How Do I Decide What Is Right? (Part 5)

How Do I Decide What Is Right?
Part Five
For the past four weeks, I have been addressing the following questions: how do we decide what it right and what is wrong? How can we make good moral decisions, decisions we will not regret? So far I have said that if we are going to make good moral decisions, we must know who we are and where we are going; for when we know who we are and where we are going, we know what we must do to reach our goal.
 
In today’s column, I want to take up the question, what must we do if we want to reach our goal? If we are God’s new creation, members of the community of the church, destined to be conformed to Christ so that we can enter into the fullness of life, we need to ask which means we must use if we are to attain our goal. The answer to this question can be stated in three points: (1) We must live a life that accords with God’s will; (2) We must live a life of virtue; (3) We must live a life guided by the Spirit of the risen Christ.
 
First, we must live a life that accords with God’s will. If we do not live in accordance with God’s will, we will never attain our goal. If we insist on our own selfish desires, we will never be conformed to Christ. And so we must live a life that accords with God’s will as revealed in the Ten Commandments, in the words of Jesus as found in the Gospels, and in the age long teaching of the Church. God’s commandments, Jesus’ words, and the teaching of the Church provide us with a guide for doing God’s will. If we obey the commandments, if we obey Jesus’ words, and if we follow the teaching of the church, we will understand God’s will for our lives.
 
Second, we must live a life of virtue. Virtues are habits that strengthen us in the moral life. Like a good athlete, Christians practices the virtues over and over again until the virtuous life becomes second nature. Virtues make it possible for us to live a morally good life. For example, the more I practice the virtues of patience or chastity, the easier it is for me to be patient and chaste. If I practice the virtues of generosity and kindness, the easier it is for me to be generous and kind. Virtues make it possible for us to live a morally good life. For the more virtuous we are, the easier it is to live the morally good life.
 
Finally, we must be guided by the Spirit of the risen Christ. We cannot live the morally good life apart from Christ and the Spirit. Try as we may, we will always fail if we are not empowered by Christ and his Spirit. At the beginning of the moral life we need the help of rules and commandments. As we grow in virtue, we grow in the moral life. The summit of the moral life, however, comes when we are guided by the Spirit of the risen Christ. The morally good life becomes second nature to us because Christ is at work within us, enabling us to live the morally good life.
 
So how do we make good decisions? We make good decisions by remembering who we are in Christ, where we are going in Christ, and by using the appropriate means to attain our goal: God’s commandments, the virtues, and the Spirit of the risen Christ.    
 
Next week, I will begin a series of columns on the Sacraments. Fr. Matera