Friday, May 05, 2006

Bishop Vasa on Contraception and Keeping the Word of God

Some great points in this article:

“Those who say, ‘I know him,’ but do not keep his commandments are liars and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.” (I John 2:4-5)

I was further struck by the reading from the second century martyr, St. Justin, who writes: “No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.”

The truth is that it is simply not possible to say on one hand, “I do love the Lord with my whole heart, mind and soul” and at the same time to say, “My decisions about how to deal with the most marvelous God-given gift of fertility has nothing to do with God.” The claim that one loves God with one’s whole self while exempting a very significant element of that self from the sphere of God’s dominion, indeed from the sphere of God’s love, must answer to the First Letter of St. John, Chapter 2, Verse 4.

I suspect that if we took some liberties with the Scripture we could envision Jesus saying: “You cannot love God and contraception at the same time. You will either love one and hate the other or be committed to one and despise the other.” There it is then...
More here.

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