The fourth commandament (Fz Carvajal)

THE FOURTH commandament - God's benedictions to whom fulfills this order.

The promise of a long life.

The " most sweet rule ". - love with you work the parents. What means to honor the parents. - the love to the children. Some duties of the parents.

In the Gospel Our Lord declares himself the real scope of the Fourth Order of the Decalogue opposite to the erroneous explanations of the casuistry of scribes and pharisees. The same God, for mouth of Moses, had said: " who Honors your father and your mother, and the one who should curse the father or the mother, will be a convict of death ". It is so pleasing to God the fulfillment of this order that adorned it with countless promises of benediction: " the one that honors his father expiates his sins; and when he prays he will be listened. And as the one that hoards he is the one that honors his mother. The one that respects his father will have long life (Ecl 3, 4). This promise of a long life whom who loves and honors to his( parents repeats itself again and again. the honors your father and your mother; this way you will prolong the life in the Herat that the Lord, your God, is going to give you (Ex-20, 12). And St Thomas Aquinas, on having explained this passage teaches that the life is long when it is full, and this fullness does not measure up in the time, but for the works. A full life is lived when it is replete with virtues and with fruits; then it has been lived greatly, though there dies young the body (Sto Tomรกs, double rule of the charity,). The Lord promises also the good reputation in spite of suffering calumnies-, wealth and a numerous descent. As for the descent, continues saying St Thomas Aquinas that not only there exist " children of the meat ": there are diverse reasons for which there originate other manners of spiritual paternity, which need his(her,your) corresponding respect and appreciation In spite of the clarity with which this order is exposed in these and other many passages of the Former Testament, the doctors and the priests of the temple had distorted his sense and fulfillment. They were teaching that if someone was saying to his father or to his(her mother: What of my part you could receive or need, is "corban", that it means offering, the parents could not already take anything of these goods though they were very needed, so, since they had been declared offering for the altar, it would constitute then a sacrilege. This custom was frequently a mere legal artifice to continue enjoying his goods and to remain untied from the natural obligation to help his needy parents. The Lord, Messiah and Legislator, explains in his just person the scope of the Fourth commandmentr, undoing the deep mistakes that existed in that epoch on this matter.

The Fourth commadment, which is also of natural right, needs of all the men, but specially of those that want to be good Christians, the help self-sacrificing and full of fondness to the parents, who are realized every day in thousand small details and is emphasized particularly when the progenitors are elderly or are needier. When there is real love to God, who never asks for contradictory things us, one finds the opportune way of living through the love to the parents, even in case these children have to expire first with other familiar, social or religious obligations. There is here a big field of affiliated

responsibilities, that the children must examine often in front of God, in his personal prayer. God pays with the happiness, already in this life, to whom fulfills with love these ruties for with his parents, though at some time they could turn out to be costly. S. JosemarĂ­a was in the habit of calling to this order the " most sweet rule ", because it is one of the most pleasing obligations that the Lordhas left us.. The loving fulfillment of the Fourth commadment, has it firmer roots in the sense of our divine filiation. The only one that Father can consider in all his fullness is God, from whom any paternity stems in the sky and in the land (Ef 3, 15). Our parents, on having generated ourselves, took part of this God's paternity that spreads to the whole creation. In them we see as a reflection of the Creator, and on having loved them and to honor them straightly, in them we are honoring and loving also the same God, as Father.

