(Latin: sacrificium, sacrifice)
In a less rigorous or a figurative sense, a sacrifice is any offering made to God with a view to honoring Him, such as acts of virtue, almsgiving, and prayer. In true or rigorous sense is the offering to God of a sense-perceptible substance, which is either really or symbolically destroyed, or at least transformed and withdrawn from profane use; and this offering must be made by a duly authorized person in recognition of God's Infinite Majesty and man's absolute dependence on Him. This definition contains generic and specific elements. By its generic element, sacrifice is an external act of the virtue of religion (by which God is honored on account of His transcendent excellence) and belongs to the cult of latria. It is clear that the external act derives all its moral value from a corresponding act of the human will. By its specific elements, sacrifice is marked off from other acts of the virtue of religion.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Definition: PRAYER II: EFFECTS
In hearing our prayer God does not change His will or action in our regard, but simply puts into effect what He had eternally decreed in view of our prayer. This He may do directly without the intervention of any secondary cause as when He imparts to us some supernatural gift, such as actual grace, or indirectly, when He bestows some natural gift. In this latter case He directs by His Providence the natural causes which contribute to the effect desired, whether they be moral or free agents, such as men; or some moral and others not, but physical and not free; or, again, when none of them is free. Finally, by miraculous intervention, and without employing any of these causes, He can produce the effect prayed for.
The use or habit of prayer redounds to our advantage in many ways. Besides obtaining the gifts and graces we need, the very process elevates our mind and heart to a knowledge and love of Divine things, greater confidence in God, and other precious sentiments. Indeed, so numerous and so helpful are these effects of prayer that they compensate us, even when the special object of our prayer is not granted. Often they are of far greater benefit than what we ask for. Nothing that we might obtain in answer to our prayer could exceed in value the familiar converse with God in which prayer consists.
In addition to these effects of prayer, we may (de congruo) merit by it restoration to grace, if we are in sin; new inspirations of grace, increase of sanctifying grace, and satisfy for the temporal punishment due to sin. Signal as all these benefits are, they are only incidental to the proper effect of prayer due to its impetratory power based on the infallible promise of God, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7); "Therefore I say unto you, all things whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive" (Mark 11:24 — see also Luke 11:11; John 16:24, as well as innumerable assurances to this effect in the Old Testament).
New Catholic Dictionary
The use or habit of prayer redounds to our advantage in many ways. Besides obtaining the gifts and graces we need, the very process elevates our mind and heart to a knowledge and love of Divine things, greater confidence in God, and other precious sentiments. Indeed, so numerous and so helpful are these effects of prayer that they compensate us, even when the special object of our prayer is not granted. Often they are of far greater benefit than what we ask for. Nothing that we might obtain in answer to our prayer could exceed in value the familiar converse with God in which prayer consists.
In addition to these effects of prayer, we may (de congruo) merit by it restoration to grace, if we are in sin; new inspirations of grace, increase of sanctifying grace, and satisfy for the temporal punishment due to sin. Signal as all these benefits are, they are only incidental to the proper effect of prayer due to its impetratory power based on the infallible promise of God, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7); "Therefore I say unto you, all things whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive" (Mark 11:24 — see also Luke 11:11; John 16:24, as well as innumerable assurances to this effect in the Old Testament).
New Catholic Dictionary
Definition: PRAYER
Prayer
(Greek euchesthai, Latin precari, French prier, to plead, to beg, to ask earnestly).
An act of the virtue of religion which consists in asking proper gifts or graces from God. In a more general sense it is the application of the mind to Divine things, not merely to acquire a knowledge of them but to make use of such knowledge as a means of union with God. This may be done by acts of praise and thanksgiving, but petition is the principal act of prayer.
The words used to express it in Scripture are: to call up (Genesis 4:26); to intercede (Job 22:10); to mediate (Isaiah 53:10); to consult (1 Samuel 28:6); to beseech (Exodus 32:11); and, very commonly, to cry out to. The Fathers speak of it as the elevation of the mind to God with a view to asking proper things from Him (St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith III.24); communing and conversing with God (St. Gregory of Nyssa, "De oratione dom.", in P.G., XLIV, 1125); talking with God (St. John Chrysostom, "Hom. xxx in Gen.", n. 5, in P.G., LIII, 280). It is therefore the expression of our desires to God whether for ourselves or others.
This expression is not intended to instruct or direct God what to do, but to appeal to His goodness for the things we need; and the appeal is necessary, not because He is ignorant of our needs or sentiments, but to give definite form to our desires, to concentrate our whole attention on what we have to recommend to Him, to help us appreciate our close personal relation with Him. The expression need not be external or vocal; internal or mental is sufficient.
By prayer we acknowledge God's power and goodness, our own neediness and dependence. It is therefore an act of the virtue of religion implying the deepest reverence for God and habituating us to look to Him for everything, not merely because the thing asked be good in itself, or advantageous to us, but chiefly because we wish it as a gift of God, and not otherwise, no matter how good or desirable it may seem to us. Prayer presupposes faith in God and hope in His goodness. By both, God, to whom we pray, moves us to prayer.
Our knowledge of God by the light of natural reason also inspires us to look to Him for help, but such prayer lacks supernatural inspiration, and though it may avail to keep us from losing our natural knowledge of God and trust in Him, or, to some extent, from offending Him, it cannot positively dispose us to receive His graces.
New Advent Catholic Encylopedia
(Greek euchesthai, Latin precari, French prier, to plead, to beg, to ask earnestly).
An act of the virtue of religion which consists in asking proper gifts or graces from God. In a more general sense it is the application of the mind to Divine things, not merely to acquire a knowledge of them but to make use of such knowledge as a means of union with God. This may be done by acts of praise and thanksgiving, but petition is the principal act of prayer.
The words used to express it in Scripture are: to call up (Genesis 4:26); to intercede (Job 22:10); to mediate (Isaiah 53:10); to consult (1 Samuel 28:6); to beseech (Exodus 32:11); and, very commonly, to cry out to. The Fathers speak of it as the elevation of the mind to God with a view to asking proper things from Him (St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith III.24); communing and conversing with God (St. Gregory of Nyssa, "De oratione dom.", in P.G., XLIV, 1125); talking with God (St. John Chrysostom, "Hom. xxx in Gen.", n. 5, in P.G., LIII, 280). It is therefore the expression of our desires to God whether for ourselves or others.
This expression is not intended to instruct or direct God what to do, but to appeal to His goodness for the things we need; and the appeal is necessary, not because He is ignorant of our needs or sentiments, but to give definite form to our desires, to concentrate our whole attention on what we have to recommend to Him, to help us appreciate our close personal relation with Him. The expression need not be external or vocal; internal or mental is sufficient.
By prayer we acknowledge God's power and goodness, our own neediness and dependence. It is therefore an act of the virtue of religion implying the deepest reverence for God and habituating us to look to Him for everything, not merely because the thing asked be good in itself, or advantageous to us, but chiefly because we wish it as a gift of God, and not otherwise, no matter how good or desirable it may seem to us. Prayer presupposes faith in God and hope in His goodness. By both, God, to whom we pray, moves us to prayer.
Our knowledge of God by the light of natural reason also inspires us to look to Him for help, but such prayer lacks supernatural inspiration, and though it may avail to keep us from losing our natural knowledge of God and trust in Him, or, to some extent, from offending Him, it cannot positively dispose us to receive His graces.
New Advent Catholic Encylopedia
Definition: ADORATION
(Latin: ad, to; orare, to pray; or os, oris, mouth: from the pagan custom of expressing preference for a god by wafting a kiss to the statue)
An act of religion offered to God alone in recognition of His infinite perfection and supreme dominion, and of the creature's dependence on Him. It is an act of mind and will expressing itself exteriorly by postures of reverence and prayers of praise. It is loosely used to express admiration and affection for creatures.
New Catholic Dictionary
An act of religion offered to God alone in recognition of His infinite perfection and supreme dominion, and of the creature's dependence on Him. It is an act of mind and will expressing itself exteriorly by postures of reverence and prayers of praise. It is loosely used to express admiration and affection for creatures.
New Catholic Dictionary
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Definition: HOPE
One of the three theological virtues infused into the soul together with sanctifying grace and having God as its primary object. It makes us desire eternal life or the possession of God and gives us the confidence of receiving the grace necessary to arrive at this possession. The grounds of our hope are: the omnipotence of God, or the fact that He can give us eternal life and the means to attain it; His goodness, or the fact that He wills to give us eternal life and the means to attain it; and His fidelity to His promises, or the fact that He has pledged Himself to give us eternal life and the means thereto.
Since the virtue of hope is based on God's power, goodness, and fidelity to His promises, it must be sure and unshakable in the sense that God will certainly offer us the means necessary for the attainment of eternal life and that if we employ our free-will to cooperate with the grace of God we shall certainly be saved. Hence, we alone can make hope void by our wilful refusal to work with the proffered grace of God. Hope is necessary to salvation. The virtue of hope infused into the soul at Baptism is sufficient for those who have not attained the use of reason; in all others an act of hope is required, such at least as is included in living a Christian life. The sins against hope are: despair or wilful diffidence about obtaining heaven and the means necessary thereto, since this implies mistrust of God's power or goodness or fidelity to His promises; and presumption or the unreasonable confidence of obtaining eternal salvation without taking the necessary
means.
