The 5th Commandment, part 2: The Death Penalty

Continuing to share the series that I am in process of writing and which appear in our parish bulletins each week. Heading bravely into unpopular ground, we take a deeper look at the 5th commandment.

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Living our faith in the real world
The Fifth Commandment: You shall not kill.1
Part 2 — The Death Penalty

 Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

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Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live?

Ez 18:23

— • —

It is only natural is to want to remove a murderer from society where they will never harm another person and also to exact punishment. Executing a murderer is an obvious and simple solution. Equally natural is the desire to ignore the Catholic Church’s teaching that, whenever possible, a murderer must be imprisoned rather than killed. On the surface, this does not seem either practical or sympathetic to the victim’s family and friends. As with so many instances, however, this desire tends to be largely emotional. We must look past our emotions to understand the Church’s teachings about the seamless garment of life.

Clearly, the first concern of society is for the common good of its members. Punishing any wrongdoer is necessary both to repair the wrong and to teach the offender to change their ways. The Catechism puts it thus: The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.

Note that, while there is a primary goal of righting wrongs, there is always a similar concern for the well being of the offender. Atonement offers not only good to the victim, but also acts as medicine for the offender’s soul.

Obviously it is impossible for a murderer to repair the wrong they have committed. This places a severe strain on the victim’s loved ones for recovery and to extend forgiveness. However, this is the call that Jesus places upon us in the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”2 From the Cross itself Jesus gave us the example by forgiving His own murderers, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”3 It is natural to not want to forgive anything so heinous. However, Christ calls us to go beyond what we want and instead do what He commands. It is good not only for the criminal we forgive, but for our own souls as well.

The Church leaves it to individual societies to determine how extreme the punishment must be because some have no other way to protect the general population than the death penalty. Our society has the means to incarcerate a murderer and safeguard the community. Therefore, it is always preferable to give the criminal the opportunity for conversion and the salvation of their soul. To do otherwise is to deny the sacredness of life as well as denying Jesus’ direct command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”4 Which of us, having committed a terrible crime, would not want the opportunity to repent and cry out to Jesus, as did the penitent thief who hung beside him on Calvary?5 This is the same opportunity we are called upon, in turn, to give criminals in rejecting the death penalty in our society.

— • —

Little by little I was led to change my ideas. I was no longer certain that God did not exist. I began to be open to Him, though I did not yet have faith. I tried to believe with my reason, without praying, or praying ever so little! And then, at the end of my first year in prison, a powerful wave of emotion swept over me, causing deep and brutal suffering. Within the space of a few hours, I came into possession of faith, with absolute certainty. I believed, and could no longer understand how I had ever not believed. Grace had come to me. A great joy flooded my soul and above all a deep peace. In a few instants everything had become clear. It was a very strong, sensible joy that I felt. I tend now to try, perhaps excessively, to recapture it; actually, the essential thing is not emotion, but faith.

Light over the Scaffold and Cell 18: The Prison Letters of Jacques Fesch
Jacques Fesch was a young murderer whose conversion on death row
 was so dramatic that the cause for his beatification was opened in 1993.

— • —

Footnotes

1-Ex 20:13; Cf. Deut 5:17. 
2-Matt. 6:12
3-Luke 23:34
4-Matt. 22:39
5-Luke 23:39-43

Sources

Catechism of the Catholic Church • Evangelium Vitae (1995 encyclical) by Pope John Paul II • Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft

5th Commandment: part 1

Requested by some folks here, my ongoing series written for our parish bulletin, part of our occasional series covering the Ten Commandments. We now begin one that is a tough subject in our modern times. It will be a multi-part look at "you shall not kill" as you might expect. Here is part 1.

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Living our faith in the real world
The Fifth Commandment:
You shall not kill.*

You have heard that it was said to the men of old, “You shall not kill: and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.

Matthew 5:21-22

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2258 “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church

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“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” [said Granny Weatherwax]

“It’s a lot more complicated than that…” [said Brother Oats]

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” [said Granny Weatherwax]

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes…” [said Brother Oats]

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.” [said Granny Weatherwax]

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

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The Hebrew word used in this commandment is ratsach (murder). St. Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew into Latin also used the word “murder” instead of the translation “kill” which we see in the headline above.

