Helping Christians in
‘Living Christian Life’ – A layman’s perspective

They’ll know we are Christians
By our love, by our love,
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians
By our love.

I have often wondered upon hearing this popular hymn during Mass as to whether love alone is the sole criterion to determine or identify us as Christians.

Yes, the hymn also speaks of our being one in the Spirit and one in the Lord, praying for unity, walking hand in hand with each other, working side by side with each other and giving all praise to the Father from whom all things come and to Christ Jesus, His only Son, and the Spirit who makes us one, besides spreading the Good News and guarding each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride. But the key point or rather the nagging doubt is whether love alone is enough to be identified as Christians?

We know, Jesus told his band of 12 disciples before the Passover Meal, and by inference, all of us, his followers: ``A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one another.’’ (John 13: 34-25) Likewise, when a lawyer asked Jesus: ``Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?, ’’ he said, ``You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbour as your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’’ (Matthew 22: 36-40)

But is loving one another or rather serving the less privileged in society enough to be considered or regarded as Christians? If that were so, what about the large number of people belonging to other faiths like Hindus, Muslims, Parsees or those professing other religions or, for that matter, who are agnostic or atheists, who still love and serve mankind? Are they Christians or what?

Naturally, the first and basic requirement for living as Christians or Living Christian Life is to get to know, understand Jesus, his life, his Gospel and to acquire the right Christian vision and correct Christian perspective with regard to ourselves, the created universe we live in, the other humans we have to live with and ultimately the God, for whom we live, or simply the Christian revelation is precisely what the six-volume series on ``Living Christian Life’’ by Fr. Andrew Anil Sequeira does.

In ``Living Christian Life,’’ it is not just the priests, religious brothers and sisters but even ordinary Christians are enlightened on various aspects of Christian Moral Theology in a clear and unambiguous manner in keeping with the present and modern understanding of different aspects of human living in the true spirit of understanding of Christ’s teaching and thereby live their Christian faith.

What ordinary lay Christian faithful, with little or no understanding of theological nuances - let alone moral theology – can take from the six-volume compendium, `Living Christian Life’?

For starters, the Living Christian Life series is a virtual primer for its simple style of presentation, commonly understandable language and matter-of-fact explanations despite the scholarly approach and depth of knowledge as well as references to authoritative texts from authors, books and manuscripts as can be seen from the Bibliography. The contemporary context stands out in all the six volumes.

As a lay person with nothing but some four decades of experience as a journalist in different newspapers and hardly any expertise or knowledge on the subject but privileged to critically go through the entire set of the six volumes of ‘Living Christian Life’ not once but at least four times and some portions even more number of times, what can I say or write about the books?

Though a firm believer and follower of Christ – I would not like to term myself a good Christian, for I suppose, it is simply beyond me to do so – I confess to have learnt a lot of theology and my own religion besides, of course, Fr Anil’s field of expertise - moral theology. I read and learnt so much about various aspects, distinctions and distinguishing features of `ethics’ and `morality’ that to put it on a lighter note, there were times when I could not differentiate between the two. But that is probably because I must be the only person who read the treatise so many times after the author. That pretty well sums up the first volume, minus the details, which I am sure would certainly benefit all readers.

In Volume II, Fr Anil dwells at length on various aspects of Conscience. How many of us would have heard, not to speak of actually knowing the difference between personal conscience, fundamental conscience and functional conscience or for that matter about the right and wrong or imperfect conscience? That apart, can any ordinary Christian or lay person – I am not talking about the religious men and women – know or distinguish between erroneous, doubtful, scrupulous, perplexed, Pharisaic or law/broad conscience?

Apart from discussing various aspects of conscience and its formation at different stages of human life from childhood, adolescence to adulthood in family, school, place of work etc, Fr Anil convincingly elucidates on freedom of conscience and its limitations.

For those of us, who are not fully familiar with the finer details of the Bible, we learn in the second volume that the term ‘conscience’ is mentioned only ‘twice’ and that too relatively in the latter books like Wisdom in the entire Old Testament, and that the Gospels do not mention conscience at all in the New Testament and that the term is somewhat frequently encountered in the rest of the New Testament, especially St Paul, who uses the term 21 times. These and other vignettes are abundantly found, which should certainly benefit all Christians.
Most of us must be well aware of the 10 Commandments or the Biblical Decalogue that was supposedly revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel. Those of us, who have watched the famous movie bearing the same title by the celebrated American film director Cecil B DeMille, may be able to recall the graphic details as visualised.