New Catholic Dictionary
Since the virtue of hope is based on God's power, goodness, and fidelity to His promises, it must be sure and unshakable in the sense that God will certainly offer us the means necessary for the attainment of eternal life and that if we employ our free-will to cooperate with the grace of God we shall certainly be saved. Hence, we alone can make hope void by our wilful refusal to work with the proffered grace of God. Hope is necessary to salvation. The virtue of hope infused into the soul at Baptism is sufficient for those who have not attained the use of reason; in all others an act of hope is required, such at least as is included in living a Christian life. The sins against hope are: despair or wilful diffidence about obtaining heaven and the means necessary thereto, since this implies mistrust of God's power or goodness or fidelity to His promises; and presumption or the unreasonable confidence of obtaining eternal salvation without taking the necessary
means.
New Catholic Dictionary
Definition: FAITH
In general, is an assent of the mind to the truth of some proposition on the word of another, God or man. It differs from assent in matters of science in that the latter is based on evidence of fact, whereas the former is based solely on the word of another. Divine faith is therefore the holding of some truth as absolutely certain because God, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has spoken it. It is not merely a feeling or a suspicion or an opinion, but a firm, unshakeable adherence of the mind to a truth revealed by God. The motive of Divine faith, or the reason why we believe, is God's authority, His unfailing knowledge and truthfulness. We believe the truths of faith not because our minds understand them, can see them, but because the Infinitely Wise and Truthful God has revealed them.
This motive of faith must not be confused with motives of credibility. These latter are the signs, and among them the surest are miracles and prophecies, by which we can conclude with full certitude that God has revealed and that therefore there is a strict obligation to accept the truths He has made known. It is these motives of credibility which precede the act of faith and which make it essentially reasonable to assent to the truths of faith, for once it is certain that God has spoken, it is unreasonable to withhold assent to His truths. All that God has revealed and nothing else is the object of Divine faith, for it is that and that alone which can be accepted on the word of God. Though a man may be able by his own resources to learn the main truths revealed by God, the normal and usual way is through the Church which has been commissioned by Christ to teach in His name and with His authority. Divine faith is a supernatural act and therefore requires the grace of God. This grace is given to all adults who do not place any obstacle in its way. Without faith no man can be saved. For infants the virtue of faith received at the time of Baptism suffices, but for adults an act of supernatural faith that God exists and rewards the good and punishes the evil is necessary for salvation.
New Catholic Dictionary
This motive of faith must not be confused with motives of credibility. These latter are the signs, and among them the surest are miracles and prophecies, by which we can conclude with full certitude that God has revealed and that therefore there is a strict obligation to accept the truths He has made known. It is these motives of credibility which precede the act of faith and which make it essentially reasonable to assent to the truths of faith, for once it is certain that God has spoken, it is unreasonable to withhold assent to His truths. All that God has revealed and nothing else is the object of Divine faith, for it is that and that alone which can be accepted on the word of God. Though a man may be able by his own resources to learn the main truths revealed by God, the normal and usual way is through the Church which has been commissioned by Christ to teach in His name and with His authority. Divine faith is a supernatural act and therefore requires the grace of God. This grace is given to all adults who do not place any obstacle in its way. Without faith no man can be saved. For infants the virtue of faith received at the time of Baptism suffices, but for adults an act of supernatural faith that God exists and rewards the good and punishes the evil is necessary for salvation.
New Catholic Dictionary
Thursday, August 27, 2009
St. Paul's Hymn to Charity
"If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have charity, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have charity, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have charity, I gain nothing.
Charity is patient, charity is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Charity never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope charity remain, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
1 Corinthians 13
Charity is patient, charity is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Charity never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope charity remain, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
1 Corinthians 13
What is Caritas?
To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).
from Benedict XVI's "Caritas in Veritate".
from Benedict XVI's "Caritas in Veritate".
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Supernatural Faith--its nature, and merit
from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Definition of faith
The foregoing analyses will enable us to define an act of Divine supernatural faith as "the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God" (St. Thomas, II-II, Q. iv, a. 2). And just as the light of faith is a gift supernaturally bestowed upon the understanding, so also this Divine grace moving the will is, as its name implies, an equally supernatural and an absolutely gratuitous gift. Neither gift is due to previous study neither of them can be acquired by human efforts, but "Ask and ye shall receive."
From all that has been said two most important corollaries follow:
That temptations against faith are natural and inevitable and are in no sense contrary to faith, "since", says St. Thomas, "the assent of the intellect in faith is due to the will, and since the object to which the intellect thus assents is not its own proper object — for that is actual vision of an intelligible object — it follows that the intellect's attitude towards that object is not one of tranquillity, on the contrary it thinks and inquires about those things it believes, all the while that it assents to them unhesitatingly; for as far as it itself is concerned the intellect is not satisfied" (De Ver., xiv, 1).
(b) It also follows from the above that an act of supernatural faith is meritorious, since it proceeds from the will moved by Divine grace or charity, and thus has all the essential constituents of a meritorious act (cf. II-II, Q. ii, a. 9). This enables us to understand St. James's words when he says, "The devils also believe and tremble" (ii, 19) . "It is not willingly that they assent", says St. Thomas, "but they are compelled thereto by the evidence of those signs which prove that what believers assent to is true, though even those proofs do not make the truths of faith so evident as to afford what is termed vision of them" (De Ver., xiv 9, ad 4); nor is their faith Divine, but merely philosophical and natural.
Some may fancy the foregoing analyses superfluous, and may think that they savour too much of Scholasticism. But if anyone will be at the pains to compare the teaching of the Fathers, of the Scholastics, and of the divines of the Anglican Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with that of the non-Catholic theologians of today, he will find that the Scholastics merely put into shape what the Fathers taught, and that the great English divines owe their solidity and genuine worth to their vast patristic knowledge and their strictly logical training.
Let anyone who doubts this statement compare Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion, chaps. v, vi, with the paper on "Faith" contributed to Lux Mundi. The writer of this latter paper tells us that "faith is an elemental energy of the soul", "a tentative probation", that "its primary note will be trust", and finally that "in response to the demand for definition, it can only reiterate: "Faith is faith. Believing is just believing'". Nowhere is there any analysis of terms, nowhere any distinction between the relative parts played by the intellect and the will; and we feel that those who read the paper must have risen from its perusal with the feeling that they had been wandering through — we use the writer's own expression — "a juggling maze of words."
Definition of faith
The foregoing analyses will enable us to define an act of Divine supernatural faith as "the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God" (St. Thomas, II-II, Q. iv, a. 2). And just as the light of faith is a gift supernaturally bestowed upon the understanding, so also this Divine grace moving the will is, as its name implies, an equally supernatural and an absolutely gratuitous gift. Neither gift is due to previous study neither of them can be acquired by human efforts, but "Ask and ye shall receive."
From all that has been said two most important corollaries follow:
That temptations against faith are natural and inevitable and are in no sense contrary to faith, "since", says St. Thomas, "the assent of the intellect in faith is due to the will, and since the object to which the intellect thus assents is not its own proper object — for that is actual vision of an intelligible object — it follows that the intellect's attitude towards that object is not one of tranquillity, on the contrary it thinks and inquires about those things it believes, all the while that it assents to them unhesitatingly; for as far as it itself is concerned the intellect is not satisfied" (De Ver., xiv, 1).
(b) It also follows from the above that an act of supernatural faith is meritorious, since it proceeds from the will moved by Divine grace or charity, and thus has all the essential constituents of a meritorious act (cf. II-II, Q. ii, a. 9). This enables us to understand St. James's words when he says, "The devils also believe and tremble" (ii, 19) . "It is not willingly that they assent", says St. Thomas, "but they are compelled thereto by the evidence of those signs which prove that what believers assent to is true, though even those proofs do not make the truths of faith so evident as to afford what is termed vision of them" (De Ver., xiv 9, ad 4); nor is their faith Divine, but merely philosophical and natural.
Some may fancy the foregoing analyses superfluous, and may think that they savour too much of Scholasticism. But if anyone will be at the pains to compare the teaching of the Fathers, of the Scholastics, and of the divines of the Anglican Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with that of the non-Catholic theologians of today, he will find that the Scholastics merely put into shape what the Fathers taught, and that the great English divines owe their solidity and genuine worth to their vast patristic knowledge and their strictly logical training.
Let anyone who doubts this statement compare Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion, chaps. v, vi, with the paper on "Faith" contributed to Lux Mundi. The writer of this latter paper tells us that "faith is an elemental energy of the soul", "a tentative probation", that "its primary note will be trust", and finally that "in response to the demand for definition, it can only reiterate: "Faith is faith. Believing is just believing'". Nowhere is there any analysis of terms, nowhere any distinction between the relative parts played by the intellect and the will; and we feel that those who read the paper must have risen from its perusal with the feeling that they had been wandering through — we use the writer's own expression — "a juggling maze of words."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
NYTimes.com: What is Faith? Fasten your seat belts for a lot of foolishness!
Here it is: a sampling of reader's opinions re the question: What is Faith?
