Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
It is the sense of duty which impels a man to render to God the worship and obedience due to Him. This means that it is a form of justice which it is just as dishonest to neglect as our debts to our fellow men. As a matter of fact, we are far more indebted to God than we are to any earthly creditors.
Put it this way. He wants us to have an unswerving sense of duty to Him. So Christ said: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." This sense of duty is not blind. It is inspired by the very light of our faith making us see clearly that it is our duty. As for our feelings, God has never promised any gratification of our senses as a result of our obedience. But He did promise peace of soul. And He keeps that promise.
We need to render it. And God would not be God if He did not will us to do what it is right for us to do. We are unjust if we do not render to God the love, gratitude, obedience and worship we owe to our Supreme Creator, Father and Benefactor. And not God's future well-being, but our own future well-being depends upon our fulfillment of our religious duties.
Not much, if they do so only with the idea of what they can get out of it. There are two attitudes to life, the utilitarian and the appreciative. If self-seeking is our predominant motive, even in religion, then we become more and more self-centered, ending by worshipping self only, with no room for the worship of anything or anybody else, even of God. But genuine worship of God is not based on utilitarian grounds. It is based upon an appreciation of God for His own sake. Any benefit we get is a byproduct only. If we aim at the by-product we won't even get that. But if -we put aside self-seeking and worship God as we should, then blessings upon ourselves will result. Utter selfishness is the cause of most of the world's troubles and it is due in great measure to the criminal neglect of the due acknowledgment of God. It is a duty to worship God both privately and collectively by attendance at public religious services.
There is happiness, not necessarily pleasure. There may be, of course, pleasurable moments; but they are temporary emotional experiences which cannot be expected to continue permanently. God does not want only fairweather friends. Trial and suffering must come to everybody. Sometimes we'll feel we like our religious duties. Sometimes we won't. But if we are truly religious people we continue fulfilling our religious duties on principle. If we do, we may not always find much pleasure in them from the viewpoint of sense-experience; but we will find happiness of mind and heart and will.
That might possibly be true of a sex-obsessed maniac; though I doubt it even in his case. It is certainly not true of a normal human being. Reason itself tells us that the reproductive function is but one of the functions of human nature. And its purpose is obviously to enable human beings to reproduce themselves for the sake of keeping human beings in existence. Not that they may merely exist, but that they may behave in accordance with the human nature they have received. Does sex cause the behavior of the astronomer who is carefully engaged in spectroscopic analysis of the sun? What has that to do with sex?
That's an equally ridiculous statement. The sex-instinct, which animal nature shares with human nature, has never sought to express itself among brute animals in any form of religion. Intelligent beings only have ever had a religion; and it is due to the fact that they are intelligent. In other words, it is due, not to the sex-instinct they have in common with animals, but to the intelligence by which they differ from animals. The interpretation of religion as sex-expression is significantly made by people who have given up the practice of religion; who have fallen to sub-human standards of conduct; and who are themselves victims of sex-obsessions. They are not normal human types.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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