Understanding Natural Law and Its Moral Implications

Friends, in our first reading from the book of Deuteronomy this week, Moses says to the people, “For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. . . . No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” This is a master text for what we call in the Catholic tradition “the natural law.” It means that there is within us a kind of deep moral intuition by which we know the right thing to do; there are intuitions of value that give us a sense of meaning, purpose, and direction in life.