Obedience—keeping the word of God—that proves of our love for Him 

Obedience—keeping the word of God—that proves of our love for Him 

To grow as a person requires that we keep our word. The old adage rings true, “A person is only as good as his word.” How can people have a relationship with us, if what we say means nothing? They can’t.  And such is the case in our relationship with God. Yet it is not about keeping our word, but it is about keeping His word. To be a Christian means to have the discipline to keep God’s word: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” These words express the truth about love itself. They remind us that it is obedience—keeping the word of God—that is the proof of our love for Him.
 
Yet how are we to be obedient to the word of God? It has to do with the conscience, a term easily confused with simply deciding on my own what is best for me. What is conscience? A captain sailing a ship across the high seas cannot simply determine on his own where north, south, east and west are. From ancient times, navigators looked to the position of the sun and the stars to guide them safely home. So also our conscience cannot simply decide on its own what is right or wrong. Our conscience is no more the source of what is good or evil than a captain’s personal decision of where north and south should be. Rather our conscience is our reason looking to the objective truth found in God’s word, in divine revelation, and then making a judgment that a particular choice leads us in the direction of our ultimate destination, God Himself! Pope Francis said that the Church is called “to form consciences, not to replace them.” We are bound to follow our conscience, but we are not free to dismiss what reason can tell us, what God has revealed. In forming our conscience, we need to look beyond our feelings and beyond our preferences. A well-formed conscience will not contradict the objective moral law as spoken to us in the word of Christ and His Church.
 
On March 30, 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Succession, wherein King Henry VIII repudiated the supremacy of the Pope in religious matters. Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England, refused to take the oath. He chose to follow his conscience and not the demands of King Henry. In Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, More struggles with his conscience. His good friend, the Duke of Norfolk, tries to persuade him to take the oath and do what everyone else is doing: “Can’t you do what I did, and come with us for fellowship?” With brilliance, More replies: “And when we stand before God and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me for fellowship?” In the end, More would not surrender his responsibility for following a correct, well-formed conscience. He was executed by the King as a criminal but God exalted him as a martyr. By keeping God’s word, following a correct and well-formed conscience, we will then make the right choices to arrive by God’s grace to our true destination, heaven.
 
By keeping God’s word, following a correct and well-formed conscience, we will then make the right choices to arrive by God’s grace to our true destination, heaven. 
 

Msgr. Geno Sylva