The suspension of reason and rationality for a dream.
— Darren Tidwell
2. June 26, 2009
11:42 am
Link
Faith is knowing something should be true, being certain it is, and having no insight into one’s collisions with reality.
Reality is wrong. Other people are wrong. Why can’t they
see what I see? It’s all about failures to re-interpret one’s
original misinterpretation of experience. Faith is blind,
and that’s a problem.
Faith is not calm, it is heated, sure of itself, and prone to be unrealistic.
— Mike Mooney
3. June 26, 2009
11:44 am
Link
There’s never been a better analysis of Faith than the following: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/21932/
Dude is a Franciscan who acknowledged that faith is not knowing what you can’t know… and being okay with it. Perhaps the opposite of so many that we consider to be Faithful today.
Seriously, please give it a listen.
— Juan
4. June 26, 2009
12:16 pm
Link
Faith: Security in numbers.
— Joshua Hecker
5. June 26, 2009
12:28 pm
Link
Faith is the remaining recourse when a person reaches the end of their knowledge before the end of their journey.
— alanyst
6. June 26, 2009
12:45 pm
Link
Faith is what other people have. I have doubt.
Unbeliever
— Unbeliever
7. June 26, 2009
12:46 pm
Link
Faith is the tenacity with which a belief or myth is adhered to, regardless of any proof for its veracity
— Abe Eckstein
8. June 26, 2009
12:52 pm
Link
Faith is a socially acceptable insanity in the same way that alcohol is a socially acceptable drug.
— Pete
9. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
[Religious and other] FAITH: Strong, at times, unquestioning and complete beleif(s) without strong empirical and tested evidence and proof lacking a viable hypothesis which has been tested and which is recognized by by dispassionate persons who are experts in the area who are independent.
— David Chowes, New York City
10. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
Faith is the word many use when they mean “hope”.
Faith is trust, both of which are broken so often.
Faith is belief that has no proof, otherwise it would not be needed.
Faith is what sustains the vast majority, the masses, who believe there is something better than their leaders provide.
Faith becomes the substitute for truth about the unknown.
Faith drives some, carries some, pulls some, fools many.
— tom brasher
11. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
Faith is the absence of fear.
— Cindy Wheatley
12. June 26, 2009
1:04 pm
Link
Faith is believing/hoping that what you wish is true is really true.
— Mary from CT
13. June 26, 2009
1:07 pm
Link
Unfounded belief.
— Nathalie Guyol
14. June 26, 2009
1:16 pm
Link
To Unbeliever - I think doubt is a part of faith. If there is no doubt why do you need faith?
— Stan
15. June 26, 2009
1:18 pm
Link
I think this is a quote of Clarence Jordan:
“Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds.”
— John Donaghy
16. June 26, 2009
1:30 pm
Link
Faith is taking action based on our trust in things that we expect to be true but have not independently verified.
As such, it is employed by every intelligent person, every day of their lives.
— alanyst
17. June 26, 2009
1:45 pm
Link
Faith is the ultimate act of creation.
— Franklin
18. June 26, 2009
1:53 pm
Link
As the schoolboy said when Father Feeney asked him to define faith: “Faith is when you know somethin’ ain’t true, but you believe it anyway.”
— James Dunn
19. June 26, 2009
1:55 pm
Link
All is well and will be well.
— dr james
20. June 26, 2009
1:55 pm
Link
As Mark Twain said,”Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
— Harvey Sande
21. June 26, 2009
2:08 pm
Link
Faith is a gift from the Triune God.
— helen
22. June 26, 2009
2:10 pm
Link
Faith is an antiquated insistence on belief in something that cannot be falsified.
Faith asks you to stop searching for truth.
Faith lays the groundwork for disappointment.
Faith is the opposite of critical thinking.
— Marnie
23. June 26, 2009
2:17 pm
Link
Faith: That on which much of the US’s charitable activities is based, freeing the government from many of its obligations.
— DigitalDan
24. June 26, 2009
2:25 pm
Link
A feeling that you, and by extension the world, is just awesome.
A sense of wholeness, of justice and purpose, underlying every event in one’s life.
Faith is trusting ones eyes and ones heart.
Faith is knowing, beyond hope and fear, that everything is beautiful.
Faith is saying yes to every moment.
— dr james
25. June 26, 2009
2:43 pm
Link
Faith is chosing to believe that which is (for now) unproven.
— Mark H
The suspension of reason and rationality for a dream.
— Darren Tidwell
2. June 26, 2009
11:42 am
Link
Faith is knowing something should be true, being certain it is, and having no insight into one’s collisions with reality.
Reality is wrong. Other people are wrong. Why can’t they
see what I see? It’s all about failures to re-interpret one’s
original misinterpretation of experience. Faith is blind,
and that’s a problem.
Faith is not calm, it is heated, sure of itself, and prone to be unrealistic.
— Mike Mooney
3. June 26, 2009
11:44 am
Link
There’s never been a better analysis of Faith than the following: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/21932/
Dude is a Franciscan who acknowledged that faith is not knowing what you can’t know… and being okay with it. Perhaps the opposite of so many that we consider to be Faithful today.
Seriously, please give it a listen.
— Juan
4. June 26, 2009
12:16 pm
Link
Faith: Security in numbers.
— Joshua Hecker
5. June 26, 2009
12:28 pm
Link
Faith is the remaining recourse when a person reaches the end of their knowledge before the end of their journey.
— alanyst
6. June 26, 2009
12:45 pm
Link
Faith is what other people have. I have doubt.
Unbeliever
— Unbeliever
7. June 26, 2009
12:46 pm
Link
Faith is the tenacity with which a belief or myth is adhered to, regardless of any proof for its veracity
— Abe Eckstein
8. June 26, 2009
12:52 pm
Link
Faith is a socially acceptable insanity in the same way that alcohol is a socially acceptable drug.
— Pete
9. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
[Religious and other] FAITH: Strong, at times, unquestioning and complete beleif(s) without strong empirical and tested evidence and proof lacking a viable hypothesis which has been tested and which is recognized by by dispassionate persons who are experts in the area who are independent.
— David Chowes, New York City
10. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
Faith is the word many use when they mean “hope”.
Faith is trust, both of which are broken so often.
Faith is belief that has no proof, otherwise it would not be needed.
Faith is what sustains the vast majority, the masses, who believe there is something better than their leaders provide.
Faith becomes the substitute for truth about the unknown.
Faith drives some, carries some, pulls some, fools many.
— tom brasher
11. June 26, 2009
1:03 pm
Link
Faith is the absence of fear.
— Cindy Wheatley
12. June 26, 2009
1:04 pm
Link
Faith is believing/hoping that what you wish is true is really true.
— Mary from CT
13. June 26, 2009
1:07 pm
Link
Unfounded belief.
— Nathalie Guyol
14. June 26, 2009
1:16 pm
Link
To Unbeliever - I think doubt is a part of faith. If there is no doubt why do you need faith?
— Stan
15. June 26, 2009
1:18 pm
Link
I think this is a quote of Clarence Jordan:
“Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds.”
— John Donaghy
16. June 26, 2009
1:30 pm
Link
Faith is taking action based on our trust in things that we expect to be true but have not independently verified.
As such, it is employed by every intelligent person, every day of their lives.
— alanyst
17. June 26, 2009
1:45 pm
Link
Faith is the ultimate act of creation.
— Franklin
18. June 26, 2009
1:53 pm
Link
As the schoolboy said when Father Feeney asked him to define faith: “Faith is when you know somethin’ ain’t true, but you believe it anyway.”
— James Dunn
19. June 26, 2009
1:55 pm
Link
All is well and will be well.
— dr james
20. June 26, 2009
1:55 pm
Link
As Mark Twain said,”Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
— Harvey Sande
21. June 26, 2009
2:08 pm
Link
Faith is a gift from the Triune God.
— helen
22. June 26, 2009
2:10 pm
Link
Faith is an antiquated insistence on belief in something that cannot be falsified.
Faith asks you to stop searching for truth.
Faith lays the groundwork for disappointment.
Faith is the opposite of critical thinking.
— Marnie
23. June 26, 2009
2:17 pm
Link
Faith: That on which much of the US’s charitable activities is based, freeing the government from many of its obligations.
— DigitalDan
24. June 26, 2009
2:25 pm
Link
A feeling that you, and by extension the world, is just awesome.
A sense of wholeness, of justice and purpose, underlying every event in one’s life.
Faith is trusting ones eyes and ones heart.
Faith is knowing, beyond hope and fear, that everything is beautiful.
Faith is saying yes to every moment.
— dr james
25. June 26, 2009
2:43 pm
Link
Faith is chosing to believe that which is (for now) unproven.
— Mark H
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
JPII Homily for St. Maximilan Kolbe
from the Homily at the Canonization of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe
By His Holiness Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982
"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
From today on, the Church desires to address as "Saint" a man who was granted the grace of carrying out these words of the Redeemer in an absolutely literal manner.
For towards the end of July, 1941, when the camp commander ordered the prisoners destined to die of starvation to fall in line, this man-Maximilian Maria Kolbe-spontaneously came forward and declared himself ready to go to death in the place of one of them. This readiness was accepted and, after more than two weeks of torment caused by starvation, Father Maximilian's life was ended with a lethal injection on August 14, 1941.
