The Ten Commandments
Commandments I-III
Outline • • • • • • • •
Errors regarding the Ten Commandments What the Ten Commandments are The Love of God Commandment I Commandment II Commandment III Christ and the Ten Commandments The Law of Christ St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Errors regarding the Ten Commandments • They are simply a list of do’s and don’ts • Following the letter of the Law makes you a “good” person • We do not have to follow the Ten Commandments anymore because of the sacrificial death of Jesus (we are no longer under Law) – Moral Law vs. Ceremonial Law – The Law of Christ St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
What the Ten Commandments are •
… Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative. It is the acknowledgement and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving. It is cooperation with the plan God pursues in history. - CCC 2062
•
The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice towards neighbor, so that man would be neither unjust, nor unworthy of God. Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared man to become his friend and to live in harmony with his neighbor.... The words of the Decalogue remain likewise for us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh. - St. Irenaeus
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
What the Ten Commandments are •
The Ten Commandments state what is required in the love of God and love of neighbor. The first three concern love of God, and the other seven love of neighbor. - CCC 2067
•
… The two tables shed light on one another; they form an organic unity. To transgress one commandment is to infringe all the others. One cannot honor another person without blessing God his Creator. One cannot adore God without loving all men, his creatures. The Decalogue brings man's religious and social life into unity. - CCC 2069
•
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 St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The First Three Commandments The Love of God
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The First Commandment Deut 5:6-9 6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
• Worship • Service • No other gods (idolatry) St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
You Shall Worship the Lord Your God • Faith –
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. … Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.
• Hope –
2090 … Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God's love and of incurring punishment.
• Charity –
2093 … The first commandment enjoins us to love God above everything and all creatures for him and because of him. St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Him Only Shall You Serve •
Adoration –
2096 To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love. – 2097 To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the "nothingness of the creature" who would not exist but for God. … 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.
•
Prayer – 2098 The acts of faith, hope, and charity enjoined by the first commandment are accomplished in prayer. … Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. "[We] ought always to pray and not lose heart."
•
Sacrifice – 2100 …: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit...." … Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation. By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Him Only Shall You Serve • Promises and vows – 2101 … Baptism and Confirmation, Matrimony and Holy Orders always entail promises. Out of personal devotion, the Christian may also promise to God this action, that prayer, this almsgiving, that pilgrimage, and so forth. … – 2102 … A vow is an act of devotion in which the Christian dedicates himself to God or promises him some good work. By fulfilling his vows he renders to God what has been promised and consecrated to Him. …
• The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom – 2105 … The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church. Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus, the Church shows forth the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies. St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
• Superstition
– 2111 Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.
• Idolatry – 2112 The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. – 2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, Satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me •
Divination and magic – 2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance… – 2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others -- even if this were for the sake of restoring their health -- are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.
•
Irreligion – 2119 Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. … The challenge contained in such tempting of God wounds the respect and trust we owe our Creator and Lord. … – 2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. … – 2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things. … St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
•
You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
Atheism
– 2124 … Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be "an end to himself, and the sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history." … – 2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion. The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. "Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion." – 2126 Atheism is often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God. …
•
Agnosticism – 2127 … In certain cases the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead he postulates the existence of a transcendent being which is incapable of revealing itself, and about which nothing can be said. In other cases, the agnostic makes no judgment about God's existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny. – 2128 Agnosticism can sometimes include a certain search for God, but it can equally express indifferentism, a flight from the ultimate question of existence, and a sluggish moral conscience. Agnosticism is all too often equivalent to practical atheism.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
No Graven Images • 2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim. • 2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it." The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Second Commandment Deut 5:11 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Name of the Lord • The Name Of The Lord Is Holy – 2146 The second commandment forbids the abuse of God's name, i.e., every improper use of the names of God, Jesus Christ, but also of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. – 2147 Promises made to others in God's name engage the divine honor, fidelity, truthfulness, and authority. … To be unfaithful to them is to misuse God's name and in some way to make God out to be a liar. – 2148 Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name. Blasphemy is contrary to the respect due God and his holy name. It is in itself a grave sin. St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Name of the Lord • Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain – 2150 The second commandment forbids false oaths. Taking an oath or swearing is to take God as witness to what one affirms. It is to invoke the divine truthfulness as a pledge of one's own truthfulness. An oath engages the Lord's name. … – 2155 The holiness of the divine name demands that we neither use it for trivial matters, nor take an oath which on the basis of the circumstances could be interpreted as approval of an authority unjustly requiring it. …
• The Christian Name – 2158 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.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Third Commandment Deut 5:12 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Sabbath Day & The Lord's Day • The day of the Resurrection: the new creation – 2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week." Because it is the "first day," the day of Christ's Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the "eighth day" following the Sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ's Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord's Day, Sunday:
• Sunday- fulfillment of the Sabbath – 2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the Sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God. … – 2176 The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship "as a sign of his universal beneficence to all." Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant….
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Sabbath Day & The Lord's Day •
The Sunday Eucharist – 2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life. "Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church." – You cannot pray at home as at church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests. - St. John Chrysostom
•
The Sunday obligation – 2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.
•
A day of grace and rest from work – 2185 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord's Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. …
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Christ and the Ten Commandments • Matt 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. • The Law has not been abolished, but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment. - CCC 2053 • Matt 7:12 So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Christ and the Ten Commandments • Matt 22:36-40 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." • John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Beatitudes •
Matt 5:3-12 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
3
4
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
8
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11
"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Sermon on the Mount •
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ calls His disciples to a radical following of the Ten Commandments by commanding them to adhere not only to the letter of the Law but to the spirit of the Law
•
Matt 5:21-44 21 "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 28 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 27
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Sermon on the Mount 33
"Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, … Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil. "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; 40 and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; 41 and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. 38
•
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you… 43
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
The Law of Christ •
1 Cor 9:21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law--not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ - that I might win those outside the law.
•
Gal 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
•
James 2:8-13 8 If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well….12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment.
St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA
Relationship, Reconciliation, and the Moral Life As charity comprises the two commandments to which the Lord related the whole Law and the prophets . . . so the Ten Commandments were themselves given on two tablets. Three were written on one tablet and seven on the other - St. Augustine
GOD
Man
Man
Man St. Thomas Aquinas RCIA