This distinction of “you shall not murder” instead of “you shall not kill” is a crucial one. It is what establishes the Catholic Church’s prohibition of taking innocent life. So important is this teaching that mere prohibition is not enough. We are called upon to protect, defend, and nurture life from conception to natural end. Jesus both simplified and expanded upon this teaching when giving the Sermon on the Mount as we see above in the quote from Matthew.

As straightforward as the idea of “not murdering” seems, our society is such that moral and political quagmires are opened every time it arises. Without very careful consideration of the Church’s teachings, the issues this commandment covers are likely to raise modern hackles against what are perceived to be insensitive dictates about just war, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, stem cell research, and more.

In practically every case where someone objects to Church teachings it is through a laudable desire to express compassion and mercy. Those objections generally are concerned with the “quality-of-life.” However, the great danger of trying to judge the “quality” of another’s life is that when a life is judged to be “not worth living” then action must be taken to solve the problem. The only alternative to life is death. This is especially true as governments and institutions become involved in “life issues.”

Bureaucracies have a great tendency to group and categorize situations without taking the time to look closely at each human being involved. People become equivalent to “things.” Things are easy to dispose of.

The Church, on the other hand, has established her teachings with an eye to “sanctity-of-life.” That is to say, the Church knows life is sacred because God created and maintains it. We come from God, we live in relationship with God, and we return to Him when we die. He alone knows us well enough for judgment.

From the knowledge that life is sacred comes teachings which consistently protect all life and which have been called the “seamless garment” of the Church. The seamless garment of life is a reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, which his executioners did not tear apart. This is the basis for the fact that Catholics cannot protect any life at the expense of other lives.

Clearly, we will be delving into complicated issues as we explore the Fifth Commandment and how we live our faith as modern Catholics. Different issues relating to this commandment will be examined individually in upcoming bulletin inserts

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*Ex 20:13; Cf. Deut 5:17.

Source Materials

• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Evangelium Vitae (1995 encyclical) by Pope John Paul II
• Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft

The Fourth Commandment

Requested by at least a couple of people, written for our parish bulletin. At loooong last I have had the time and our bulletin has had the room for the series to begin again.

Living our faith in the real world
The Fourth Commandment:
Honor your father and mother.

The first three Commandments are about honoring God and understanding ourselves in relationship to and with Him. The last seven commandments are about honoring other people and understanding ourselves in relationship to and with them. It is here that God instructs us in what Jesus later summed up so perfectly in John 13:34: “Love one another even as I have loved you.” It makes sense, therefore, that the first of these commandments would begin with our relationship with the people who brought us into the world and taught us to understand it – our parents.

At its most basic, this commandment boils down to two terms that are key to Christian living but tend to challenge Americans greatly, authority and obedience. If we obey our parents, then we are accepting their authority over our wishes in a way that may not always be agreeable. We may be allowing them to make decisions we would rather make for ourselves and feel that they are not qualified to make. Certainly, obeying or even respecting a parent may be irksome no matter what the age. Our first reaction is often rebellion.

It is here we may practice in real life what we often merely give lip service to in our relationship with God. We are offered the opportunity to respect, love, and trust those other people in our lives so much that we relinquish control. At all ages this encourages us to look past the immediate possible annoyance to a greater good, whether that greater good is considering unsolicited advice or something as simple as taking out the trash. In turn, this may help us to reflect upon our relationship with God through those very practices. Do we trust His love and care for us even when our lives are taking turns that we do not understand or, often, appreciate?

Church teachings on this subject have considered such larger issues as citizens’ duty to civil authority and the family as the foundation of society. These too have their place in our meditations, as we see in the examination of conscience below. However, at the heart of this commandment we see the fundamental call of love, both of God’s love for us and our expression of that love as we interact with each other in our families.

It can be helpful to examine our consciences in light of this consideration. The examination below is offered in that spirit. 

