Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 16

Lesson 16 - The Commandments

Part One

Commandments 1, 2, 3 — Our Duty to God

Every man knows that there is such a thing as right and wrong. He may be mistaken about what is right and what is wrong. But he does know there is a difference. When it comes to the point of an action and he decides to do the right thing he is following his conscience. That is to say he has decided that one course of action is right and the other course is wrong.

The Maker's Instructions

It is clear enough though that we cannot simply rely on "conscience" to give the right answers. Hitler's conscience told him it was right to wipe out millions of innocent Jews in gas chambers. Your conscience or mine says that was plain murder. That is a flagrant example. But there are plenty of cases where men judge quite differently about the same action. We have to ask: Has God given us any principles to go on? He made us. He knows how we ought to live. What we want are the Maker's instructions. We are bound to follow our conscience. But our conscience must be rightly informed.

The Law Of Love

When Christ was asked what was the greatest commandment of the law He answered:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Matt.22.)

So the test of all morality is love. Our biggest difficulty is that the love of ourselves may keep getting in the way of our love of God and our love of our neighbour. And so we should keep asking God to teach us to love Him and to help us love one another, True love of God and true love of our neighbour is a gift from God; it is what we call Charity.

The great test of love is whether we do what God wants us to do.

If you love Me keep My commandment (John 14: 15)

It is all very well to feel a sort of rosy glow. But that is not enough. We show our real love by doing what God wants us to do, by trying to please Him. And since He made us and knows what is best for us, in doing what He wants we are in fact doing the best thing for ourselves, "In His will is our peace," said a great poet.

God's Plan For Us

We should not consider the Ten Commandments of God as a sort of set of rules that He has made up just to test us. They are in fact the plan of life for us. They are the way in which God has designed us to live.

The Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses the leader of His chosen people. But they were no new thing even then. They are written in the "heart of man" in the sense that we can discern them for ourselves. But because of that flaw in our nature inherited from our first parents we can get a very twisted notion of what is the law of God. That is why you find mankind going off into strange perversions like the worship of idols, human sacrifice, and the like.

And so God in the Ten Commandments gives us on His own authority the natural law — the law which is part of our nature. The Ten Commandments are as follows¹:

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing, nor the likeness of anything 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.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
Honour thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods."

^1. This is a summary of the Commandments as given In the Bible (Deut. 5: 1, 21). The Protestant numbering is sightly different. They divide the First Commandment as given above into two and so the Protestant Third Commandment will be our Second; their Sixth will be our Fifth, etc. Our Ninth and Tenth Commandment are the Tenth Commandment only in the Protestant version, it is a small point, the content is the same only the numbering is different.

This and the following lesson will not attempt to be a full treatise on the Commandments. We shall simply mention the main points briefly in each one.

First Commandment

Commandments 1, 2 and 3 are concerned particularly with our duties towards God, What must be our attitude to God? We must love Him because He is supremely good, and because He is infinitely good to us. We must believe Him. We must trust Him. And anything which goes against belief in God, trust in God, and love of God is wrong.

In the ancient world the great temptation was for people to go off worshipping false gods. So the Jews were forbidden to make statues or images to be adored or honoured as gods. It is not the making of a statue which is wrong, but the making of an idol, that is, a statue to be adored.

Catholics have statues of Christ and of the Saints just as all men have statues of national heroes or photographs of their families. We reverence these images just as a man reverences the picture of his father. They are a help to us when we pray in so far as they remind us of the person whose help we are asking. But it would be quite wrong to worship them as gods.

We also reverence relics, the bodies of the Saints, for example, just as a mother will carry a lock of hair of her baby. But we do not worship them as gods. Nor pray to them. As the Catholic catechism puts it bluntly:

"We do not pray to relics or images for they can neither see nor hear nor help us."

Faith – We are Bound to Believe God – Forbidden Books

All this is common sense. What is not so clearly seen by those who are not Catholics is that we can be disloyal to God in other ways than simply denying Him. It is disloyal to God, for example, to doubt His word. Therefore once we clearly know God, once we clearly know what is God's message to us as revealed through His Church, it is wrong to doubt it or indeed to do anything that might undermine our loyalty to God or His Church.

There may be many things difficult to understand. But there is a big difference between having a difficulty and seriously doubting God's word. Consequently the Church tells us that it is wrong to read books which may undermine our Faith.

A man who is still seeking for the truth may rightly seek for it anywhere. Once he knows the truth then he is bound to give his word to God to be loyal to Him and to His Church. Let us take an example. A man loves and trusts his wife. He gives her his word to be loyal. He would be ashamed then to be found spying on her, to be reading abusive letters about her, to be doubting her word. True enough, in human relations we may be let down. But it is the part of an honourable man to put aside at once all unworthy suspicions and to be very reluctant to be convinced that the one he loves is deceiving him.

In the same way we should rightly he ashamed to doubt God's word, to read anything or to associate with anyone that would make us doubt God's word, And there is this great difference: when we are dealing with God He will never let us down, He is truth itself. He can neither deceive nor be deceived. This explains why the Church forbids us to read certain books.

If it is necessary to read them in order to defend the truth of God then the Church gives permission to those who are properly qualified to deal with the matter.