All this happened in the concentration camp at Auschwitz where during the last war some four million people were put to death, including the Servant of God, Edith Stein (the Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), whose cause for beatification is in progress at the competent Congregation. Disobedience to God-the Creator of life who said, "Thou shalt not kill"-caused in that place the immense holocaust of so many innocent persons. And so at the same time, our age has thus been horribly stigmatized by the slaughter of the innocent...
Father Maximilian Kolbe, himself a prisoner of the concentration camp, defended in that place of death an innocent man's right to life. Father Kolbe defended his right to life, declaring that he was ready to go to death in the man's place, because he was the father of a family and his life was necessary for his dear ones. Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive right over innocent human life. He bore witness to Christ and to love.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." These are the words we have repeated in today's responsorial psalm. It is truly precious and inestimable! Through the death which Christ underwent on the Cross, the redemption of the world was achieved, for this death has the value of supreme love. Through the death of Father Maximilian Kolbe, a shining sign of this love was renewed in our century which is so seriously and in so many ways threatened by sin and death.
By His Holiness Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982
"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
From today on, the Church desires to address as "Saint" a man who was granted the grace of carrying out these words of the Redeemer in an absolutely literal manner.
For towards the end of July, 1941, when the camp commander ordered the prisoners destined to die of starvation to fall in line, this man-Maximilian Maria Kolbe-spontaneously came forward and declared himself ready to go to death in the place of one of them. This readiness was accepted and, after more than two weeks of torment caused by starvation, Father Maximilian's life was ended with a lethal injection on August 14, 1941.
All this happened in the concentration camp at Auschwitz where during the last war some four million people were put to death, including the Servant of God, Edith Stein (the Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), whose cause for beatification is in progress at the competent Congregation. Disobedience to God-the Creator of life who said, "Thou shalt not kill"-caused in that place the immense holocaust of so many innocent persons. And so at the same time, our age has thus been horribly stigmatized by the slaughter of the innocent...
Father Maximilian Kolbe, himself a prisoner of the concentration camp, defended in that place of death an innocent man's right to life. Father Kolbe defended his right to life, declaring that he was ready to go to death in the man's place, because he was the father of a family and his life was necessary for his dear ones. Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive right over innocent human life. He bore witness to Christ and to love.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." These are the words we have repeated in today's responsorial psalm. It is truly precious and inestimable! Through the death which Christ underwent on the Cross, the redemption of the world was achieved, for this death has the value of supreme love. Through the death of Father Maximilian Kolbe, a shining sign of this love was renewed in our century which is so seriously and in so many ways threatened by sin and death.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
from Benedict XIV
Teach the Fundamentals of the Faith
4. Therefore with the example of St. Charles Borromeo before Us, We encourage you and implore you by the mercy of Jesus Christ not to despair in this important work of handing on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, even if hitherto you have devoted all your zeal and care to it. See to it that every minister performs carefully the measures laid down by the holy Council of Trent and by the statutes of your synods: that on fixed days school-masters and mistresses should teach Christian doctrine; that confessors should perform this part of their duty whenever anyone stands at their tribunal who does not know what he must by necessity of means know to be saved; that priests should also provide this instruction before uniting spouses in marriage; that fathers of families and lords of houses should be gravely advised of the duty imposed on them of being themselves instructed and of seeing to the instruction in the commandments of Christian doctrine of their sons and of the members of their household; that the practice of reciting aloud properly-composed acts of Faith, Hope and Charity by the priest and people before or after the parish mass should be preserved in the dioceses in which it is customary and be carefully introduced where it is not...Preachers should also follow this path, recalling the salutary advice that they should join instruction to exhortation whenever their hearers stand in need of both.
Finally, the best method for instructing ignorant men in Christian doctrine is indicated by St. Augustine who says (de Cath. Rud., 10) that the most fruitful procedure is to ask questions in a friendly fashion after the explanation; from this questioning one can learn whether each one understood what he heard or whether the explanation needs repeating. In order that the learner grasp the matter, "we must ascertain by questioning whether the one being catechised has understood, and in accordance with his response, we must either explain more clearly and fully or not dwell further on what is known to them, etc. But if a man is very slow, he must be mercifully helped and the most necessary doctrines especially should be briefly imparted to him." We are assured that you yourselves will pursue many more paths than We point out to you in this encyclical letter. In the meantime, Venerable Brothers, We lovingly impart to you and to the flock entrusted to your care Our Apostolic Blessing.
Given at Castelgandolfo on the 26th of June 1754 in the fourteenth year of Our Pontificate.
4. Therefore with the example of St. Charles Borromeo before Us, We encourage you and implore you by the mercy of Jesus Christ not to despair in this important work of handing on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, even if hitherto you have devoted all your zeal and care to it. See to it that every minister performs carefully the measures laid down by the holy Council of Trent and by the statutes of your synods: that on fixed days school-masters and mistresses should teach Christian doctrine; that confessors should perform this part of their duty whenever anyone stands at their tribunal who does not know what he must by necessity of means know to be saved; that priests should also provide this instruction before uniting spouses in marriage; that fathers of families and lords of houses should be gravely advised of the duty imposed on them of being themselves instructed and of seeing to the instruction in the commandments of Christian doctrine of their sons and of the members of their household; that the practice of reciting aloud properly-composed acts of Faith, Hope and Charity by the priest and people before or after the parish mass should be preserved in the dioceses in which it is customary and be carefully introduced where it is not...Preachers should also follow this path, recalling the salutary advice that they should join instruction to exhortation whenever their hearers stand in need of both.
Finally, the best method for instructing ignorant men in Christian doctrine is indicated by St. Augustine who says (de Cath. Rud., 10) that the most fruitful procedure is to ask questions in a friendly fashion after the explanation; from this questioning one can learn whether each one understood what he heard or whether the explanation needs repeating. In order that the learner grasp the matter, "we must ascertain by questioning whether the one being catechised has understood, and in accordance with his response, we must either explain more clearly and fully or not dwell further on what is known to them, etc. But if a man is very slow, he must be mercifully helped and the most necessary doctrines especially should be briefly imparted to him." We are assured that you yourselves will pursue many more paths than We point out to you in this encyclical letter. In the meantime, Venerable Brothers, We lovingly impart to you and to the flock entrusted to your care Our Apostolic Blessing.
Given at Castelgandolfo on the 26th of June 1754 in the fourteenth year of Our Pontificate.
Lumen Gentium
DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH
LUMEN GENTIUM
SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON NOVEMBER 21, 1964
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH
1. Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature,(1) to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.
2. The eternal Father, by a free and hidden plan of His own wisdom and goodness, created the whole world. His plan was to raise men to a participation of the divine life. Fallen in Adam, God the Father did not leave men to themselves, but ceaselessly offered helps to salvation, in view of Christ, the Redeemer "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature".(2) All the elect, before time began, the Father "foreknew and pre- destined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that he should be the firstborn among many brethren".(3) He planned to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ. Already from the beginning of the world the foreshadowing of the Church took place. It was prepared in a remarkable way throughout the history of the people of Israel and by means of the Old Covenant.(1*) In the present era of time the Church was constituted and, by the outpouring of the Spirit, was made manifest. At the end of time it will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and "from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,"(2*) will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church.
3. The Son, therefore, came, sent by the Father. It was in Him, before the foundation of the world, that the Father chose us and predestined us to become adopted sons, for in Him it pleased the Father to re-establish all things.(4) To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. By His obedience He brought about redemption. The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world. This inauguration and this growth are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of a crucified Jesus,(5) and are foretold in the words of the Lord referring to His death on the Cross: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself".(6) As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed, is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried on, and, in the sacrament of the eucharistic bread, the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (8) is both expressed and brought about. All men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains.
4. When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth (9) was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that He might continually sanctify the Church, and thus, all those who believe would have access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father.(10) He is the Spirit of Life, a fountain of water springing up to life eternal.(11) To men, dead in sin, the Father gives life through Him, until, in Christ, He brings to life their mortal bodies.(12) The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple.(13) In them He prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons.(14) The Church, which the Spirit guides in way of all truth(15) and which He unified in communion and in works of ministry, He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts and adorns with His fruits.(16) By the power of the Gospel He makes the Church keep the freshness of youth. Uninterruptedly He renews it and leads it to perfect union with its Spouse. (3*) The Spirit and the Bride both say to Jesus, the Lord, "Come!"(17)
LUMEN GENTIUM
SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON NOVEMBER 21, 1964
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH
1. Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature,(1) to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.
2. The eternal Father, by a free and hidden plan of His own wisdom and goodness, created the whole world. His plan was to raise men to a participation of the divine life. Fallen in Adam, God the Father did not leave men to themselves, but ceaselessly offered helps to salvation, in view of Christ, the Redeemer "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature".(2) All the elect, before time began, the Father "foreknew and pre- destined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that he should be the firstborn among many brethren".(3) He planned to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ. Already from the beginning of the world the foreshadowing of the Church took place. It was prepared in a remarkable way throughout the history of the people of Israel and by means of the Old Covenant.(1*) In the present era of time the Church was constituted and, by the outpouring of the Spirit, was made manifest. At the end of time it will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and "from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,"(2*) will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church.