Examination of Conscience**: 4th Commandment

•    Do I obey and respect my parents or legitimate superiors?
•    Do I give good religious example to my family?
•    Do I give my children proper food, clothing, shelter, education, discipline and care?
•    Do I actively take an interest in the religious education and formation of my children?
•    Do I educate myself on the true teachings of the Church?
•    Do I pray with and for my children?
•    Do I cause tension and fights in my family?
•    Do I care for my aged and infirm relatives?
•    Do I give a full day’s work for a full day’s pay?
•    Do I give a fair wage to my employees?
•    Do I live in humble obedience to those who legitimately exercise authority over me?

Footnotes

*    Deut 5:16; Mk 7:10
** An examination of conscience is not intended to be a checklist used only in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. The purpose is to help souls know what actions or attitudes are sinful and realize the gravity of committing them. This may help in avoidance or in turning away from sin and towards God and joy.

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There’s a pattern in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived.  Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy-laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing.  Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep.  But the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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… God designed these human relationships to be a dance between equals playing different roles, not a power struggle between unequals for the same “top” role. It is to be like the Trinity. When God the Son became a man, he revealed to us the Trinitiarian nature of God as a love relationship among three equal Persons who are nevertheless related on an order of authority and obedience. The Son “obeys” the Father in all things. He thus radically changed our understanding of both authority and obedience and corrected our natural misunderstanding. This misunderstanding is to confuse authority with power; and obedience with inferiority, weakness, or servility. The misunderstanding comes from using the world’s point of view instead of God’s. The world treasures power; God treasures goodness. Authority in the biblical sense is not a power word but a goodness word. It means right, not might.

Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft

3rd Commandment

Requested by at least a couple of people, written for our parish bulletin, part of an occasional series. Edited slightly to include a couple of resources I came across after writing it originally.

Living our faith in the real world
The Third Commandment:
Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.

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.90

2168 The third commandment of the Decalogue recalls the holiness of the sabbath: “The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD.”92 ...

2172 God’s action is the model for human action. If God “rested and was refreshed” on the seventh day, man too ought to “rest” and should let others, especially the poor, “be refreshed.”96 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.97

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Sabbath rest implies that there is an obligation to work on the previous six days (v9). Work is the only justification for rest. The Hebrew word sabat actually means "sabbath" and "rest." But on this day rest acquires a cultic value, for no special sacrifices or rites are prescribed for the sabbath: the whole community, and even animals, render homage to God by ceasing from their labors.

The Navarre Bible, commentary on Exodus 20: 8-11

God rested, not because he was tired. God rested to celebrate, to savor, to delight in, to play, to revel in the creation, to say, "It is good." God rested and declared it holy. In that rest, God is affirming that there is nothing to prove. We are invited to enter that rest. Sabbath is the invitation to rest from the tyranny of pursuit. ...

The Power of Pause by Terry Hershey

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This commandment is desperately needed in our modern times, perhaps because it is difficult to think of one that is more commonly ignored.

The key to understanding and observance is to remember that God did not institute the commandments for His own good. He needs nothing. He instituted them out of love for our good.

As human beings we need rest. We need leisure. We need to spend time with our families. Most of all we need to reflect, to read, and perhaps most of all, to cultivate silence in which to meditate upon our relationship with God. These things are essential not only to benefit our families, culture, and society, but they are essential for our souls’ well being.

There is all too much pulling us in a thousand different directions. It takes a determined stand to hold apart even an hour or two to bring things to a halt and rest without worrying about what is next on the “to do” list. Yet the benefits to our souls from this rest are countless. Remember, even God took a day of rest after a busy week of work. He didn’t need it. He knew that we do. Once again, He has gone first and we have only to be determined to follow in His footsteps. Make a serious effort to keep the Sabbath holy, even if only for an hour or two at first. It will make a difference.

Perhaps most interesting is the reminder from The Navarre commentary quoted above that God doesn't prescribe how we take rest, simply that we do so. It is the rest itself which is holy. That is a freeing concept that invites us to self evaluation and prayer to determine just what it is that we need to let go from the week so that we may have renewed vigor when we take it up again the next day. This can be surprisingly difficult to do, as practitioners of keeping the Sabbath will testify. It is at the moment when we are struggling not to turn on the computer or clean out that drawer or write up that report that we discover just how addictive work is to our society and in our own lives.

