It is always the right time to remember to work more than ever before to improve our soul. As we consider well our conduct and compare it to the objective moral law, it is important to appreciate the great gift of the moral law that God gave to His Church (and gave even to all mankind, through the Natural Law).

Here are three things that many people (including Catholics) might not know (or remember) about the Catholic Church:

1. The Catholic Church shows us that the goal (i.e., the end) of man, and the reason that we are on earth, is to attain Divine Friendship.

Getting to heaven depends upon our charity. Here is how Our Lord teaches this truth:

And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: 36 Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 22:35-40.

St. Paul declares that: “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Romans, 13:10.

St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches that charity is all-important for our salvation. Here are his words:

Whosoever has not charity is wicked, because “this gift alone of the Holy Ghost distinguishes the children of the kingdom from the children of perdition”, as Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 18).

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.178, a.2, Sed contra.

This all-important love of God is Divine Friendship. Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, explains this truth:

It is written (John 15:15): “I will not now call you servants . . . but My friends.” Now this was said to them by reason of nothing else than charity. Therefore, charity is friendship. …

According to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii, 2,3), not every love has the character of friendship, but that love which is together with benevolence, when, to wit, we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves, (thus we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like), it is love not of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence. For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse.

Yet, neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship, for a certain mutual love is requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend: and this well-wishing is founded on some kind of communication.

Accordingly, since there is a communication between man and God, inasmuch as He communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship must needs be based on this same communication, of which it is written (1 Corinthians 1:9): “God is faithful: by Whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son.” The love which is based on this communication, is charity: wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God.

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.23, a.1, sed contra and respondeo (emphasis added).

Therefore, the all-important concern of our life, and for our salvation, is to achieve Divine Friendship.¹

2. The Catholic Church gives us the road map (the Rules) to tell us how we can achieve this Divine Friendship. This includes the Church telling us what we need to do to perfect the moral life.

3. The Catholic Church puts the Rules in the right perspective and shows us that the Rules exist to help us.

The moral law is not simply a list of “killjoy dos and don’ts”. Neither are these Rules given to us in order to hassle us. The Rules are not “a drag”. Instead, these Rules are an explanation for our dull minds, giving us great help in order to enter into the Divine Friendship.

Let us consider an analogy. The Rules for a man to cultivate a woman’s friendship would include directives such as don’t hit her or scream at her (as well as many other things). Besides the Rules concerning her own person, there are other Rules which pertain to things that she loves or cares about. For example, don’t mock her parents. And don’t maliciously torture little animals.

These directives are not for the purpose of “hassling” the man who seeks her friendship but because a man is incapable of having this friendship with a woman when he acts like that. To cultivate the woman’s friendship, the man must necessarily avoid things like these because they hurt her, offend her, and destroy the possibility of friendship with her.

If that man is motivated to cultivating a friendship with her, then he will even love these Rules themselves because they foster this friendship – because it is natural for us to love even the means to the end for the sake of the end that we love. (Of course, there are other good reasons to love these Rules for cultivating a friendship with a woman, e.g., because those Rules are so reasonable.)

Likewise, the rules for cultivating a friendship with God would include the various guidelines that tell us how a person should behave towards God and to live the life He wants us to lead. Some of these Rules are directed toward God Himself, like don’t take His Name in vain. Other Rules pertain to the things that God loves and cares about. For example, don’t mock the representatives of God, such as priests and parents. And do not take for yourself (viz., by theft) what He Himself gave to someone else.

These Rules of the moral law are not given to us in order to hassle us but because such directives are essential to cultivating this friendship with God. We must not offend our Divine Friend by breaking the Rules (just like a man must not do offensive things to the lady with whom he seeks to cultivate a friendship).

This Divine Friendship is real, not imaginary. The Divine Friend really loves us and gives us the means to obtain Him. This friendship is inherently a spiritual one between God and our soul.

If we are really motivated to cultivate a friendship with God,² then we will even love these Rules that foster the friendship with Him because it is natural for us to love even the means which are for the sake of the end that we love. (Of course, there are other reasons to love the moral law also, e.g., because it is so reasonable.)

As we live in this world which becomes ever-more licentious and sad, let us thank God for the traditional moral law that He has given us through the Catholic Church. Let us appreciate it ever-more because it greatly helps us to avoid becoming unhappy failures in this life and then unspeakably-wretched failures for all Eternity!