3. The Son, therefore, came, sent by the Father. It was in Him, before the foundation of the world, that the Father chose us and predestined us to become adopted sons, for in Him it pleased the Father to re-establish all things.(4) To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. By His obedience He brought about redemption. The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world. This inauguration and this growth are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of a crucified Jesus,(5) and are foretold in the words of the Lord referring to His death on the Cross: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself".(6) As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed, is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried on, and, in the sacrament of the eucharistic bread, the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (8) is both expressed and brought about. All men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains.
4. When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth (9) was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that He might continually sanctify the Church, and thus, all those who believe would have access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father.(10) He is the Spirit of Life, a fountain of water springing up to life eternal.(11) To men, dead in sin, the Father gives life through Him, until, in Christ, He brings to life their mortal bodies.(12) The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple.(13) In them He prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons.(14) The Church, which the Spirit guides in way of all truth(15) and which He unified in communion and in works of ministry, He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts and adorns with His fruits.(16) By the power of the Gospel He makes the Church keep the freshness of youth. Uninterruptedly He renews it and leads it to perfect union with its Spouse. (3*) The Spirit and the Bride both say to Jesus, the Lord, "Come!"(17)
Personal Witness
'I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me - a stranger. Is this some dream?
I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.
For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.'‘
--Gajowniczek, the Polish inmate saved by St. Maximilan Kolbe
I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.
For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.'‘
--Gajowniczek, the Polish inmate saved by St. Maximilan Kolbe
Thursday, August 6, 2009
We have not followed Fables...
Early Historical Documents on Jesus Christ
The historical documents referring to Christ's life and work may be divided into three classes: pagan sources, Jewish sources, and Christian sources. We shall study the three in succession.
Pagan sources
The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number of reasons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources:
The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee;
the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we believe Horace (Credat Judoeus Apella, I, Sat., v, 100);
the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that period;
the Jews in whose midst Christianity had taken its origin were dispersed among, and hated by, all the pagan nations;
the Christian religion itself was often confounded with one of the many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not excite the interest of the pagan spectator.
It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount importance of the religion, the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they unwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.
We need not delay over a writing entitled the "Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol"., I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of Christians (Eusebius, Church History I.9; Church History IX.5); nor need we inquire into the question whether there existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius.
Tacitus
We possess at least the testimony of Tacitus (A.D. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadly superstition in the eyes of the Romans, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had originated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickedness and shamelessness; furthermore, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspicion of the burning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of arson, though they deserved their fate on account of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv).
Suetonius
Another Roman writer who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D. 75-160). It has been noted that Suetonius considered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirred up seditions under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54): "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit" (Clau., xxv). In his life of Nero he regards that emperor as a public benefactor on account of his severe treatment of the Christians: "Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, et coercita, nec minus instituta . . . . afflicti Christiani, genus hominum superstitious novae et maleficae" (Nero, xvi). The Roman writer does not understand that the Jewish troubles arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.
Pliny the Younger
Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 61-115), in which the Governor of Bithynia consults his imperial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent; no crime could be proved against them excepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and perverse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 98). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as it does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowledges the high moral principles of the Christians, admires their constancy in the Faith (pervicacia et inflexibilis obstinatio), which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ (carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere).
Other pagan writers
The remaining pagan witnesses are of less importance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffed at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His miracles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Christians ("Philopseudes", nn. 13, 16; "De Morte Pereg"). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, Against Celsus IV.51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthquake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon (Origen, Against Celsus II.14). Before the end of the second century, the logos alethes of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Celsus, passim), testifies that at that time the facts related in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty the pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion. var AID=0;var AsID=1414;-->
Jewish sources
Philo
Philo, who dies after A.D. 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the Apostles. Eusebius (Church History II.4) indeed preserves a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in his work on the contemplative life he describes the life of the Christian Church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Essenes and Therapeutae. But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends.
Josephus
The earlist non-Christian writer who refers Christ is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus; born A.D. 37, he was a contemporary of the Apostles, and died in Rome A.D. 94. Two passages in his "Antiquities" which confirm two facts of the inspired Christian records are not disputed. In the one he reports the murder of "John called Baptist" by Herod (Ant., XVIII, v, 2), describing also John's character and work; in the other (Ant., XX, ix, 1) he disapproves of the sentence pronounced by the high priest Ananus against "James, brother of Jesus Who was called Christ." It is antecedently probable that a writer so well informed as Josephus, must have been well acquainted too with the doctrine and the history of Jesus Christ. Seeing, also, that he records events of minor importance in the history of the Jews, it would be surprising if he were to keep silence about Jesus Christ. Consideration for the priests and Pharisees did not prevent him from mentioning the judicial murders of John the Baptist and the Apostle James; his endeavour to find the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies in Vespasian did not induce him to pass in silence over several Jewish sects, though their tenets appear to be inconsistent with the Vespasian claims. One naturally expects, therefore, a notice about Jesus Christ in Josephus. Antiquities XVIII, iii, 3, seems to satisfy this expectation:
About this time appeared Jesus, a wise man (if indeed it is right to call Him man; for He was a worker of astonishing deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy), and He drew to Himself many Jews (many also of Greeks. This was the Christ.) And when Pilate, at the denunciation of those that are foremost among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did not abandon Him (for He appeared to them alive again on the third day, the holy prophets having foretold this and countless other marvels about Him.) The tribe of Christians named after Him did not cease to this day.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Immersed in Truth
To be immersed in God’s truth and thus in his holiness – for us this also means to acknowledge that the truth makes demands, to stand up, in matters great and small, to the lie which in so many different ways is present in the world; accepting the struggles associated with the truth, because its inmost joy is present within us. Nor, when we talk about being sanctified in the truth, should we forget that in Jesus Christ truth and love are one. Being immersed in him means being immersed in his goodness, in true love. True love does not come cheap, it can also prove quite costly. It resists evil in order to bring men true good. If we become one with Christ, we learn to recognize him precisely in the suffering, in the poor, in the little ones of this world; then we become people who serve, who recognize our brothers and sisters in him, and in them, we encounter him.
Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Basics of Morality from: www.beginningcatholic.com
It's important to understand a few basics about Catholic morality before we look at the actual moral code itself. These basics used to be a part of our culture, but now they're under widespread attack by the culture.
There is a lot of confusion in the Church about these basics right now. You need to know them well yourself, or you're at risk for being steered off the right path.
These are basic concepts in Catholic moral theology:
Freedom
Truth
Natural law
Law
Conscience
There's a lot to say about these, but I'll keep it short. It boils down to this:
God creates us in the state of freedom. We are at liberty to choose, based on reason and will, whether to act or not in a specific situation. We are responsible for our choices. With these choices, we choose our own ultimate destiny: that of eternal life with God, or that of death.
We believe that moral truth is objective, and not relative to the subjective whims of culture or taste. It is valid at all times & everywhere. God is the ultimate source of all moral truth.
People have an innate sense of basic moral truth. Using human reason, we can deduce the principles of this natural law. But because sin clouds our vision of the truth, God has chosen to directly reveal the law to us.
We use our natural facility called conscience to apply the general principles of the law to specific situations, judging specific actions to be right or wrong in accordance with objective law. (Conscience is not the source of those moral principles!)
Understanding these basic principles of Catholic morality will help you avoid a lot of trouble. (Believe me, it's hard enough to avoid trouble even when you do understand these!)
Okay, so Catholic morality does have an actual moral code that you need to know!
But just remember: this moral code doesn't represent the summit of Catholic morality. It is a description of the most basic requirements of the command to love God and love neighbor.
Focus on the Beatitudes as your goal, but make sure that you don't fall below the minimum level of Christian living.
Here's the basic content of these "minimum requirements", the moral law:
The Catholic Ten Commandments describe "the conditions of a life freed from the slavery of sin" (Catechism, 2057).
Each Commandment is simply a summary of a whole category of actions. For example, "bearing false witness against your neighbor" covers any kind of falsehood: perjury, lying, slander, detraction, bragging, rash judgment, etc.
The Commandments must be understood in relation to the "law of love." (That's why we discussed it at length above!)
The Precepts of the Catholic Church are a small number of things related to the Church that any good Catholic must do at an absolute minimum. They describe things like the necessity to worship at Mass at least each Sunday and on Catholic holy days of obligation, go to Confession at least once a year, etc.
Willing & knowing violation of one of the above items (the Ten Commandments and Precepts of the Church) is considered a mortal sin: it constitutes rejection of God's law, and of God himself.
Such rejection can be repaired only by true contrition, repentance, and seeking forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation as soon as possible.
Again, remember that this moral code is only a description of some of the minimum requirements of Catholic morality. True Christian life not only requires much more of us, but...
...it is also incredibly positive in the blessings that it brings!
One of the BEST statements on the Eucharist
Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament....There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth...
- J.R.R. Tolkien, from a letter to his son Michael, March 6, 1941.