But in the 3rd Volume, Fr Anil gives a true and correct perspective to understand the 10 Commandments in their historical and cultural context and explains how the commandments, though largely negative, `thou shall not’ have in fact a positive formulation; and more, how they have really received a perfection and fulfilment in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

``While accepting all that is commanded in the Decalogue, which is minimal, Christians need to necessarily interpret the Commandments from the perspective of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially from that of the one ‘Supreme Commandment’, namely, Love, so powerfully preached and exemplified in his own person,’’ says the author. Can there be a better and more practical lesson for us Christians?

On the 5th Commandment against killing, Fr Anil explains various nuances of moral directives for Christian life and underscores the need for taking a serious view of the traditional modes of sanctions and the age-old perception as well as perspectives on issues like capital punishment, life imprisonment, unjust aggression and self-defence, abortion, suicide etc. The discussion on the 6th Commandment against giving false evidence or the affirmation that `truth is precious,’ is something that appealed to me immensely and, in fact, resulted in some material contribution from my end as well. But the facts, arguments and positions taken by Fr Anil on ‘Truth in the Communication Media’ may be beneficial to all those engaged in the media, including the advertising field, besides the right to privacy, maintaining secrecy or protecting the sources as also on ‘confessional secrecy,’ which is relevant for priests and lay persons alike.

Fr Anil devotes an entire volume for a complete treatment of the subject, ‘Theology of Sin and the Sacrament of Reconciliation,’ which was commonly known as the Sacrament of Confession until 40 years ago. This is certainly most useful and relevant not only for all Christians but even the priests, especially their role as confessor. The elaborate guidelines for helping in the examination of conscience by the faithful to bridge the break in relationship of God, other humans and the universe are useful for adults, youth and children.

The 5th Volume on ‘’Christian Marriage and Sexual Morality,’’ puts in relief the Biblical perception of human marriage and sexuality and also explains the New Testament understanding of both. Underscoring the need to accept marriage as a `sacred vocation,’ ‘covenant’ and ‘sacrament,’ the book affirms that married people need all the understanding in the world as they strive to lead good Christian lives in today’s complex world situation.

Some of the positions and explanations offered by Fr Anil on marital breakdown, mixed marriages, fertility control, masturbation, homosexuality, non-marital, pre-marital and extra-marital sexual activity as well as the points on pornography and obscenity etc. could well seem too radical and even controversial besides being not in consonance with the traditional understanding of the Church. However, he might well take solace in the fact that the present Pope Francis is rather too unconventional and not so rigid in his pronouncements, which probably justifies what the canonised Pope John XXIII meant when he said, ``I want to throw open the windows of the Church to let some fresh air in and promote aggiornamento (bringing up-to-date),’’ when he convoked the Second Vatican Council more than 50 years ago.

The final and 6th Volume in the series, which deals with ``Birth, Health and Death Issues in Bio-Medical Morality,’’ brings in sharp focus all the moral issues in the bio-medical field covering the entire span of human life, particularly critical moments like birth, health and death, and his in-depth knowledge and expertise as a member of the Institutional Ethics Committee of a leading private hospital in the city.

Though as journalists, we tend to learn a little bit of everything almost on a daily basis as if to justify the adage, `jack of all trades, master of none,’ I must confess that I learnt quite a lot on various aspects of Christian and as well as Catholic history of bio-medical morality and many other complex related subjects, thanks to Fr Anil and my involvement in editing and proof-reading of the text.

Thus, complex and technical bio-medical issues starting with human genetics, genetic make-up, gene and chromosome mutation, control of gene-inherited damages as well as human genetic manipulation, gene therapy; hominization and the ticklish question of personhood from fertilisation and hominization to origin of genotype and the process of hominization, pre-natal stages of hominization, moral status or personhood of embryo as well as moral issues of human birth such as contraception, sterilisation, abortion, cryopreservation, in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer, artificial insemination, sex or gender selection, surrogate pregnancy, human cloning; stem cell therapy, tissue and organ transplants, clinical research on humans, psychopathology and psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, hypnotherapy, psychosurgery, artificial prolongation of life, moment of death and organ donation besides types of euthanasia etc. have been explained in an easy to understand and simple manner.

A lot more can be written on each of these topics but suffice it to say that one learns and gains a lot of knowledge and insight besides a Christian perspective in accordance with the spirit of Christ’s teachings rather than the literal interpretation.

I am not able to say whether one can become a good or better Christian by reading the six-volume series, ``Living Christian Life.’’ But I can most certainly say with all confidence that reading and understanding the six-volume series, ``Living Christian Life,’’ would help all Christians, including the religious priests and nuns, in their endeavour of Living Christian Life.

Mr. Gabriel Vaz

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