The First Commandment is this, “I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:2-5).
God begins by reminding the Israelites that He brought them out of slavery in Egypt, which had just happened about two months before. It’s a requirement of justice to worship God, because we owe Him worship. The Lord God created us from nothing, holds us in existence, revealed Himself to us, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us, and gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit to sanctify us. If the Lord truly is God, then we owe Him, and Him alone, worship. We rightly revere, or honor, the saints and angels, and we give higher honor to the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, because God Himself has honored her (Lk 1:48); however, we reserve worship for God alone. If we can’t be completely sure that the Lord is God or if there is some other god or if there are many gods or no gods, then doesn’t it make sense to give reverence to all of the possible gods? The Lord, however, commands us otherwise. We are not to serve any other god, because the Lord alone is God. We should try to find the truth and then live in accord with the truth. Elijah said to the Israelites, “How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). We have to make a choice, and even refusing to choose is making a choice. Who or what we choose to worship affects our lives. The ancients had different gods and goddesses for different purposes. The goddess Athena was associated with wisdom, and was the patron of Athens, the home of philosophy. Jupiter, the god of the sky and lightning, was the head of the Roman pantheon, and so was the patron of the city of Rome, capital of the Roman Empire. There aren’t too many people today who still believe in Thor, Athena, or Baal, but we still tend to worship things that we feel are the most important, like money, fame, or security. In the end, when we choose our own gods we end up worshipping only ourselves and what we hold to be the most important, but “to adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the ‘nothingness of the creature’ who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat, confessing with gratitude that he has done great things and holy is his name. The worship of the one God sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world” (CCC 2097). Sins against the first commandment include superstition, idolatry, and irreligion. Superstition is, in a way, an excess of piety, where we begin to think of religious acts as in some way magical, which is to think that prayers or religious acts work merely because of the action instead of the interior disposition of love of God. If St. James said that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), we might also say that works without faith is dead. Irreligion is, in a way, the opposite extreme. It is a lack of piety and respect for God and religion and treating disrespectfully the sacraments and holy things. For example, simony is the sin of trying to purchase grace or blessings, and sacrilege is the sin of profaning a blessed or holy object, such as the Eucharist. Idolatry is misdirected religion by giving to something other than God the worship that belongs to God alone. Catholics are often accused of idolatry for using statues and holy images. If we use images, even images of Christ Himself, as if they are Christ, then we would be guilty of idolatry, but we can use images in a good way when they make us think of spiritual things or remind us of the presence of God. Finally, for many centuries Christians have debated whether it is allowed to make any images at all, of God, angels, saints, or any living creatures. The Old Testament definitely forbids make images of God, but it allows, and even commands, in some cases, the Israelites to make other images, as long as they aren’t worshipped as gods. For example, the Lord commands Moses to make images of two cherubim (angels) for the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, in Exodus 25:18, and He commands Moses to make a brazen serpent for the people to look at and be cured of their snake bites in Numbers 21:8. We are able to make images of the Lord because Jesus, the Son of God, took on a human form in the incarnation. The Church approved of the creation of images of Christ, Mary, and the angels and saints, so long as “the honor paid to images is a ‘respectful veneration,’ not the adoration due to God alone,” and leads us on to the worship of God in Himself (CCC 2132). The Ten Commandments, also called the Decalogue, which means “Ten Words,” are a summary of the Divine Law and the basis of all morality. Although they are in the Old Testament, Jesus still requires us to follow them. To the young man who asks, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life,” the Lord tells Him to follow the commandments before adding that he should sell what he has and give to the poor (Mt. 19). The Church’s Tradition has consistently taught that the Commandments are obligatory for Christians, and this was reaffirmed in the Council of Trent (1547), and the Second Vatican Council (1964).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Since they express man’s fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart” (CCC 2072). The Commandments regulate our relationship with God, in the first three Commandments, and with our neighbor, in the last seven Commandments. They express our obligations, in justice, to God and to our neighbor. Justice means giving people what they are owed. Think of the criminal justice system; someone who commits a crime is owed a punishment, and someone who’s innocent is deserves their freedom. Justice isn’t just about crimes, though. Someone who gives you a gift deserves to be thanked for it. Parents deserve to be honored by their children for giving them life and raising them. God deserves to be revered for creating us, holding us in existence, and redeeming us. The Ten Commandments are unchangeable; they apply to all people in every time and circumstance. They are basic rules of morality. The Natural Law is based on our nature as human beings. We’re living beings, so we ought to promote life. We’re also rational beings, so we ought to act rationally and seek the truth. The Catechism explains in this way, “They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law” (CCC 2070). The Fifth Commandment says that we ought not to kill, meaning murder, because humans have a right to life. Finally, the Catechism says that they are engraved by God in the human heart. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments after the Exodus from Egypt, when He engraved them on the stone tablets. The Prophet Jeremiah says, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they shall be my people” (Jer 21:33). How will it be written in our hearts? Listen to the Prophet Ezekiel, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees” (Ez 36:25-27). On our own we are prone to sin, but God makes us able to follow His Commandments by giving us His own Holy Spirit, cleansing us from sin, and writing the Law on our hearts. Look out for bulletin articles on each of the Ten Commandments. ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m starting a new series of pastor’s bulletin articles. In addition to the regular articles and “Fr. Bryan Recommends,” I’m adding a series of questions and answers. Once a month I’ll write an article answering a question from a parishioner on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity. Either write your question down and put it in the collection basket, or email me at bhoward@arch-no.org. |
AuthorFr. Bryan was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes from July 3, 2017 to June 2022. Categories
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