Prayer to one's Guardian Angel
This is a beautiful prayer to learn:
O my guardian, glorious angel who from among the heavenly hierarchy has been appointed by God as my guardian from the very moment of my birth from the womb: I beseech thee humbly and devotedly that thou thus illuminate, protect and defend me, entrusted to thee, driving far away the enemy who wishes me ill; not only restrain me from evil acts, but mayest thou also urge and induce me toward the good by thy virtue; and by the protection of thy actions mayest thou make me at last a dweller with thee and with those on high.
Through Christ our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, O God, world without end. Amen.
First Commandment
PART THREE LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
"YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"
ARTICLE 1 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.3
It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."4
I. "YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"
2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: "I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: "You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him. . . . You shall not go after other gods."5 God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.
2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel.6 The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation "in the image and likeness of God":
There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt "by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm." We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.7
2086 "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.'"8
Faith
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"9 as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.10 Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."11
* Hope
2090 When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. 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.
2091 The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption:
By 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 - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy.
2092 There are two kinds of 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).
* Charity
2093 Faith in God's love encompasses the call and the obligation to respond with sincere love to divine charity. The first commandment enjoins us to love God above everything and all creatures for him and because of him.12
2094 One can sin against God's love in various ways:
- indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider its prevenient goodness and denies its power.
- ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love.
- lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity.
- acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness.
- hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments.
II. "HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"
2095 The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity inform and give life to the moral virtues. Thus charity leads us to render to God what we as creatures owe him in all justice. The virtue of religion disposes us to have this attitude.
* Adoration
2096 Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. 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. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy.13
2097 To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the "nothingness of the creature" who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat, confessing with gratitude that he has done great things and holy is his name.14 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. Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God: prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. "[We] ought always to pray and not lose heart."15
Sacrifice
2099 It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice."16
2100 Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. . . . "17 The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor.18 Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."19 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.20 By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom
2104 "All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it."26 This duty derives from "the very dignity of the human person."27 It does not contradict a "sincere respect" for different religions which frequently "reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men,"28 nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians "to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith."29 \
2105 The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is "the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ."30 By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them "to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live."31 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.32 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.33
2106 "Nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in association with others, within due limits."34 This right is based on the very nature of the human person, whose dignity enables him freely to assent to the divine truth which transcends the temporal order. For this reason it "continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it."35
2107 "If because of the circumstances of a particular people special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of a state, the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom must be recognized and respected as well."36
2108 The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.38
2109 The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40
III. "YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME"
2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.
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.41
Idolatry
2112 The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of "idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see." These empty idols make their worshippers empty: "Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them."42 God, however, is the "living God"43 who gives life and intervenes in history.
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."44 Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast"45 refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.46
2114 Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration. Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who "transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God."47
Divination and magic
2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.
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.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums 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. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
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. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
Irreligion
2118 God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony.
2119 Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. Thus Satan tried to induce Jesus to throw himself down from the Temple and, by this gesture, force God to act.49 Jesus opposed Satan with the word of God: "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test."50 The challenge contained in such tempting of God wounds the respect and trust we owe our Creator and Lord. It always harbors doubt about his love, his providence, and his power.51
2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.52
2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things.53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!"54 Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay."55 It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.
2122 The minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments because of their poverty."56 The competent authority determines these "offerings" in accordance with the principle that the Christian people ought to contribute to the support of the Church's ministers. "The laborer deserves his food."57
Atheism
2123 "Many . . . of our contemporaries either do not at all perceive, or explicitly reject, this intimate and vital bond of man to God. Atheism must therefore be regarded as one of the most serious problems of our time."58
2124 The name "atheism" covers many very different phenomena. One common form is the practical materialism which restricts its needs and aspirations to space and time. Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be "an end to himself, and the sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history."59 Another form of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of man through economic and social liberation. "It holds that religion, of its very nature, thwarts such emancipation by raising man's hopes in a future life, thus both deceiving him and discouraging him from working for a better form of life on earth."60
2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion.61 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."62
2126 Atheism is often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God.63 Yet, "to acknowledge God is in no way to oppose the dignity of man, since such dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in God. . . . "64 "For the Church knows full well that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart."65
Agnosticism
2127 Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. 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.
* IV. "YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . ."
2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . "66 It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. "He is the all," but at the same time "he is greater than all his works."67 He is "the author of beauty."68
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.69
2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images.
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."70 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, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.71
IN BRIEF
2133 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5).
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, fulfilling the promises and vows made to him are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the first commandment.
2136 The duty to offer God authentic worship concerns man both as an individual and as a social being.
2137 "Men of the present day want to profess their religion freely in private and in public" (DH 15).
2138 Superstition is a departure from the worship that we give to the true God. It is manifested in idolatry, as well as in various forms of divination and magic.
2139 Tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony are sins of irreligion forbidden by the first commandment.
2140 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the first commandment.
2141 The veneration of sacred images is based on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. It is not contrary to the first commandment.
3 Ex 20:2-5; cf. Deut 5:6-9.4 Mt 4:10.5 Deut 6:13-14.6 Cf. Ex 19:16-25; 24:15-18.7 St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone Judaeo 11,1:PG 6,497.8 Roman Catechism 3,2,4.9 Rom 1:5; 16:26.10 Cf. Rom 1:18-32.11 CIC, can. 751: emphasis added.12 Cf. Deut 6:4-5.13 Lk 4:8; Cf. Deut 6:13.14 Cf. Lk 1:46-49.15 Lk 18:1.16 St. Augustine, De civ Dei 10,6:PL 41,283.17 Ps 51:17.18 Cf. Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20.19 Mt 9:13; 12:7; Cf. Hos 6:6.20 Cf. Heb 9:13-14.21 CIC, can. 1191 § 1.22 Cf. Acts 18:18; 21:23-24.23 Cf. CIC, can. 654.24 LG 42 § 2.25 Cf. CIC, cann. 692; 1196-1197.26 DH 1 § 2.27 DH 2 § 1.28 NA 2 § 2.29 DH 14 § 4. 30 DH 1 § 3.31 AA 13 § 1.32 Cf. DH 1.33 Cf. AA 13; Leo XIII, Immortale Dei 3,17; Pius XI, Quas primas 8,20. 34 DH 2 § 1.35 DH 2 § 2.36 DH 6 § 3.37 Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.38 Cf. DH 2.39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.40 DH 7 § 3.41 Cf. Mt 23:16-22.42 Ps 115:4-5, 8; cf. Isa 44:9-20; Jer 10:1-16; Dan 14:1-30; Bar 6; Wis 13:1-15:19.43 Josh 3:10; Ps 42:3; etc.44 Mt 6:24.45 Cf. Rev 13-14.46 Cf. Gal 5:20; Eph 5:5.47 Origen, Contra Celsum 2,40:PG 11,861.48 Cf. Deut 18:10; Jer 29:8.49 Cf. Lk 4:9. 50 Deut 6:16.51 Cf. 1 Cor 10:9; Ex 17:2-7; Ps 95:9.52 Cf. CIC, cann. 1367; 1376.53 Cf. Acts 8:9-24.54 Acts 8:20.55 Mt 10:8; cf. already Isa 55:1.56 CIC, can. 848.57 Mt 10:10; cf. Lk 10:7; 2 Cor 9:5-18; 1 Tim 5:17-18.58 GS 19 § 1.59 GS 20 § 2. 60 GS 20 § 2.61 Cf. Rom 1:18.62 GS 19 § 3.63 Cf. GS 20 § 1.64 GS 21 § 3. 65 GS 21 § 7.66 Deut 4:15-16.67 Sir 43:27-28.68 Wis 13:3.69 Cf. Num 21:4-9; Wis 16:5-14; Jn 3:14-15; Ex 25:10-22; 1 Kings 6:23-28; 7:23-26.70 St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 18,45:PG 32,149C; Council of Nicaea II: DS 601; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1821-1825; Vatican Council II: SC 126; LG 67.71 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.
SECTION TWO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
"YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"
ARTICLE 1 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.3
It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."4
I. "YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"
2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: "I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: "You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him. . . . You shall not go after other gods."5 God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.
2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel.6 The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation "in the image and likeness of God":
There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt "by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm." We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.7
2086 "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.'"8
Faith
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"9 as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.10 Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:
Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."11
* Hope
2090 When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. 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.
2091 The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption:
By 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 - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy.
2092 There are two kinds of 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).
* Charity
2093 Faith in God's love encompasses the call and the obligation to respond with sincere love to divine charity. The first commandment enjoins us to love God above everything and all creatures for him and because of him.12
2094 One can sin against God's love in various ways:
- indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider its prevenient goodness and denies its power.
- ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love.
- lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity.
- acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness.
- hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments.
II. "HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"
2095 The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity inform and give life to the moral virtues. Thus charity leads us to render to God what we as creatures owe him in all justice. The virtue of religion disposes us to have this attitude.
