar to the experience of the rich young man in the
Gospel?

The Rich You Man

(Mt 19:16 – 21; cf Mk 10:17-22; Lk 18:18-23)
Now someone approached [Jesus] and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal
life?” He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If
you wish to enter into life, keep the Commandments.” He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus
replied, “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; steal; you shall not bear false witness;
honor your father and your mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” The young man
said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to
be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasures in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”

Christian Morality Asks, “What Should I Do?”

Like many of us, the rich young man had been looking for someone who could answer one of life’s
most important questions: What good must I do to gain eternal life? In his search, he had probably heard
of the man Nazareth who taught with authority and began His ministry with a bold proclamation: “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17). He had probably heard how this teacher spoke of a New
Law to a great multitude that gathered on a mountainside (see Sermon on the Mount account, Mt 5-7).
He had probably heard, too, how this man was able to forgive sins. Because of all that he had heard, the
young man sought Jesus, seeing Him as someone going about doing what is good.
When the young man posed his question to Jesus, it seemed he was asking for the very meaning
of life itself (Veritas Splendor 7). What kind of life, indeed, should one lead to attain eternal life? Perhaps
the young man was looking for a sense of fulfillment and purpose beyond his prosperous and sheltered
existence. Clearly, his question indicated his desire to be truly free and truly happy, to have a life spent on
something truly valuable and lasting instead of something empty and fleeting. The more young man’s
question revealed his deep yearning for something more than ordinary success.
Like the rich young man, we sometimes have similar hopes: There must be more to life than our
accomplishments, possessions, or reputation! In our quest for a life of true happiness and freedom, we
find that we have a yearning to do what is really good. That is why, despite our shortcomings, we find a
sense of fulfillment and freedom in loving our family, preparing well for an exam, or listening to a friend
with a problem. We want to be remembered and recognized for our good acts and for being good persons.
Knowing how our daily choices affect the kind of person we become, we approach Jesus to ask what we
should do to become who we should be.

Christian Morality Entails Being True to Our Relationship with God

Jesus answered the rich young man’s question by saying, “Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good.” This directs our attention to our relationship with the Father, “the One
who is good,” and reveals to is something very intimate about Jesus. Indirectly, Jesus revealed to the
young man that He is more than just a prophet or a great teacher; He is the only begotten Son of the
Father, now embodied!
By pointing to “the One who is good,” Jesus reveals to us that doing good is not just a matter of
following a set of rules. It is, first of all, about being true to our covenant relationship with God, who is
love (1 Jn 4:16) and who made us and calls us to love. By affirming God’s goodness, Jesus reveals to us
that God Himself is both the source and norm of our goodness. But what does this mean?
God is the source of our goodness because He has loved us first (1 Jn 4:19). Our own capacity to
do what is good comes from God Himself. By creating us and sustaining us every moment that we live, by
saving us from self-centeredness and death through Christ’s Paschal mystery, and by strengthening us
with the gift of the Holy Spirit, God empowers us everyday to respond to His love. Indeed, because we
have been created good, and are continually called to holiness, our everyday struggle to do what is good
becomes a response of utang na loob to God’s own goodness (CFC 295).
One way by which we experience God as the source of our own generosity and love is when we
make a good confession. Becoming aware of our weaknesses, feeling true sorrow for our sins,
courageously confessing our sins to a priest, and resolving to be more loving – these are not easy things
to do. It is only by God’s grace, which works with and perfects our own little efforts to change, that we
experience the greatness of God’s compassion, forgiveness, and love through His great gift to the Church,
the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Indeed, our capacity to be loving and forgiving comes from our
experience of God, who loves us unconditionally and forgives us magnanimously.
God is not only the source but also the perfect norm of goodness. This means that God Himself –
not ourselves, not our most popular classmate, not the coolest celebrity – is the perfect standard or model
of what is means to be good. In other words, the good is not something we decide arbitrarily for ourselves
but something that God has revealed to us through His loving action in our lives.
In Scripture, God gradually revealed what it means to do the good we are called to do. When the
Lord addressed His people through Moses, He said, “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lv 19:2).
Jesus echoed these words in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “[B]e perfect, just as your Heavenly
Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). After washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus said, “I have given you a model to
follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do” (Jn 13:15). Indeed, we can only understand
God’s holiness, perfect goodness, and loving service most fully through the love that Christ Himself has
revealed to us. Because Christ gave His life for us, His friends, we understand the greatness of the love we
are called to give when He commands us “[L]ove one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12).
When Jesus related our call to goodness to “the One who is good,” we realize that the young
man’s question was not merely a personal, private concern. Rather, it was a universal question rooted in
the relationship of all persons to God. Through Jesus’ response, we become aware of the fact that at the
heart of our human search for happiness is God, the absolute Good.

