Ed Van Buskirk, founder of the Catholic apostolate If U Love Me, joins guest host Sam Halligan and Deacon Mark Campbell to close the Ten Commandments series with the Ninth and Tenth Commandments on coveting. He explains the difference between healthy desire and disordered envy, how comparison and "the grass is greener" thinking erode our peace, and why these final commandments are the key to keeping all the rest. The conversation offers a clear prescription — gratitude, humility, devotion to Mary, and frequent reconciliation — to guard the heart against covetousness.
What Coveting Really Means Often dismissed as "just thinking about things," the Ninth and Tenth Commandments are anything but minor — Ed Van Buskirk calls them the key to living all the other commandments. He distinguishes ordinary desire (which is good and God-given) from coveting: a disordered emotional attachment we foster until it drives us to act against our own good or our neighbor's. His memorable example: begrudging a neighbor's pristine lawn and sabotaging it, versus humbly asking the neighbor for help so we can grow.
Judging Our Desires, Not Just Our Actions Ed and Deacon Mark Campbell explore how we tend to "judge our insides by other people's outsides," especially through social media and comparison. The test: do the things we pursue draw us into deeper relationship with God and neighbor (the two greatest commandments), or only puff up self? When desire — for money, status, or possessions — clouds our judgment, it becomes the doorway to breaking other commandments like stealing and lying. As Jesus warns in the Sermon on the Mount, sin begins in the heart.
The Prescription: Virtues That Heal Coveting Ed offers practical remedies: humility (recognizing that God is God and we are not), turning to Mary in moments of temptation ("Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners"), gratitude for both small and large blessings, and frequent Reconciliation to be made new. We sacrifice our peace when we fail to recognize the good already present in our own lives.
Explore the Resources This series wraps up next week. Dive into Ed's "God's Recipe for a Wonderful Life" book and video study and the full Ten Commandments resources at GodsRecipe.org. To revisit earlier conversations in the series, search "Ed Van Buskirk" at IowaCatholicRadio.com. Listen to The Catholic Morning Show weekdays at 7:00 AM Central on the Iowa Catholic Radio app.
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