This was the sin of Adam and Eve. This was the sin of the chosen people of God. This is the sin of the people today. And this will be the sin of the world up to the end of time. . . the desire to be like God deciding what is good and evil (without paying the price of eating first of the tree of life,) and as a consequence, the rejection of God. And doing something about this is more hopeless today than 60 year ago. Because, today, people are not only desiring to be like gods, they are acting like gods.
When the devil tempted Eve, it was easy. He tempted her to do her own will. Who can refuse that? The fruit was nice to both the eyes and taste. It was likable. “Go get it,” was an easy trap. The devil’s temptations are all like this. He presents something very likable. We chose to do it because we like it and for no other reason. And that is sin.
What is the Dictatorship of Relativism? Pope Benedict XVI had defined it so many times it is almost redundant to define it again. But here it is anyway. It is when we do whatever we want in complete disregard to what could be God’s will.
When God created Adam and Eve, He showed them His will: to eat of the Tree of Life. And as a reward they may eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life first, and then the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Apparently there was nothing wrong with the forbidden tree. Except that its knowledge was to be a reward for their prior eating of the Tree of Life.
God’s will was clear. And when the serpent was tempting Eve, she even re-called God’s command showing she was conscious of His will. However, deceived by the devil to distrust God, and even to consider God as the liar, she disobeyed by following her own will. And convinced Adam to do likewise.
The knowledge of good and evil is given to saints, because they had eaten of the tree of life. It was a good tree. But it must be attained as a reward to being a saint first. Which means, as long as we are not holy we can never know for sure what is good and evil. That’s why in the early times, the Christians consulted the hermits on what is right or wrong. The image, and even now shown in cartoons, of people consulting hermits is the s.o.p. that even Sesame characters consult Kermit the hermit. This practice is now only in cartoons. Nobody believes this anymore. People believe they can decide what is right and wrong just like God… wasn’t this, precisely, the lie the serpent told Eve. And we still believe it.
Scriptures has it: “there are ways which to men seem right, but the ends of them plunge into the depths of hell.” The fruit looked pleasant to the eyes and taste but it led into the depths of hell. Fortunately Adam and Eve repented.
Doing our own will is “going after our concupiscence,” and because it is nice it seems right but ends up leading us to serious sin.
The sin of the Chosen people was exactly the same: doing what they want. When they worshipped God in the desert of Sinai, they were, in fact, worshipping God. But in the way they wanted. They could not wait for God’s instructions that was still being dictated to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
When Jesus Christ came, He summarized His mission on earth in a short phrase that showed both the sin and the cure: the cure, “I came not to do my will but the will of My Father in heaven.” Obviously, the sin is doing our will. The cure is denying one’s will to be able to do God’s will. The way to go to heaven is to do God’s will; God will reveal His will to those who deny their own will.
Both in the Old and New Testaments this battle is evident all over. In the case of King Saul, it was a choice between his own will of offering the captured gold as a sacrifice to God against God’s will to destroy all captured gold. In the temptation of Jesus, the choice was between the natural desire of man to eat when he is hungry and the will of God to fast. The choice is obvious. It is between the natural desire of man and the Will of God. Between the natural desire to buy, buy buy and God’s command to sell, sell, and sell.
When Christ came to earth, His first and emphatic command was to “deny oneself, take up your cross and follow Me.” Many commit the mistake of trying to take up the cross without first denying themselves. If we all start with a life of self-denial there won’t be any problems in seminaries and in the priesthood….and in some nunneries, for that matter.
Notice, therefore, that in the Holy Rules of holy founders the act of denying oneself, to deny one’s own desires is paramount. St. Benedict puts it as the first degree of humility. Humility is the same as “poor in spirit,” without which you cannot possess the kingdom of heaven. And self-denial is just the first degree of humility.
This is further proof that the Rules of Founders are just summarized and well planned presentations of the Evangelical life. Their essences are the same. St. Augustine gives this disturbing thought. He says that Christ taught us to pray without ceasing. So we must pray without ceasing because Christ commanded us. If one day, for some emotional reason, we prayed because we felt like doing it, and merely because we wanted to pray, we sin. We did not pray because it was the will of God but because it was our own will. It was doing our own will, like Eve, that is sin. It is doing God’s will that is virtue. “If you love me, keep My commandments.” He who does things because it is My Will, he it is who loves me. He who follows his own will loves himself and as a consequence rejects Me.
Pope Benedict has described our present age as one who have lost the sense of God. It started earlier, at the onset of the growth of unscientific science (true science makes us conscious of God). With God gone from our picture, who will bother to find out God’s will or try to please God by doing His will? No one. Man, today, is concerned only in doing his own will. The faster the better. Even Bishops, priest and nuns are doing what they want on almost everything: on the liturgy, on seminary training, etc. This is virtual spiritual anarchy. This is relativism.
Imagine, from the time you wake up: you wake up the time you want, you wear the clothes you want, you eat the breakfast you want, you schedule your day the way you want. If God suddenly decides to test you and give you a choice between your own will and God’s will, what chances will you have of choosing God’s will when the whole day you are doing your own will?
Because of the hard-headedness of man, in the Old Testament, there was a time God regretted having created him and wanted to destroy him. Except He relented. But this time He might just go through with it.
See how St. Benedict gives a cure: He states that the two most important things monks should bring when they establish a new monastery are the Holy Rule and the weighing scale for food and drink. Like all the desert Fathers, he knew that if the intake of food could be controled so that the monk cannot eat what he wants and as much or as little as he wants, he will be alright. The men of the world usually eat what they want and as much or as little as the want. The monk is unable to do his will and prays “Your will be done.” The man of the world does his own will every meal and prays “God, do what I want.” And hurry up, O Mighty Slave.
Christ said, “Deny yourself,” dont do what you want. St. Benedict describes the first degree of humility thus: we are forbidden to do our own will by Scriptures, which says to us, “Turn away from your own will”. And we love to declare in the Our Father “Your will be done”. Can I do that, if nobody else is doing it; and everybody doing what they want? When the world’s version of the Our Father is “my will be done?” To deny oneself would be martyrdom. Adam and Eve were the first dictators of relativism. Jesus and Mary are the anti-thesis; “I came not to do My will…..Fiat mihi.” (Painting is “Adam and Eve” by Nicolas Poussin.)