As we have noted before, it can be helpful to examine our consciences in light of a this consideration. The examination below is offered in that spirit.

Examination of Conscience*: 3rd Commandment

• Do I set time aside each day for personal prayer to God?
• Have I missed Mass on Sunday or Holy Days (through own fault without sufficient reason)?
• Have I committed a sacrilege against the Blessed Sacrament?
• Have I received a sacrament while in the state of mortal sin?
• Do I habitually come late to and/or leave early from Mass without a good reason?
• Do I shop, labor, or do business unnecessarily on Sunday or other Holy Days of Obligation?
• Do I not attend to taking my children to Mass?
• Do I knowingly eat meat on a forbidden day (or not fasting on a fast day)?
• Do I eat or drink within one hour of receiving Communion (other than medical need)?

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Footnotes
90 Ex 20:8-10; cf. Deut 5:12-15.
92 Ex 31:15.
93 Ex 20:11.
94 Deut 5:15.
95 Cf. Ex 31:16.
96 Ex 31:17; cf. 23:12.
* An examination of conscience is not intended to be a checklist used only in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. The purpose is to help souls know what actions or attitudes are sinful and realize the gravity of committing them. This may help in avoidance or in turning away from sin and towards God and joy.

2nd commandment, Part 2

As at least a couple of people have requested, written for our parish bulletin, part of our occasional series.

Living our faith in the real world
The Second Commandment:
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

2083 Jesus summed up man’s duties toward God in this saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”1 This immediately echoes the solemn call: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD.”2

God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the “ten words.” The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

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If we really take this concept at face value, as we should since it comes from Our Lord directly, then everything we do should reflect our relationship with God. Difficult as that is to remember in daily living, we can be helped immeasurably if we think of the ten commandments as our guideposts in how to respond to God in love.

Where does that leave us when considering the second commandment in our lives? It may help us to briefly review from the previous insert on the second commandment when we examined why the ancients had a different understanding of this commandment than we do. Names conveyed such an essential reflection of the person themselves that pagans used them in conjuring. God’s people understood this sense from the fact that a change of name reflected a true change of character as well. They understood this so well that when Jesus proclaimed using “I am” which was God’s name alone, they tried to stone him for claiming to be God.

Such reactions to names these days likely would draw accusations of being superstitious to give a mere word such power. Yet, let us reflect for a moment on the fact that names are likely to still contain a great deal of power for us.

Which of us would care to hear someone using our mother’s name as a curse of frustration? How many of us could remain calm if hearing our child’s name used casually to express contempt for someone? We know and love those people and the idea of hearing them used as figures of fun or scorn in casual conversation would rouse us to fiercest anger. At the very least, this helps us understand just how far we are from knowing God as a person who we truly love if we regularly show disrespect for His name or laugh it off when others do so.

Hand in hand with our modern incomprehension of a name being important, goes the concept that to lie using God’s name is a sin. At the least, many people consider this old fashioned. However, let us remember that to call on God’s support in things that are contrary to His nature shows how very little we know or love God. In fact, it brings to light the fact that we are claiming a closeness to God which cannot exist.

Still another way that this commandment can be disobeyed in daily life is if we place responsibility on God for our own actions or use Him as a scapegoat for failures. This is a way of making God’s name exist to serve us rather than acknowledging that quite the contrary is true. Part of our essential job as disciples is to bear witness to God’s greatness, certainly not the other way around.

As when we examined the first commandment, it can be very helpful to examine our consciences in light of a deeper consideration of just what the second commandment really means. The examination below is offered in that spirit.

Examination of Conscience*: 2nd Commandment

• Do I show disrespect for God’s name by misusing it out of frustration or anger or to look “tough” to others?
• Have I sworn a false oath or lied, using God’s name to prove my sincerity?
• Do I hesitate to mention God’s name in appropriate situations, in conversations with friends and family members?
• Do I fail to keep vows or promises made to God?
• Do I blame God for our failings?
• Do I continue to learn about God by paying attention in church, religion class and through paying attention to Catholic periodicals, articles on religion in the secular press and television programs?

