I came across with this question on Google which needs clarification for continued awareness and at the same time to shed light. The query goes in this mode:
“My Catholic friends don't practice Baptist
traditions. We Baptists celebrate an anniversary for almost anything under the
sun - seriously.) Also, I have always
seen myself as a non-denominational person who has Baptist roots. Can you please elaborate more on why
Catholics don't follow the Mosaic Law at all? I used to know - a long, long
time ago what the Catechism is and the role it plays in Catholic Church. Would you run through that for me? Hope these questions aren't offensive.”
While
the Baptist offers two worship services on each of the four Sundays, the Catholic Church (aside
from its Catechism for the children, Parish Renewal Experience (PREX), Catholic
Life in the Spirit Seminars and different organizations which empower men and women, young and adults in terms of spirituality, community building, evangelization, corporal acts of mercy) preaches the Gospel everyday (at least two masses in the morning and one in the afternoon on weekdays while up to seven masses on Sundays)
With
respect to Mosaic Law, Christians are indebted to obey the Ten Commandments
which are repeatedly quoted as examples of the natural law, not because they are part of the Old Testament law, but because they
are part majority of the natural law . The natural law[2]
is embedded in the human heart and therefore universal and is in itself uniform
for all the entire human race, except for infants and insane persons who have
not the actual use of their reason. Every human is bound, if he/she matches up
the universal order willed by the Creator, to live anchored to her/his own
rational nature, and to be guided by reason. The natural law commands and
forbids in the same tenor everywhere and forever.
Old
Testament law never has been binding on Christians.[3] It was only ever binding on those to whom it
was delivered—the Jews (Israelites). Having said that, some of that law contains
elements of a law that is binding on all people of every place and time. Jesus
and Paul provide proof of this in the New Testament.
Matthew’s
Gospel makes it clear about Jesus’ teaching regarding Old Testament law:
Matthew 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they
gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested Him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the
greatest?" He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first
commandment. The second is like it: You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
By saying this, Jesus affirms the breadth of the new law of His new covenant bringing
the old law into its perfection. He put it in plain words to His disciples:
Matthew 5:17-19 "Do not think that I have come to
abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter
or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have
taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But
whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the
kingdom of heaven.
"The
Law has not been abolished, but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the
person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment" (The Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2053)
The
advent of Jesus' birth and
His clear
intention of inaugurating a new religious movement make it essential for Him to put in plain
words His perspective concerning the Old Testament law. He has not come to repeal
but to bring it to perfection, to reveal the full intention of the divine
legislator, that is. The old moral order is to resurrect to a new life, infused
with a new spirit.
Jesus
reaches the summit of the Old Testament Law.
Old
Testament law contains several dietary commandments which were instituted as a
preparation for His teaching on the moral law. Jesus talked about these laws:
Mark 7:14-19 He
summoned the crowd again and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and
understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but
the things that come out from within are what defile." When He got home
away from the crowd His disciples questioned Him about the parable. He said to
them, "Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize
that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it
enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?" Thus He declared all foods clean.
The
Catechism makes it clear, "Jesus perfects the dietary law, so important in
Jewish daily life, by revealing its pedagogical meaning through a divine
interpretation . . . What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from
within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts . . ." (CCC 582).[4]
Saint Paul edifies similarly regarding other Old Testament law: Let
no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or with regard
to a festival or new moon or sabbath. These are shadows of things to come; the
reality belongs to Christ. If you died with Christ to the
elemental powers of the world, why do you submit to regulations as if you were
still living in the world? "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not
touch!" These are all things destined to perish with use; they accord with
human precepts and teachings. While they have a semblance of wisdom in rigor of
devotion and self-abasement (and) severity to the body, they are of no value
against gratification of the flesh.
In
this passage, Paul recognized that much of the Old Testament law was instituted
to set the stage for the new law that Jesus would establish. Much of the old
law’s could be taken into account in this value.
