30 July 2019
Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
The first reading today tells the story of Moses writing the 10 commandments. The story has an echo in many contemporary Mesopotamian and Mediterranean societies. The Code of Hammurabi was given by a god as was the book of the dead for Egyptians for the parameters of moral practice. What all these laws have in common is that there are some aspects of the moral life that are determined by reflection on the natural order. Killing, theft, and brutality are all known as wrong by natural reason. When we consider that both reason and nature are gifts from God, we come to the realization that no matter how strong the majority, some things are just wrong.The phraseology of documents from this period may be confusing or no longer applicable, but the foundational idea still holds: God has written some laws in our hearts and we are fools to think these laws can be ignored or explained away.