9. What Are The Commandments?

"If you love me, keep my commandments." - John 14:15

The commandments are the moral law of God. A beginner must learn them because faith is not only something believed in the mind. Grace is meant to form the life. Baptism makes the soul a child of God. Confession restores the soul after sin. The Mass gives sacrifice and nourishment. The commandments teach the soul how to live under God.

The catechism answer is simple: The commandments are God's laws, given to teach us what we must do and what we must avoid in order to love God, love our neighbor, and save our souls.

The commandments are not suggestions. They are not merely religious ideals. They are the law of God.

The question is not first, "What do I prefer?" It is not first, "What does the age allow?" It is not first, "What can I excuse?" The question is: "What has God commanded?"

This restores order to the conscience. The soul is not its own lawgiver. Man does not become free by inventing good and evil. He becomes free by receiving the truth from God and living according to it.

The commandments are merciful because they teach the soul the road. A road does not imprison the traveler by keeping him from a cliff. It helps him arrive safely.

God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses, and Christ confirmed and deepened the moral law. The commandments are:

1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
3. Remember thou keep holy the Lord's Day.
4. Honor thy father and thy mother.
5. Thou shalt not kill.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

These commandments govern worship, speech, sacred time, family order, life, purity, property, truth, and desire. They reach both outward acts and inward consent.

The first three commandments concern love of God directly. The soul must worship the true God, honor His holy name, and keep His day holy.

The First Commandment forbids idolatry, superstition, false worship, hatred of God, deliberate doubt against the faith, and treating creatures as though they were the final end.

The Second Commandment forbids blasphemy, perjury, irreverent use of God's name, and careless speech about holy things.

The Third Commandment commands the sanctification of the Lord's Day. Mass is central when a true Mass is available and one is able to attend, but the whole day should be kept for God by prayer, rest from unnecessary servile work, reverence, family order, and works of mercy.

The last seven commandments concern love of neighbor, though they also honor God who made the neighbor.

The Fourth Commandment commands honor to parents and lawful authority. It also teaches the order of the family and society.

The Fifth Commandment forbids murder, unjust harm, hatred, revenge, scandal, and contempt for human life.

The Sixth and Ninth Commandments guard purity, marriage, modesty, and the right order of the body and desires.

The Seventh and Tenth Commandments guard property, justice, restitution, and detachment from covetous desire.

The Eighth Commandment guards truth, reputation, honest speech, and witness.

Christ did not abolish the commandments. He fulfilled and deepened them. He teaches that anger can violate the Fifth Commandment in the heart, that lustful looking violates purity, and that love of God must be whole.

This means the commandments are not only external. They reach the heart. A man may avoid outward murder and still cherish hatred. He may avoid outward adultery and still consent to lust. He may avoid theft and still be ruled by envy. God sees the interior life.

This is not meant to crush the soul. It teaches true conversion. Christ wants not only outward compliance, but a heart ordered to God.

The world often says commandments are oppression. Catholic truth teaches that commandments protect freedom. Sin promises freedom and gives slavery. Obedience to God frees the soul from passions, lies, impurity, greed, pride, and fear.

A man who cannot govern his anger is not free. A man enslaved to impurity is not free. A man who lies to protect himself is not free. A man who cannot worship God because comfort rules him is not free.

Freedom is not the power to do whatever one wants. Freedom is the power to choose the good. The commandments teach the good and guard the soul from bondage.

Conscience is the judgment of reason by which a person recognizes what should be done or avoided. But conscience must be formed by God's law. An uninstructed or hardened conscience may excuse what God condemns.

This is why a beginner must learn the commandments plainly. He should not trust feelings alone. He should not assume that guilt always appears when sin is present or that peace always means innocence. Sin can dull the conscience.

A good conscience is formed by Scripture, catechism, the teaching of the Church, prayer, confession, and obedience.

Breaking the commandments can be mortal or venial depending on the matter, knowledge, and consent. Grave violations of God's law, committed knowingly and freely, are mortal sins. Mortal sin kills the life of grace in the soul.

This must be said because many people treat the commandments as general ideals. They are more serious than that. To commit mortal sin is to turn away from God.

Venial sins also matter. Smaller acts of impatience, vanity, dishonesty, impurity in thought, irreverence, or disobedience can weaken the soul and prepare the way for greater falls.

The commandments help the soul examine conscience before confession. A beginner who does not know how to examine himself can begin by asking how he has sinned against each commandment.

He should ask:

• Have I worshiped God faithfully?
• Have I used God's name reverently?
• Have I kept Sunday holy?
• Have I honored parents and lawful authority?
• Have I harmed life, charity, or peace?
• Have I sinned against purity?
• Have I stolen or failed in justice?
• Have I lied, slandered, or harmed another's reputation?
• Have I consented to impure desire?
• Have I coveted what belongs to another?

This examination should be honest and calm. It should lead to contrition, confession, amendment, and trust in God's mercy.

The commandments must be taught in the home. Children should learn them early, not as bare rules, but as God's order for life.

A home that honors the commandments will pray, keep Sunday holy, correct blasphemy, guard modesty, teach obedience, forbid impurity, require honesty, respect property, and train children to examine conscience.

Parents who do not teach the commandments leave children to be formed by the world. The world has commandments too, though it pretends to be free. It commands self-expression, impurity, vanity, resentment, irreverence, and contempt for authority. Catholic parents must teach a different law.

The soul must learn the Ten Commandments by memory.

The soul must learn that the commandments express love of God and neighbor.

The soul must learn that obedience is freedom, not slavery.

The soul must learn that conscience must be formed by God's law.

The soul must learn to examine conscience by the commandments and confess sins honestly.

The commandments are God's laws, given to teach us what we must do and what we must avoid in order to love God, love our neighbor, and save our souls.

A beginner should ask: Do I know the commandments? Do I treat them as God's law? Do I examine my conscience by them? Do I obey them in the home, in speech, in worship, in purity, and in daily choices?

Christ says, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Love of God is not proved by feeling alone. It is proved by obedience.