When we say:

"My God I believe You"

we must be entirely sincere without any afterthoughts. This is the virtue of Faith by which we believe without doubting whatsoever God has revealed because He has revealed it.

Non Catholic Services

The same principles explain why Catholics do not take part in the services or prayers of any other religion.

Once we clearly know that God has given authority to one Church and to one Church only it is wrong to take part in the services or prayers of any other.

Catholics do not doubt the goodwill and good faith of non-Catholics. Catholics are glad to see any man worshipping God as best he can.

But a Catholic holds that only one Church is God's Church — the Catholic Church, Other churches are made by men, It would be disloyal to God to take part in the official services of any other church than the one true Church.

Of course a Catholic would not refuse to take part in the private prayers of non-Catholic, for example, a Catholic husband would certainly pray at home with his non-Catholic wife.

Hope – We Are Bound to Trust God

We must also trust God — the virtue of Hope. This means that we must have confidence that God will give us eternal life and all the means necessary to acquire it if we do what He requires of us. Once again the test is: "What does God want?" not; "What do I want?" It is wrong to say:

"Oh I can go my own way, God understands."

To expect to attain heaven on our own terms is the sin of Presumption. It is equally wrong to say:

"God has abandoned me. I can't live as God wants me to live. I'll just have to fail."

That is Despair and it is a sin also. It is refusing to have confidence in God. We must never say God's way is too hard.

God is faithful, says St. Paul, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. (1 Cor. 10.)

We can always obey God's law if we are prepared to use the helps He gives us. It follows then that we are bound to pray to God, that is to talk with Him, and to worship Him not only with our minds but with our bodies too, because we are both soul and body.²

^2.Freemasonry would come under the heading of a false religion. In England most people would consider Freemasonry as a sort of benevolent society, In fact it is a way of life — a kind of religion, it is wrong for a Christian to be a Freemason because it has religious practices and ceremonies to which Christ is not mentioned, and it takes for granted that one religion is fundamentally as good as another. A Catholic holds that God has revealed there is one true Religion — the Catholic faith. We do not condemn those who are not yet convinced of this. But once a man is convinced of this fact then be must be loyal to his conviction

Second Commandment

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

By this Commandment we are commanded to speak with reverence of God and all holy persons and things and to keep our lawful oaths and vows. It is the commandment which forbids swearing and cursing. It does not refer to what is popularly known as swearing. That very often simply means vulgar or coarse language. But it does condemn language in which the name of God is used carelessly or disrespectfully.

An oath is calling God to witness that what we say is true. This is lawful, for example, in a court of justice where a man is required to testify to the truth and guarantee that what he says is true by all that he holds sacred. But it is grievously wrong to take a false oath; that would be calling God to witness what we know to he a lie, perjury. And since an oath is a solemn thing it would be wrong to take one rashly, without taking the trouble to find out whether what we said was true or not; and wrong to take it unnecessarily. Solemn oaths must be kept for solemn occasions.

In short the second commandment puts before us a standard of honourable and restrained speech with a proper respect for God Who is the author of truth.

Third Commandment

Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

One day in the week should be reserved especially for God. It is true that we must not simply keep our religion for Sundays. But it is God's will that one day should he free from the ordinary routine of life so that more special attention and care should be given to the service of God

The Jews kept Saturday holy. Christians keep Sunday. There is nothing particularly sacred about Saturday or Sunday in themselves. The important thing is that one day should be devoted to God and the Church has the authority of God to decide which day it shall be.

Catholics keep Sunday holy by attending Mass and resting from servile work. Servile work is manual labour of the kind that was normally done by slaves. It was a rule made in pagan times to make sure that the most helpless section of the population should have one day in the week for rest and the service of God. The rule still holds.

If the work is necessary of course then it may be done. The world must go on. In modern times it is not always so easy to decide what is servile work, In case of doubt advice should be sought.

Attendance at Mass

Catholics are bound to attend Mass on Sundays and certain other days in the year.

Christ said: Do this for a commemoration of Me when He celebrated the first Mass at His Last Supper. The Church tells us we must fulfil the command of Christ by going to Mass on Sundays and these few other days, at least. It is a serious obligation for a Catholic, though the rule is sometimes puzzling to non-Catholics. They say "What is the sense of being forced to worship God?"

Of course if we always remembered clearly what a wonderful thing the Mass is there would be no need for a law to compel us to go. And in fact a good Catholic does realise what a wonderful thing it is and takes a delight in attending Mass.

But it is important to be free from humbug on this point. The fact is that, no matter who we are, we are always prone to take the easy way out. We know that if there were not a law we would very much more easily find excuses for ourselves on a cold winter's morning or when for one reason or another it was inconvenient to go to Mass. Bit by bit we could very easily fall into careless habits. We know very well we need a law not just to compel us but to help us to do what we know is best.

Summing up these three Commandments then: We must love God above all things and with our whole heart.

We must learn to love God by begging of God to teach us to love Him:

"O my God, teach me to love Thee."

The love of God will lead us often to think how good God is; often to speak to Him in our hearts; and always to seek to please Him.

End of Lesson 16

Supplement A

Appendix: "The Biblical Tradition of Using Images In Christian Worship"

Supplement B: "No Commandment Greater Than These"

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