The Natural Law: Always and Everywhere

Viva Christo Rey!

Have you ever noticed how every town in the world has a main street which is called just that: “Main Street”? This seems to be an unwritten law in every community.

Brothers and sisters, there is a law not written on paper but written in the heart of each and every human person. This law we call “the natural moral law” or simply “the natural law.”

Now, because a person is human, he just knows that certain things are right and just:
• worshipping God
• honoring your parents
• helping your brothers and sisters
• helping your neighbor who is in need
• telling the truth
• respecting the property of other people
• being happy with the good things that God has given you and not wanting somebody else’s things

Do you notice how these commands that I have just named are very similar to the Ten Commandments?
• I am the Lord, your God, you shall not have strange gods before Me.
• Keep holy the Lord’s Day.
• Honor your father and your mother
• You shall not kill.
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

This is because the Ten Commandments are a direct way of saying the natural law, which God has put into your heart and into the heart of every human person.

Finally, no one on earth—not even the government—has authority to make anyone act against the Ten Commandments. No one has any right to make a person act against the natural law. Furthermore, the Ten Commandments have been revealed to everybody and are valid in every place and for all time. Everyone has to obey them. Everybody should want to obey them. They come straight from the Heart of God, a Heart so lovingly solicitous for the true well-being, the salvation, of each one of us!