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Footnotes
1 Mt 22:37; cf. Lk 10:27:”. . . and with all your strength.”
2 Deut 6:4.
* An examination of conscience is not intended to be a checklist used only in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. The purpose is to help souls know what actions or attitudes are sinful and realize the gravity of committing them. This may help in avoidance or in turning away from sin and towards God and joy.

2nd Commandment, Part 1

Written for our parish bulletin, here is the latest in our occasional series.

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Living your faith in the real world
The Second Commandment:
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

Among all the words of Revelation, there is one which is unique: the revealed name of God. God confides his name to those who believe in him; he reveals himself to them in his personal mystery. The gift of a name belongs to the order of trust and intimacy. “The Lord’s name is holy.” For this reason man must not abuse it. He must keep it in mind in silent, loving adoration. He will not introduce it into his own speech except to bless, praise, and glorify it.74 …

God calls each one by name.87 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.

The name one receives is a name for eternity. In the kingdom, the mysterious and unique character of each person marked with God’s name will shine forth in splendor. “To him who conquers . . . I will give a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.”88 “Then I looked, and Lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty- four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”89

2143, 2158, 2159 Catechism of the Catholic Church

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To the modern mind there is something a bit quaint about this commandment. Yes, we understand that we are not to swear and especially not to swear using God’s name. However, even if we slip our apology often has something less than the ring of complete sincerity. After all, this is just a name. As Shakespeare famously wrote, “A rose by any other name is still a rose.” Names don’t mean much.

However, that was far from the understanding at the time when God gave the Moses this command. In ancient cultures a person’s name was a direct symbol of that person. Names were so important and conveyed such direct symbolism that they were only changed as a reflection that something integral to the person had changed. We see this when Abram becomes Abraham (father of a multitude or many nations”) after God enters into a covenant with him and promises that Abraham shall have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. Jacob wrestles with the angel and his name is changed to Israel (the one who wrestled with God). Perhaps a more familiar name change in the Bible comes when Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter (rock) saying, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”*

If peoples’ names were considered a reflection of their essence, then it would follow that God’s name would reflect who He is in all His holiness. God tells Moses that his name is, “I am.” This reflects His uniqueness, His mystery, and the fact that He doesn’t merely exist; He is, in fact, existence itself.

To use God’s name familiarly and casually in this cultural understanding would be to claim to take on the essence of God Himself. Israel’s neighbors, in fact, routinely used their god’s names in magical conjuring. Invoking God’s name would not only be considered a challenge to authority but also idolatrous. It would be an attempt to harness the power of God for one’s own petty desires, as a man would harness an oxen to plow a field.

Therefore, it becomes much easier to see that in Jesus was claiming to be God when he used His name, saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am.”** The Jews of the time knew exactly what Jesus was claiming for they instantly tried to stone him to death (the penalty for blasphemy).

Take some time to consider all the implications of what it really means to use God’s name for anything except in love. Next we will consider what our new understanding of the second commandment means in everyday life.

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Footnotes
74 Cf. Zech 2:13; Ps 29:2; 96:2; 113:1-2.
87 Cf. Isa 43:1; Jn 10:3.
88 Rev 2:17.
89 Rev 14:1.
* (Matt. 16:16-18)
** John 8:58

1st Commandment, part 2

As at least a couple of people have requested, written for our parish bulletin. It is part of a new, occasional series.

Living Our Faith in the Real World
I am the LORD your God:
you shall not have strange gods before me.

All sins are sins against the first Commandment; the first Commandment contains the whole of the Decalogue. For all sin serves some other god, obeys another Commander: the world, or the flesh, or the Devil. So if we obeyed only this one Commandment perfectly, we would need nothing more. St.Augustine says,“Love God and then do what you will.” For if you give your whole heart and will and love to God, then what you will will be all that God wills.

How liberatingly simple is the moral life of the Christian ... only one God, therefore one ultimate object of love and obedience.

Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft

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At first glance this is bewilderingly simple. Of course, we know that God is “the Lord our God.” That’s why we’re at Mass every Sunday. Secondly, the idea of having other “gods” sounds archaic to a Christian. That was much more of a problem back in the day of the Old Testament, wasn’t it? Or perhaps this applies more to modern day Wiccans. For us it is again a simple prospect. One more time, we’re at Mass to worship “the Lord our God.”