* Adoration
2096 Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. 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. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy.13
2097 To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the "nothingness of the creature" who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat, confessing with gratitude that he has done great things and holy is his name.14 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. Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God: prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition. Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments. "[We] ought always to pray and not lose heart."15
Sacrifice
2099 It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice."16
2100 Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. . . . "17 The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor.18 Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."19 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.20 By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom
2104 "All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it."26 This duty derives from "the very dignity of the human person."27 It does not contradict a "sincere respect" for different religions which frequently "reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men,"28 nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians "to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith."29 \
2105 The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is "the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ."30 By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them "to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live."31 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.32 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.33
2106 "Nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in association with others, within due limits."34 This right is based on the very nature of the human person, whose dignity enables him freely to assent to the divine truth which transcends the temporal order. For this reason it "continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it."35
2107 "If because of the circumstances of a particular people special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of a state, the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom must be recognized and respected as well."36
2108 The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.38
2109 The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40
III. "YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME"
2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.
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.41
Idolatry
2112 The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of "idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see." These empty idols make their worshippers empty: "Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them."42 God, however, is the "living God"43 who gives life and intervenes in history.
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."44 Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast"45 refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.46
2114 Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration. Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who "transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God."47
Divination and magic
2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.
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.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums 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. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
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. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
Irreligion
2118 God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony.
2119 Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. Thus Satan tried to induce Jesus to throw himself down from the Temple and, by this gesture, force God to act.49 Jesus opposed Satan with the word of God: "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test."50 The challenge contained in such tempting of God wounds the respect and trust we owe our Creator and Lord. It always harbors doubt about his love, his providence, and his power.51
2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.52
2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things.53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!"54 Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay."55 It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.
2122 The minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments because of their poverty."56 The competent authority determines these "offerings" in accordance with the principle that the Christian people ought to contribute to the support of the Church's ministers. "The laborer deserves his food."57
Atheism
2123 "Many . . . of our contemporaries either do not at all perceive, or explicitly reject, this intimate and vital bond of man to God. Atheism must therefore be regarded as one of the most serious problems of our time."58
2124 The name "atheism" covers many very different phenomena. One common form is the practical materialism which restricts its needs and aspirations to space and time. Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be "an end to himself, and the sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history."59 Another form of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of man through economic and social liberation. "It holds that religion, of its very nature, thwarts such emancipation by raising man's hopes in a future life, thus both deceiving him and discouraging him from working for a better form of life on earth."60
2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion.61 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."62
2126 Atheism is often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God.63 Yet, "to acknowledge God is in no way to oppose the dignity of man, since such dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in God. . . . "64 "For the Church knows full well that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart."65
Agnosticism
2127 Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. 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.
* IV. "YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . ."
2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . "66 It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. "He is the all," but at the same time "he is greater than all his works."67 He is "the author of beauty."68
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.69
2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images.
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."70 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, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.71
IN BRIEF
2133 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5).
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, fulfilling the promises and vows made to him are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the first commandment.
2136 The duty to offer God authentic worship concerns man both as an individual and as a social being.
2137 "Men of the present day want to profess their religion freely in private and in public" (DH 15).
2138 Superstition is a departure from the worship that we give to the true God. It is manifested in idolatry, as well as in various forms of divination and magic.
2139 Tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony are sins of irreligion forbidden by the first commandment.
2140 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the first commandment.
2141 The veneration of sacred images is based on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. It is not contrary to the first commandment.
3 Ex 20:2-5; cf. Deut 5:6-9.4 Mt 4:10.5 Deut 6:13-14.6 Cf. Ex 19:16-25; 24:15-18.7 St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone Judaeo 11,1:PG 6,497.8 Roman Catechism 3,2,4.9 Rom 1:5; 16:26.10 Cf. Rom 1:18-32.11 CIC, can. 751: emphasis added.12 Cf. Deut 6:4-5.13 Lk 4:8; Cf. Deut 6:13.14 Cf. Lk 1:46-49.15 Lk 18:1.16 St. Augustine, De civ Dei 10,6:PL 41,283.17 Ps 51:17.18 Cf. Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20.19 Mt 9:13; 12:7; Cf. Hos 6:6.20 Cf. Heb 9:13-14.21 CIC, can. 1191 § 1.22 Cf. Acts 18:18; 21:23-24.23 Cf. CIC, can. 654.24 LG 42 § 2.25 Cf. CIC, cann. 692; 1196-1197.26 DH 1 § 2.27 DH 2 § 1.28 NA 2 § 2.29 DH 14 § 4. 30 DH 1 § 3.31 AA 13 § 1.32 Cf. DH 1.33 Cf. AA 13; Leo XIII, Immortale Dei 3,17; Pius XI, Quas primas 8,20. 34 DH 2 § 1.35 DH 2 § 2.36 DH 6 § 3.37 Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.38 Cf. DH 2.39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.40 DH 7 § 3.41 Cf. Mt 23:16-22.42 Ps 115:4-5, 8; cf. Isa 44:9-20; Jer 10:1-16; Dan 14:1-30; Bar 6; Wis 13:1-15:19.43 Josh 3:10; Ps 42:3; etc.44 Mt 6:24.45 Cf. Rev 13-14.46 Cf. Gal 5:20; Eph 5:5.47 Origen, Contra Celsum 2,40:PG 11,861.48 Cf. Deut 18:10; Jer 29:8.49 Cf. Lk 4:9. 50 Deut 6:16.51 Cf. 1 Cor 10:9; Ex 17:2-7; Ps 95:9.52 Cf. CIC, cann. 1367; 1376.53 Cf. Acts 8:9-24.54 Acts 8:20.55 Mt 10:8; cf. already Isa 55:1.56 CIC, can. 848.57 Mt 10:10; cf. Lk 10:7; 2 Cor 9:5-18; 1 Tim 5:17-18.58 GS 19 § 1.59 GS 20 § 2. 60 GS 20 § 2.61 Cf. Rom 1:18.62 GS 19 § 3.63 Cf. GS 20 § 1.64 GS 21 § 3. 65 GS 21 § 7.66 Deut 4:15-16.67 Sir 43:27-28.68 Wis 13:3.69 Cf. Num 21:4-9; Wis 16:5-14; Jn 3:14-15; Ex 25:10-22; 1 Kings 6:23-28; 7:23-26.70 St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 18,45:PG 32,149C; Council of Nicaea II: DS 601; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1821-1825; Vatican Council II: SC 126; LG 67.71 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.
Summary
IN BRIEF: The Ten Commandments
2075 "What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" - "If you would enter into life, keep the commandments" (Mt 19:16-17).
2076 By his life and by his preaching Jesus attested to the permanent validity of the Decalogue.
2077 The gift of the Decalogue is bestowed from within the covenant concluded by God with his people. God's commandments take on their true meaning in and through this covenant.
2078 In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with Jesus' example, the tradition of the Church has always acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue.
2079 The Decalogue forms an organic unity in which each "word" or "commandment" refers to all the others taken together. To transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole Law (cf. Jas 2:10-11).
2080 The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law. It is made known to us by divine revelation and by human reason.
2081 The Ten Commandments, in their fundamental content, state grave obligations. However, obedience to these precepts also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light.
2082 What God commands he makes possible by his grace.
2075 "What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" - "If you would enter into life, keep the commandments" (Mt 19:16-17).
2076 By his life and by his preaching Jesus attested to the permanent validity of the Decalogue.
2077 The gift of the Decalogue is bestowed from within the covenant concluded by God with his people. God's commandments take on their true meaning in and through this covenant.
2078 In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with Jesus' example, the tradition of the Church has always acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue.
2079 The Decalogue forms an organic unity in which each "word" or "commandment" refers to all the others taken together. To transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole Law (cf. Jas 2:10-11).
2080 The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law. It is made known to us by divine revelation and by human reason.
2081 The Ten Commandments, in their fundamental content, state grave obligations. However, obedience to these precepts also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light.
2082 What God commands he makes possible by his grace.
PART THREE LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from CCC
"Teacher, what must I do . . .?"
2052 "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" To the young man who asked this question, Jesus answers first by invoking the necessity to recognize God as the "One there is who is good," as the supreme Good and the source of all good. Then Jesus tells him: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments." And he cites for his questioner the precepts that concern love of neighbor: "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother." Finally Jesus sums up these commandments positively: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."1
2053 To this first reply Jesus adds a second: "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."2 This reply does not do away with the first: following Jesus Christ involves keeping the Commandments. The Law has not been abolished,3 but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment. In the three synoptic Gospels, Jesus' call to the rich young man to follow him, in the obedience of a disciple and in the observance of the Commandments, is joined to the call to poverty and chastity.4 The evangelical counsels are inseparable from the Commandments.
2054 Jesus acknowledged the Ten Commandments, but he also showed the power of the Spirit at work in their letter. He preached a "righteousness [which] exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees"5 as well as that of the Gentiles.6 He unfolded all the demands of the Commandments. "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill.' . . . But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment."7
2055 When someone asks him, "Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?"8 Jesus replies: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets."9 The Decalogue must be interpreted in light of this twofold yet single commandment of love, the fullness of the Law:
The commandments: "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.10
The Decalogue in Sacred Scripture
2056 The word "Decalogue" means literally "ten words."11 God revealed these "ten words" to his people on the holy mountain. They were written "with the finger of God,"12 unlike the other commandments written by Moses.13 They are pre-eminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of Exodus14 and Deuteronomy.15 Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the "ten words,"16 but it is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed.
