Good morning, class.  I hope you’ve completed your assigned reading because you’re going to have a pop quiz.  The quiz is a single question: “What is the purpose of religion?” 

(Please don’t volunteer an answer.  It’s a trick question.) 

The most common answer to this question is, “Religion is the way to get to heaven.”  If that sounds like an answer you would volunteer, I’ll explain why the quiz question can be misleading. 

Every person judges herself or himself to be a good person.  Ask anyone; they’ll tell you how good they are.  Sadly, this common judgment is demonstrably false.  Every murderer, thief, fraud, and liar judges themselves to be good; when pressed about their obvious lack of virtue, they will explain that their vices produce good results.  This, too, is a falsehood, as one cannot accomplish good by doing evil. 

In truth, we are neither as good nor as bad as we judge ourselves to be.  The cause of this misjudgment should be obvious.  We live in a finite universe and have a finite capacity to perceive truth; this is the case even with regard to the truth about ourselves.  Our finite capacity to perceive goodness and truth can lead to false judgments about ourselves and others. 

Everyone has a natural awareness of goodness.  Everyone is drawn toward goodness.  Everyone wants to be good and to do good.  Too often, however, we mistake these natural capacities for the actual presence of goodness in our hearts.  The necessary distinction here is between latent potential and skill.  If one is born with the potential to be a mathematician, but never develops mathematical skills, one is not a mathematician.  In a like manner, all people are born with the latent ability to be good, but only those who train and develop their talent can call themselves good. 

The solution to the common misunderstanding that confuses raw talent with expertise should be as obvious as its cause: every person needs to be taught how to recognize good and do good.  This is the purpose of organized religion.  Organized religion is a school that teaches goodness. 

Obviously, some religions are more adept at this than others.  In Judaism and Christianity, for example, the purpose of religion is easy to see; these religions teach a person to perceive the presence of Eternal Good in the world and to imitate God’s goodness.  

Some people might object to my thesis that the purpose of religion is to serve as a school for goodness. These folks might claim that religion is solely about getting into heaven. They probably judge my explanation to be unnecessarily limited because it recognizes only historical, social, and this-worldly issues.  Those who entertain this objection conveniently ignore the fact that heavenly things cannot be experienced directly, as the eternal can be experienced only through temporal events. 

Jesus illustrated this point when he responded to the question in today’s Gospel reading.  One of the Pharisees asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Mt 22:36)  Jesus responded by quoting two Scripture passages.  Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength,” and Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Then, Jesus added a summary of his opinion.  He said, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:40) 

Jesus’ reference to these two commands and the summary of their meaning was not an idea unique to him.  This was an oft-repeated bit of wisdom from Pharisaic Judaism.  The two commands go hand-in-hand because it is not possible to love God without first learning to love one’s neighbor.  This, then, is why I say religion is a school for goodness: we must learn how to love those outside our immediate circle of emotional attachments if our love is ever to extend beyond ourselves (toward God, for instance). 

If you want to learn the skills required to be a truly good person, you have only to follow Jesus’ teaching to love God with all your strength and to express your love for God by loving other people. The Catholic Faith provides numerous experiences and models to assist you in the learning process. For those who are very concerned with getting into heaven, the Catholic Faith says that learning the uncommon skill of loving one’s neighbor is precisely, and solely, the way to enter into God’s kingdom.  The life of heaven begins here and now; otherwise, it doesn’t begin at all.