Yet, perhaps we should take another look. After all, this is the main law that Jesus states for us in Matthew:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.”

Jesus gives us the fullest, strongest interpretation possible. This brings us to the question of how we love God. How do we love Him with every fiber of our being? It sounds almost too simple to say that we love God by putting Him first in our lives, especially when life offers so many ways to distract us. That simplicity is what we need to help us keep God first. Each person must pray, study, and contemplate how to love God, just as Jesus modeled for us.

As nice and positive as Jesus' statement sounds, it is more nebulous than it initially appears. It can be almost a relief to consider the negative side of the commandment, “you shall not have strange gods before me.” We must keep in mind that God is talking about anything that replaces our love for Him in our hearts. It need not be a stone statue such as the Old Testament pagans worshipped. We all know in our heart of hearts how many every day things and events conspire to help us ignore God “just this once.”

This is why it can be helpful to use a tool for self-examination. The questions in an Examination of Conscience are designed to help us look at each commandment from different angles, to shake us out of complacency, and to guide us away from sin and toward God. The questions below are offered in that spirit.

Examination of Conscience: First Commandment*

• Did I doubt or deny that God exists?
• Did I refuse to believe what God has revealed to us?
• Did I believe in fortune telling, horoscopes, dreams, the occult, good-luck charms, tarot cards, palmistry, Ouija boards, seances, reincarnation?
• Did I deny that I was Catholic?
• Did I leave the Catholic Faith?
• Did I give time to God each day in prayer?
• Did I love God with my whole heart?
• Did I despair of or presume on God's mercy?
• Did I have false gods in my life that I gave greater attention to than God, like money, profession, drugs, TV, fame, pleasure, property, etc.?

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* An examination of conscience is not intended to be a checklist used only in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. The purpose is to help souls know what actions or attitudes are sinful and realize the gravity of committing them. This may help in avoidance or in turning away from sin and towards God and joy.

1st commandment, part 1

As at least a couple of people have requested, written for our parish bulletin. It will be part of a new, occasional series.

Living Our Faith in the Real World
I am the LORD your God:
you shall not have strange gods before me.

The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When we say 'God' we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the beginning and end of his commandments: 'I am the LORD.

2086 Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Part 3, Section 2, Chapter 1

There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.

Blaise Pascal

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The first commandment has implications not only for us personally but for society as a whole. If we embrace the goodness, faith, love and charity which the Catechism says are implicit in acknowledging God, then we in turn act as examples of those qualities for those around us. In worshiping those aspects of God, in a sense "copying them" through repeated contemplation and imitation of Him, we can become living examples as the saints have before us. Thus, we can see how "I am the Lord your God" is a positive statement meant for our good.

The negative counterpoint to this is the second half of the commandment, "you shall not have strange gods before me." It is when we turn away from God, when we do not love Him above all things, that we replace Him with other things in a vain attempt to find love and joy. We are then looking inward and risk falling pray to many ills, chief among them pride, which can be deadly.

In fact, if one takes the time to read through the Catechism the sins associated with this commandment read like a modern listing of much that has been wrong with our world through time, up to and including our own society. Here are just a few examples:

• Despair.
  Man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins.
  
  
• 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).
  
  
• Divining.
  All forms of divination are to be rejected ... all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. [The same is true for magic or spiritism.]
  
  
• Tempting God.
  Putting God's goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. ... It always harbors doubt about his love, his providence, and his power.
  
  
• Atheism.
  Often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God.

God does not institute the commandments and especially not the first commandment for His own good. We can add nothing to God's perfection through our acknowledgment of Him. He puts these here to bring us to greater joy, to allow us to reach our full potential.

Next we will examine the first commandment in the context of our personal lives.

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I'm happily haunted by Chesterton's image of the playground fence erected around the children on top of the mountain so that they could play without fear of falling off the side. That's why God gave us his law: not to make us worried but to keep us safe so that we could play the great games of life and love and joy.

Peter Kreeft