Christian Morality Entails Keeping the Commandments

“If you wish to enter into life, keep the Commandments,” Jesus said. The young man promptly
asked, “Which ones?” Patiently, Jesus enumerated some of the Commandments. Clearly, His purpose was
to draw the connection between our salvation and our keeping God’s Law. What must we do to gain
eternal life? Keep the Commandments. When we hear Jesus’ command to the young man (and to us) to
obey the God’s Law, we ask ourselves: “Why? What is the true value of God’s Commandments?” For the
Israelites, the Decalogue was the concrete expression of their covenant relationship with God. By giving
His people the expression of their covenant relationship with God. By giving His people the expression of
their covenant relationship with God. By giving His people the Commandments, God made His desire clear
to all: He wanted His people to gain true freedom and happiness, the path to which is found only loving
God and loving one’s neighbor. By studying and following God’s Law, the Israelites understood who they
were and what they were called to do as God’s people. For this reason, they loved God’s laws and found
joy in keeping His commands. In other words, it was the experience of God’s covenant that was at the
heart of keeping His Commandments.
To this day, the Decalogue remains central to Christian morality because it expresses clearly and
perfectly how we are to love one another. The Commandments are the simplest, clearest, most universal
norms for human good that have come down to us through history. By revealing to us the evils of idolatry,
murder, adultery, theft, and lies, the Commandments urge us to truly love God and our neighbor in all
that we do. Thus, by telling us to keep the Commandments, Jesus reminds us that love of God and love of
neighbor are the very foundation of the freedom and happiness that the rich young man and all of us are
yearning for.
By including “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 19:19) in His enumeration of the
Commandments, Jesus stressed the centrality of love in all our human relationships. He emphasizes that
love of neighbor should be the basic motivation for keeping the other commandments. This is true even
for the first three commandments relating to God, since love of neighbor remains the condition and the
proof of our authentic love for God. In his letter, St. John stated clearly: “Of anyone says, I love God,’ but
hates his brother he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God
whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love
his brother” (1 Jn 4:20-21).
Jesus’ answer to the young man’s question not only points to the absolute importance of growing
in our love for God and neighbor, but also relate love directly to the Commandments. Hence, all efforts to
downplay or defy the Commandments for the sake of “love” are a lie, perhaps a way of avoiding
responsibility for our acts. Scripture is very clear about the only valid way of loving God and neighbor, and
thus the condition for entering into eternal life: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn
14:15).
Christian Morality is Following Christ
Finally, we reach the conclusion of the narrative. The rich young man declared how he, since his
young, had been keeping the Commandments that Christ enumerated. Perhaps seeing something more
in the person of Jesus, he asked Him, “ What do I still lack?” Jesus responded, “If you wish to be perfect,
go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow
me” (Mt 19:21). After hearing this, the rich young man went away sad for he had many possessions.
At first, Jesus’ demand seems impossibly difficult. But we remember how Christ’s first disciples –
Peter, Andrew, James, and John – all simple fishermen, were able to leave behind their nets and their
families to follow Christ (Mt 4:18-22). Clearly, this statement was an invitation for the young man to live
a life of personal commitment to Jesus, a life that demanded his detachment from everything that
hindered him from following Christ. Of course, for the young man, this included his attachment to his
material possessions. Unable to let go of his attachment to his wealth, the rich young man walked away
sad.
Christ calls us to follow Him amidst the many joys and trials, the lights and shadows of growing
up. He desires that we become truly happy and truly free. The Good News is that Christ Himself has shown
us the way, for He is “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). Christ has shown us the Paschal pattern
of His love: that only by dying to our self-centeredness and sin can we rise again to a new life of loving
service to God and our neighbor. Through His example and the empowering grace of His Holy Spirit, we
are able to gradually “die” to our self-centeredness, bad habits, and inordinate attachments to his wealth,
so that we can “rise” to a new life of loving service, virtue, and generosity.
Through the Gospel narrative, we understand that Christ is not just the perfect exemplar of
goodness; through the Holy Spirit, He is also the source of the grace we need to become truly free and
loving persons. Through His loving example and the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit, we are
strengthened to follow Him in the daily acts and choices we make as members of our community.
Let us return to the fundamental question of Christian morality: What should we do? We can
answer this question and summarize the task and meaning of Christian morality thus: We are called to
become loving persons in the fullness of life with others in the Christian community by following Jesus
Christ, our Savior, through His indwelling Spirit within us.