Lumen Fidei: The Ten Commandments, An Invitation To Love

The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when you say, “The Ten Commandments,” I think (aside from the obligatory nod to Charlton Heston for people of a Certain Age) is “Thou Shalt Not”. The Ten Commandments are all of the things you aren’t allowed to do: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, Thou Shalt Not Even Covet. We see them as negative, as impinging on our American freedom to do whatever the hell we want to do.

In paragraph 46 of Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis makes a claim that surprised me: the Ten Commandments aren’t essentially negative. Rather, they are an invitation to love, and following them is a response to love:

The Decalogue is not a set of negative commands, but concrete directions for emerging from the desert of the selfish and self-enclosed ego in order to enter into dialogue with God, to be embraced by his mercy and then to bring that mercy to others. Faith thus professes the love of God, origin and upholder of all things, and lets itself be guided by this love in order to journey towards the fullness of communion with God. The Decalogue appears as the path of gratitude, the response of love, made possible because in faith we are receptive to the experience of God’s transforming love for us.

This cannot be said too often: the Christian life is not about avoiding sin. Rather, the Christian life is about learning to love all things in due proportion to their worth…and then, learning to choose those things that are worth more over those that are worth less. The man who can do this perfectly will never sin, because he will never choose the path of vice over the path of virtue. He will never elevate any creature over his Creator, or his own pleasure over the path of love.

Seen in this light, the commandment not to steal, or not to commit adultery, is like a road sign that say, “Bridge Out!”. If you heed all such signs, you’ll never fall into the chasm; but if that’s all you do, you’ll never get where you’re going either. Avoiding sin is therefore part of the Christian life—but it’s a means to an end, and the end is God.

Thus, the Commandments are an invitation to look deeper, to choose the path of love, and to seek union with God, as the First Commandment says: