There’s an interesting passage in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah (8:8 and following) where Ezra reads from the book of the law of God to the people and interprets it for them so all could understand.

When he does this, it says, “all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.” So Ezra, Nehemiah and the Levites had to calm everyone down, telling them to celebrate because “today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!” And they encouraged everyone to eat and drink, share portions of their food and drink and celebrate together.

Then the people were able to “celebrate with great joy, for they understood the words that had been expounded to them.”

It seems to me that a lot of the grumbling against the Church stems from its duty and commitment to announce the difficult things of God in and out of season. The people described above who wept as they heard the words of God’s law lived in an “in season” time. They absorbed the difficult parts of God’s law even as they understood how hard it was going to be to follow it. Down deep, they knew that what was being read to them was truth and that it was a gift to them from God.

Nowadays, too many of us hear the various laws of God that have come to us through the Ten Commandments and from Jesus, and we don’t absorb those teachings as truth and as gifts from God.

What too many of us absorb instead are the not-from-God teachings from too many of our movies and television shows and from too many of the lives modeled by too many of our formal and informal leaders. Just one of those not-from-God teachings — that it’s okay to sleep around with others before, during and after marriage — has led to tons and tons of broken hearts, crushed spirits, lost futures and other miseries.

Even so, many people nowadays look at God’s laws about faithfulness and dismiss them, thinking that such teachings are unnecessarily difficult, painful and impossible to follow. They snub the Church and call it foolish and out-of-touch because it insists on promoting (trying to, anyway) God’s laws about marriage and fidelity, restraint and responsibility.

Most don’t look deeply enough to realize that the challenges of following godly morals are a piece of cake compared with the fallout that happens throughout society when we embrace what is not taught by God.

All His hard laws are gifts — gifts! — designed to bring us happiness in this life and joy in the next. We forget that.

There’s another quote somewhere in the Bible that must have been written in a time in history that was similar to our own time. “Foundations once destroyed, what can the just do?” it laments.

When society doesn’t support its people in their attempts toward moral behaviors — and ours does not — those of us who realize how advantageous God’s laws are can have a significant impact only when we really grab onto Jesus’ teachings in our own lives and live them heroically — with great love.

Books about the saints show us how to live what Jesus taught. Books by the saints teach us how to think about heaven and about earth.

The little passage from Nehemiah reminds me of one saint’s writings that got me crying. It was so hard to face what he said had to be done in order to progress in loving God, but down deep I knew everything he said was truth and a gift.

Everyone who listens and begins to put God’s teaching into practice discovers that, once God sees that we have stepped up to try, he steps in to help. Throughout the ages, people have rejoiced in how God took care of them when they began a new and difficult task just because they knew it would please him.

Jesus claims that his burdens are light. We can show the world how wise and life-giving God’s laws are.

We can do that through our tears, straight to all the good things that are promised beyond them.