Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Faitlh
Thursday, May 3, 2001
The moral underpinnings
of the good life
By Father Kenneth R. Himes, OFM
Catholic News Service
.t^/obert Coles, a distinguished
professor and author, poses a simple
question at the beginning of many of
his courses at Harvard University:
the pope suggests, since “to ask
about the good, in fact, ultimately
means to turn toward God, the full
ness of goodness” (No. 9).
The answer Jesus gives to the rich
young man provides us with an in
sight into the good life. Initially, Jesus
tells the young man to follow the
communion with Jesus. And at this
the young man walked away, for he
had many possessions.
■ ■ ■
For the young man in the Gospel,
the good life in the superficial sense of
material well-being got in the way of
living a good life in the deeper sense.
CNS photo by Nancy Wiechec of St. Louis youth rally attended by the pope who called for a higher moral vision.
“How do you live a life?” He means, of
course, not just how do you pass the
years, but how do you live in such a
way that at the end of your life you
can say, “I have lived a good life.”
For Coles, as for many others, liv
ing a good life is not to be equated with
“the good life” understood as having
plenty of money, possessions and plea
surable experiences.
We might say that Coles’ query is a
contemporary version of the question
posed by the rich young man in the
New Testament. In all three versions
of the story, the evangelists Matthew,
Mark and Luke say that the rich
young man approached Jesus with the
question, “What must I do to inherit
eternal life?”
In his 1993 encyclical on the
moral life, “The Splendor of Truth”
(Veritatis Splendor), Pope John
Paul II meditates on that Gospel
episode and suggests that the young
man’s question “is not so much
about the rules to be followed but
about the full meaning of life. [It] is
in fact the aspiration at the heart of
every human decision and action”
(No. 7).
For the pope, the question posed
by the young man is the fundamen
tal question which cannot be
avoided by any free and responsible
person: How ought I live so as to
attain the good life? In its deepest
sense, this is a religious question,
time-tested rules of moral living sum
marized in the commandments. But
the young man replies that he has
kept these rules and is looking for
something more. The young man
seeks more.
Finally, Jesus replies with the invi
tation, “Come follow me.” The young
man was given an opportunity to es
tablish a relationship, to enter into
The invitation to become a disciple, to
follow Jesus, is an entreaty to enter
into a relationship of loving union
with God.
Ultimately, being a disciple is not a
matter only of “obediently accepting a
commandment,” the pope says, but
“more radically, it involves holding
fast to the very person of Jesus” (No.
19). Living the good life means con-
FOODFORTHOUGHT
What is the starting point for making moral decisions?
—There are always actions to avoid — the negative things we
shouldn’t do.
—There also are positive actions we ought to undertake, what Pope
John Paul II has called “the moral good to be done” — loving and serving
others, for example.
Can these two dimensions of Christian morality be held together? Pope
John Paul II thinks so and talked about this in his encyclical “The
Splendor of Truth” (“Veritatis Splendor”).
The “negative precepts” of the biblical commandments forcefully
express “the very urgent need to protect human life, the communion of
persons in marriage, private property, truthfulness and people’s good
name,” he said. Thus, he said, the commandments “represent the basic
condition for love of neighbor” (No. 13).
At the same time, the pope explained, “Jesus brings God’s
commandments to fulfillment, particularly the commandment of love of
neighbor, by interiorizing their demands and by bringing out their fullest
meaning.” The pope wrote:
“Love of neighbor springs from a loving heart which, precisely because
it loves, is ready to live out the loftiest challenges” (No. 15).
18 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
All contents copyright©2001 by CNS
forming oneself to the pattern of
Jesus’ life.
What does such a life look like?
“Jesus asks us to follow him and to
imitate him along the path of love, a
love which gives itself completely to
the brethren out of love of God” (No.
20).
The good life is a life lived in
loving service to others. It is the
constant teaching of both Old and
New Testaments that we cannot
love God if we do not love our neigh
bor. Any claim to love of God is sus
pect if that love is not manifested by
the manner in which we relate to
our sisters and brothers.
This is the true sense of the good
life, that we dwell in love with oth-
o live a morally good life
requires that we build, re
store, maintain and promote
genuinely loving relation
ships with our neighbors
both near and far.”
ers. Our relationships ought to be
marked by those characteristics of
authentic love that St. Paul re
counts: Love is patient and kind,
never jealous or boastful, neither
rude nor selfish, love neither gives
nor takes offense, it delights in
truth and is ready to excuse, trust,
hope and endure.
To dwell in love, to build and main
tain loving relationships, is to live in
God for “God is love, and those who
live in love live in God, and God lives
in them” (1 John 4,16).
■ ■ ■
This understanding of the meaning
of morality — conforming ourselves to
love as Jesus did — helps us avoid
some misconceptions.
Morality is more than having sin
cere intentions, for we can be sin
cerely wrong.
Morality is more than doing the
right thing for, as T.S. Eliot reminds
us, that can be the final treason, “to do
the right thing for the wrong reason.”
Morality is more that achieving
good results, for Jesus’ love led him to
the unhappy consequence of the cross.
To live a morally good life requires
that we build, restore, maintain and
promote genuinely loving relation
ships with'our neighbors both near
and far. At the end of our days, to be
able to look back upon our lives and
see that we have dwelt in love with
others is to know that we have lived a
good life.
(Franciscan Father Himes is pro
fessor of moral theology at Washing
ton Theological Union and current
president of the Catholic Theological
Society of America. His new book,
“Responses to 101 Questions on
Catholic Social Teaching,” will be
published this summer by Paulist
Press.)