The Ten Commandments

1. The Ten Commandments The Path to Eternal Life

2. What must I do? • Jesus tells him: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments." • "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother." • "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."1

3. Decalogue • "Decalogue" ="ten words." • They are pre-eminently the words of God. • The Decalogue is a path of life: • If you love the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply. • The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law.

4. Moral Existence • The Commandments-express the belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. • Moral existence is: 1. a response to the Lord's loving initiative. 2. the acknowledgement and homage given to God 3. a worship of thanksgiving. 4. cooperation with the plan God pursues in history.

5. The present catechism follows the order of the Commandments established by St. Augustine. • The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them. • The Second Vatican Council confirms: all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments.“ • The Ten Commandments state what is required in the love of God and love of neighbor.

6. Jesus and the 10 Commandments • "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."34 • Jesus summed up man's duties toward God- "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."1 • God loved us first. • The love of God is recalled in the Decalogue. • The response of love--man is called to give love to God.

7. The First Commandment (CCC) • 2133 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut6:5). • 2134 The first commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else. • 2135 "You shall worship the Lord your God" (Mt 4:10). Adoring God, praying to him, offering him the worship that belongs to him, are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the first commandment.

8. St. Paul says - • Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him. • The First commandment require us to - • Nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it.

9. Sins Against Faith 1. Voluntary Doubt • An uncertainty of mind totally induced by the will. 2. Involuntary Doubt • Doubt that is not under the control of the free will, hence spontaneous or automatic.   3. Heresy • An opinion at variance with the authorized teachings of any church. 4. Incredulity • Lack of belief; skepticism; The state or quality of being incredulous 5. Apostasy • The total rejection by a baptized person of the Christian faith he once professed.  6. Acedia/Sloth • One of the seven capital sins. Sloth or laziness as a state of mind that finds the practice of virtue troublesome.   7. Schism • A willful separation from the unity of the Christian Church

10. Hope • Hope • the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; • the fear of offending God's love and of incurring punishment. Sins against Hope • Despair • man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. • Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice • Presumption • Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), • or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit).

11. What is Love? • Faith in God's love encompasses the call and the obligation to respond with sincere love to divine charity. • Caritas—Charity—Love One can sin against God's love in various ways: • indifferenceneglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity • ingratitudefails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love. • lukewarmnessis hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love • acedia or spiritual sloth refuses the joy that comes from God and is repelled by divine goodness. • hatred of Godcomes from pride. It is contrary to love of God.

12. How we honor false gods: • The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord. • Superstition; Idolatry; Divination and Magic; Irreligion; Sacrilege; Simony; Atheism; Agnosticism • The Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea on the veneration of idols: • The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. • The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone • Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, but on leading us on to God incarnate.

13. The Second commandment: • You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. • You have heard that it was said to the men of old, "You shall not swear falsely. . But I say to you, Do not swear at all. • it governs our use of speech in sacred matters. • We called to bear witness to the Lord’s name: • Man must not abuse it. • He will not introduce it into his own speech except to bless, praise, and glorify it. • The faithful should confess the faith without giving way to fear.

14. Abuse of God’s Name: • Promises made to others in God's name engage the divine honor, fidelity, truthfulness, and authority. • Blasphemy Speaking against God in a contemptuous, scornful, or abusive manner. • Oaths which misuse God's name, though without the intention of blasphemy, show lack of respect for the Lord. The second commandment also forbids magical use of the divine name.

15. How do we take the Lord’s name in vain? • The second commandment forbids false oaths. • Perjury when he makes a promise under oath with no intention of keeping it, or when after promising on oath he does not keep it. Swearing to a falsehood • Jesus teaches that every oath involves a reference to God and that God's presence and his truth must be honored in all speech. • God calls each one by name. Everyone's name is sacred. The name is the icon of the person. It demands respect as a sign of the dignity of the one who bears it.

16. The Third commandment: • "Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Deut 5:12). "The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord" (Ex 31:15). • "The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord." • The ways we describe the Sabbath: • The Lord's day a memorial of Israel's liberation from bondage in Egypt. • God entrusted the sabbath to Israel to keep as a sign of the irrevocable covenant. • The Sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.

17. Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday: • The Sabbath, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ. • Sunday Obligation: • Sunday . . . is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church • Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass" • We must abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord's Day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body.