In the liturgical time of the Christmas we have meditated to the Sacred Family Jesus, Maria and Joseph - as model and prototype of love and spirit of service for all the families. Jesus has left the example us and the doctrine that we must follow to expire as God wants the sweet rule of the Fourth commadment,. First of all, Jesus reaffirmed that the love to God has a few absolute rights, and to it they must subordinate to all the human loves: The one who loves his father or his mother more that to me, it(he) is not worthy of me; and the one who loves his son or his daughter more that to me, is not worthy of me. Because of it, it is opposite to the God's will, and, in consequence, is not a real love, the love disordered to the own family, which turns into obstacle to fulfill the God's will: And Jesus said to him: allow that the dead men should bury his dead men; you meet to announcing the God's Kingdom. Jesus left us a finished example of full delivery to the will of his celestial Father - did not you know that it is necessary that I am in the things of my Father?, he they will say to Maria and to Jose when they find him in Jerusalem-, and at the same time he is the perfect Model of how we have to fulfill this rule and of the appreciation that we must take as the family links: he lived fastened through the authority of his parents, and learned of Saint Joseph. He learned of San Jose his office, helping him to hold the home; he fulfilled the first one of his miracles to requests of his Mother; he chose between his relatives three of his disciples; and, before dying for us in the Cross, he entrusted to Juan the care of his Holiest Mother; without counting( the innumerable miracles that he realizes moved by the tears or the words of a mother or of a father: the prayers of the parents come to the Lord with special accent when they pray for his children.

There are great the manifestations in which real makes the Fourth commadment, in that we show our honor and our love towards our parents. " We them honor when we ask God that all the things happen to them prosperously and happily, that they enjoy the esteem and respect the others and that they reach grace before the same God and before the Saints who are in the Sky. In addition, we honor our parents when we help them with the necessary things for their sustenance and a life they deigns, since it is verified

by Christ's testimony, on having reproved the ungodliness of the pharisees...

This duty is more demanding when they are sick with danger. Then it is necessary to put all the means in order that they do not omit the confession, not other sacraments that the Christians must receive (...) . Finally, once deceased, one honors the parents taking care of their obsequies, graves and

funeral, raising for them suffrages and the masses of anniversaries, and executing faithfully all that they ordered in his(her,your) testament ". This way it(he,she) expresses and summarizes the Roman Catechism (CAT ROMANO III, 5, nn. 10-12).

If, unfortunately, the parents were far from the faith, the Gentleman will give us grace(thanks) to realize with them an apostolate full of appreciation and respect, which will consist, of ordinarily, of prayer(sentence) and mortification for them, and of the example of an affiliated happy, exemplary conduct, full of fondness, together with the determination(pledge) to look for occasions to bring them over to whom they could speak about God with more authority, because the children cannot be constituted on own(proper) initiative in teachers of his(her,your) parents. The first duty of the parents is to love the children, with real love: internal, generous, tidy, with independence of his(her,your) physical, intellectual or moral qualities, and they will be able to love them with his(her,your) faults. His(her,your) children must love them in all the sound and because they it are; and also because they are children of God. Of there that is a fundamental duty of the parents to love and to respect the God's will on his(her,your) children, even more when they receive a vocation of full delivery to God - even often they will ask the Gentleman for it and will wish it for these children-, because " it is not a sacrifice the children deliver to the God's service: it is honor and happiness " ( Furrow, n. 22).

This love must be operative, that is translated effectively in works. The real love will demonstrate in the strong determination(pledge) in order that his(her,your) children should be hard-working, austere, educated in the full sense of the word ... and, especially, good Christians. That establish in them the foundations of the human virtues: the reciedumbre, the sobriety in the use of the goods, the responsibility, the generosity, the laboriousness, which they learn to spend(consume) knowing the needs that many people suffer nowadays in the world... The real Love will lead the parents to worrying for the college where his(her,your) children study, to being very dependent on the quality of the education that they receive, and in a particular way of the religious education, since on her(it) the same salvation can depend. The love will move the children to look for a place adapted for the epoch of vacations and the rest - often frequency sacrificing other tastes and interests-, avoiding those environments that they would make impossible, or at least very difficultly, the practice of a real life christens. The parents must not forget that they are administrators equally Mother of each one of us " (J Paul II, 1979). Let's finish our prayer(sentence) putting to our families under the protection of the Holiest Virgin and of the saints Angels Custodes.