I would like to focus my first few blogs for the Office of Catholic Scouting on the Boy Scout and Girl Scout Promises. Have you ever noticed that a lot of organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts ask their members to take oaths or to recite certain promises? Our own nation invites us to “make a pledge of allegiance” by reciting a certain set of words. I began to realize this when I was hearing grade school confessions shortly after my ordination. I asked one child in the midst of confession to recite his act of contrition and I was shocked when he stood up placed his right hand over his heart and instead of praying the act of contrition recited to me the Pledge of Allegiance. He was so proud of himself for remembering the whole thing and I congratulated him on his memorization skills and trusted that God was just as amused at the child’s attempt as I was and I therefore continued with the sacrament with the prayer of absolution without correcting him. 

 

The reason why organizations and countries ask people to make pledges, take oaths, and swear certain promises is because it helps to unite individual people into a unified group. There seems to be something in us human beings that makes us feel closer to people who make and keep certain promises especially if they are the same promises that we have made. 

 

God is really big on making promises in the Bible too. In the Bible we often refer to these oaths that God swears as covenants. We see that God makes a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. We speak as Catholics as the Jesus making the ultimate oath to us in the “new covenant” sealed by His death and resurrection. 

 

I would like to focus real quickly on one particular oath in the Bible. For the Jewish people it is called the Shema and they recite it like we recite the Nicene or Apostle Creed each Sunday at Mass in order to be bounded together as God’s people. We read in the Book of Deuteronomy “Hear then, Israel, and be careful to observe them, that you may grow and prosper the more, in keeping with the promise of the LORD, the God of your fathers, to give you a land flowing with milk and honey. "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates“(Deuteronomy 6:4 &ff).   We see in Scripture how God intends the recitation of this oath to be a thing that unites his people. It is my hope that you will encourage the youth in your scouting programs to take seriously the promise that you are asking them to make together and that you will talk to them about how reciting this oath together makes them a team and a community. I also hope that you will talk to them about the ideas of not keeping one’s oath and how it damages and weakens the team/organization and encourage them to never swear false oaths.