Jesus’
teaching about the Sabbath indicates similar value in part of the Old Testament
regulation of the Sabbath: At that time Jesus was going
through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to
pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said
to him, "See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the
sabbath." He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when
he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate
the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests
could lawfully eat? Or have you not read
in the law that on the sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the
sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the temple is
here. If you knew what this meant, 'I
desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned these innocent
men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the
sabbath." (Matthew 12:1-8)
Undoubtedly,
Jesus pointed out that not the Old Testament but He who had the authority over the
Sabbath, and its regulation was not as severe as the Pharisees deemed. As a
matter of fact, once Jesus would give the hierarchy of His Church with his own
authority (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), regulation of worship would develop
into the church’s domain.
In here, the obligation to worship is something all humans of every
place and time can discern simply by the use of reason. It is knowledge
embedded in the human conscience - natural law. Paul makes mentions of such
law when talking about those of his own time who were never bound by Old
Testament law: For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe
the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do
not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their
hearts. (Romans 2:14-15a)
Christians
are indebted to obey the Ten Commandments which are repeatedly quoted as
examples of the natural law because they are cited in here (part of the Old
Testament law) but because they are part majority of the natural law.
Indeed,
humans can discern by reason alone that specific actions are immoral – say killing
of the innocent, taking other’s possession, cheating on spouses, among the few.
Likewise,
humans can discern by reason alone of her/his obligation to worship the Creator.
But since Sabbath commandment is not part of the natural law at all but was
simply a law imposed upon the Jews for the discipline of their nation, so it can be
discerned in the same manner that such worship should happen weekly on
Saturday. Individual races had the
authority to choose for themselves the time preferred for worship. For
Christians in this generation, it makes sense taking this on Sunday.
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clearly: The celebration of Sunday
observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render
to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship as a sign of his
universal beneficence to all. Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the
Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the
Creator and Redeemer of his people. (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2176)
Old
Testament law required, as a discipline,
that the Jews worship on Saturday. In the same way, the Church requires Catholics
of a Sunday worship which is the day of the Lord’s Resurrection. (NOTE: discipline is man-made and can be
modified as frequent as the Church desires. This does not mean that the authority to enact discipline is man-made, which is clarified in the Scripture: Whatever
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18, 16;19)8);16:19. This power to bind and loose extend beyond discipline, but it
certainly includes the authority to enact discipline as well. Conversely, doctrine
is the teaching on matters of faith and morals, handed down to the Church by
Jesus and the apostles before the death of the last apostle. It is "the
faith which was once for all delivered to the saints"[5]
(Jude 1:3). As mentioned before,
doctrine can develop over time as the Church comes to discern it better but cannot
be altered, not even the pope has the authority to change doctrine).
Like
the majority of the law in the Ten Commandments, the Church’s teaching on the immorality
of homosexuality is part of the natural law, which can be discerned by people
of every time and place through reason alone and are bound by it even without unequivocal
teaching on it. Definitely, it was neither necessary for God to include such
teaching both in the Old Testament law and the New Testament. Despite that, the New
Testament contains abundant teaching concerning this.
Hence,
Christians are bound to the law of Christ which, of course, includes the
natural law. Old Testament law contains elements of natural law, like the
condemnation of homosexual activity (not the homosexuals per se), marital infidelity,
stealing etc. to which Christians are bound for that reason, not because of
their inclusion in the Old Testament. Christians do not have liberty on these
issues. Similarly, Christians are not and have never been bound by Old
Testament law for its own sake, and those elements of Old Testament law which
are not part of the natural law, like the obligation to worship on Saturday
which was only binding on the Jews. Christians do have liberty on the latter.
[3] Jim Blackburn, Why We Are Not Bound by Everything
in the Old Law, http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-we-are-not-bound-by-everything-in-the-old-law
[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, CCC582, http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/582.htm
[5] Jim Blackburn, Is It a Doctrine or a
Discipline?, http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-it-a-doctrine-or-a-discipline
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