English
EspañolOnly God alone knows each human soul in all its depths. We have not been called to replace him in that knowledge and judgment. We have been called to care for, help, and lift each individual neighbor.
Text
“It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being.” (The Joy of Love, n.304)
Commentary
Whether or not a person lives according to moral standards is not enough to assess a person´s faithfulness to God. Only God knows our hearts. Only He truly knows the pain that a person who does not live according to His law may be in, and only He knows that person´s inner struggle to find the right path again.
Ines and Marco got married twenty years ago, after a ten-year courtship. At first, they seemed very happy until Marcos began to change. He became rude to Ines and his family. The arguments became more and more frequent and increasingly louder. It was as if Marcos was a completely different person or if he had been pretending during the courtship and that he had taken off his mask once married. This violent abuse became an ordinary chronicle. Ines was destroyed and ultimately separated from him. Three years later, she met Ricardo, and they started dating. This was quite a dilemma for Ines because she believed in God. She has always been close to the Church and was precisely in God, in whom she found the strength to endure the hard life she had had while married to Marcos. However, Ines had fallen in love with Ricardo. He was her chance for happiness, so they got married in a civil ceremony. They remained married for 25 years until the day Ricardo died. While married, they visited and conversed with the priest that Ines had known since she was young. They were very happy even though they were unable to have children. They went to Mass every Sunday and participated in volunteer activities and the parish. Some people distanced themselves from them because they were not married by the Church. These people were wrong. Ines and Ricardo were good people and loved each other as God intended.
Norms are means, for the Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath. The norms are general lights to avoid going astray and straighten paths; however, norms are generic. They do not contemplate each path in particular or each wayfarer in the singular. Norms fulfill a specific purpose, that of a beacon. However, they do not replace or suppress the personal character of each person´s encounter with Jesus Christ and the particular straightening of that interior relationship with God. To discern is to see each case concretely and reveal the possible steps for its particular and personal reencounter with God.