2057 The Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus, God's great liberating event at the center of the Old Covenant. Whether formulated as negative commandments, prohibitions, or as positive precepts such as: "Honor your father and mother," the "ten words" point out the conditions of a life freed from the slavery of sin. 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.17
This liberating power of the Decalogue appears, for example, in the commandment about the sabbath rest, directed also to foreigners and slaves:
You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.18
2058 The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me."19 For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark."20
2059 The "ten words" are pronounced by God in the midst of a theophany ("The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire."21). They belong to God's revelation of himself and his glory. The gift of the Commandments is the gift of God himself and his holy will. In making his will known, God reveals himself to his people.
2060 The gift of the commandments and of the Law is part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the "ten words" is granted between the proposal of the covenant22 and its conclusion - after the people had committed themselves to "do" all that the Lord had said, and to "obey" it.23 The Decalogue is never handed on without first recalling the covenant ("The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.").24
2061 The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. The first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved his people first:
Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."25
2062 The Commandments properly so-called come in the second place: they express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. 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.
2063 The covenant and dialogue between God and man are also attested to by the fact that all the obligations are stated in the first person ("I am the Lord.") and addressed by God to another personal subject ("you"). In all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his will known to each person in particular, at the same time as he makes it known to the whole people:
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.26
The Decalogue in the Church's Tradition
2064 In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with the example of Jesus, the tradition of the Church has acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue.
2065 Ever since St. Augustine, the Ten Commandments have occupied a predominant place in the catechesis of baptismal candidates and the faithful. In the fifteenth century, the custom arose of expressing the commandments of the Decalogue in rhymed formulae, easy to memorize and in positive form. They are still in use today. The catechisms of the Church have often expounded Christian morality by following the order of the Ten Commandments.
2066 The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities.
2067 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.
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.27
2068 The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them;28 the Second Vatican Council confirms: "The bishops, successors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments."29
The unity of the Decalogue
2069 The Decalogue forms a coherent whole. Each "word" refers to each of the others and to all of them; they reciprocally condition one another. The two tables shed light on one another; they form an organic unity. To transgress one commandment is to infringe all the others.30 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.
The Decalogue and the natural law
2070 The Ten Commandments belong to God's revelation. At the same time they teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law:
From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue.31
2071 The commandments of the Decalogue, although accessible to reason alone, have been revealed. To attain a complete and certain understanding of the requirements of the natural law, sinful humanity needed this revelation:
A full explanation of the commandments of the Decalogue became necessary in the state of sin because the light of reason was obscured and the will had gone astray.32
We know God's commandments through the divine revelation proposed to us in the Church, and through the voice of moral conscience.
The obligation of the Decalogue
2072 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.
2073 Obedience to the Commandments also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light. Thus abusive language is forbidden by the fifth commandment, but would be a grave offense only as a result of circumstances or the offender's intention.
"Apart from me you can do nothing"
2074 Jesus says: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."33 The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Savior himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."34
SECTION TWO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from CCC
"Teacher, what must I do . . .?"
2052 "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" To the young man who asked this question, Jesus answers first by invoking the necessity to recognize God as the "One there is who is good," as the supreme Good and the source of all good. Then Jesus tells him: "If you would enter life, keep the commandments." And he cites for his questioner the precepts that concern love of neighbor: "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother." Finally Jesus sums up these commandments positively: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."1
2053 To this first reply Jesus adds a second: "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."2 This reply does not do away with the first: following Jesus Christ involves keeping the Commandments. The Law has not been abolished,3 but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment. In the three synoptic Gospels, Jesus' call to the rich young man to follow him, in the obedience of a disciple and in the observance of the Commandments, is joined to the call to poverty and chastity.4 The evangelical counsels are inseparable from the Commandments.
2054 Jesus acknowledged the Ten Commandments, but he also showed the power of the Spirit at work in their letter. He preached a "righteousness [which] exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees"5 as well as that of the Gentiles.6 He unfolded all the demands of the Commandments. "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill.' . . . But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment."7
2055 When someone asks him, "Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?"8 Jesus replies: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets."9 The Decalogue must be interpreted in light of this twofold yet single commandment of love, the fullness of the Law:
The commandments: "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.10
The Decalogue in Sacred Scripture
2056 The word "Decalogue" means literally "ten words."11 God revealed these "ten words" to his people on the holy mountain. They were written "with the finger of God,"12 unlike the other commandments written by Moses.13 They are pre-eminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of Exodus14 and Deuteronomy.15 Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the "ten words,"16 but it is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed.
2057 The Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus, God's great liberating event at the center of the Old Covenant. Whether formulated as negative commandments, prohibitions, or as positive precepts such as: "Honor your father and mother," the "ten words" point out the conditions of a life freed from the slavery of sin. 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.17
This liberating power of the Decalogue appears, for example, in the commandment about the sabbath rest, directed also to foreigners and slaves:
You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.18
2058 The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me."19 For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark."20
2059 The "ten words" are pronounced by God in the midst of a theophany ("The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire."21). They belong to God's revelation of himself and his glory. The gift of the Commandments is the gift of God himself and his holy will. In making his will known, God reveals himself to his people.
2060 The gift of the commandments and of the Law is part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the "ten words" is granted between the proposal of the covenant22 and its conclusion - after the people had committed themselves to "do" all that the Lord had said, and to "obey" it.23 The Decalogue is never handed on without first recalling the covenant ("The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.").24
2061 The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. The first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved his people first:
Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."25
2062 The Commandments properly so-called come in the second place: they express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. 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.
2063 The covenant and dialogue between God and man are also attested to by the fact that all the obligations are stated in the first person ("I am the Lord.") and addressed by God to another personal subject ("you"). In all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his will known to each person in particular, at the same time as he makes it known to the whole people:
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.26
The Decalogue in the Church's Tradition
2064 In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with the example of Jesus, the tradition of the Church has acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue.
2065 Ever since St. Augustine, the Ten Commandments have occupied a predominant place in the catechesis of baptismal candidates and the faithful. In the fifteenth century, the custom arose of expressing the commandments of the Decalogue in rhymed formulae, easy to memorize and in positive form. They are still in use today. The catechisms of the Church have often expounded Christian morality by following the order of the Ten Commandments.
2066 The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities.
2067 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.
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.27
2068 The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them;28 the Second Vatican Council confirms: "The bishops, successors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments."29
The unity of the Decalogue
2069 The Decalogue forms a coherent whole. Each "word" refers to each of the others and to all of them; they reciprocally condition one another. The two tables shed light on one another; they form an organic unity. To transgress one commandment is to infringe all the others.30 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.
The Decalogue and the natural law
2070 The Ten Commandments belong to God's revelation. At the same time they teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law:
From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue.31
2071 The commandments of the Decalogue, although accessible to reason alone, have been revealed. To attain a complete and certain understanding of the requirements of the natural law, sinful humanity needed this revelation:
A full explanation of the commandments of the Decalogue became necessary in the state of sin because the light of reason was obscured and the will had gone astray.32
We know God's commandments through the divine revelation proposed to us in the Church, and through the voice of moral conscience.
The obligation of the Decalogue
2072 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.
2073 Obedience to the Commandments also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light. Thus abusive language is forbidden by the fifth commandment, but would be a grave offense only as a result of circumstances or the offender's intention.
"Apart from me you can do nothing"
2074 Jesus says: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."33 The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Savior himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."34
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Languages of Christ When He walked the Earth
Were any of the Gospels written in Aramaic, since Christ and the Apostles spoke that language? Was Hebrew only spoken by the priests in the Temple? Did Pilate use an interpreter when he spoke to Christ?
We do not know for certain whether any of the Gospels were written in Aramaic. An early Christian writer named Papias wrote (c. A.D. 120), that Matthew wrote the oracles of Christ "in the Hebrew tongue." This is ambiguous because "the Hebrew tongue" could refer to the language known as Hebrew or to Aramaic, which was the tongue commonly spoken by Jews at that time.
Throughout Church history the accepted opinion has been that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, but since the last century the view has become common that he wrote in Greek instead. Recently there has been a number of scholars returning to the earlier opinion that he wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic. Some have suggested that Mark and Luke were also written in Hebrew or Aramaic.
Two books by scholars advocating a non-Greek origin for some of the Gospels are The Birth of the Synoptics by Jean Carmignac and The Hebrew Christ by Claude Tresmontant.
In Jesus' day Hebrew was not spoken by only the priests in the Temple. It was also used in the synagogue liturgy, and it was the language in which Scripture was read. Many Jews had at least some understanding of Hebrew, even though it was not their primary language.
This fact has apologetic implications for Catholics. The next time someone attacks the Church for having used the "dead language" of Latin in Church services and older editions of Scripture, point out that Jesus worshipped in synagogues where the "dead language" of Hebrew was used.
We do not know whether Pilate used a translator in his conversations with Christ. As a Roman governor, Pilate would have known Latin (his native language) and Greek (the international language). He might also have known some Aramaic, since he was governor of an Aramaic-speaking territory. Even if he did not know Aramaic, many Jews would have no problem conversing with him; Greek was the language of commerce, and many Jews knew it from their business dealings. Thus Jesus' conversations with Pilate might have been conducted in Greek. Excerpted from the January 1994 issue of This Rock magazine.-->
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