Dear fellow teens,
Well, in times of today, people are very reliant on the technology that is available to us such as cellphones, computers, and the other material things. Throughout all these advances and lifestyles or shall I call distractions, we must always remember that God is with us and helping us through times in need. We must love God and always put Him first than that of our material needs and satisfaction.
We can show our love for God in many ways, always praying and such but the most important thing to follow are the commandments handed down to us. For His mercy and love we have to just follow these simple commandments, commandments that will serve as guidance in our lives, guiding us to Him in heaven. The commandments made by God are not meant to force us to believe in anything but it is already part of every person; it is imprinted on everyone’s soul. I think that it is very important for me and all you readers to understand is that God provided the commandments so as to provide the basis in which we are able to truly God; following the commandments is one of the most important things in loving God. The important thing here is that we must always remember that the commandments will serve as our guidance in life, and that these are very important in showing our love for God. Even though with all the satisfaction and comfort that the advances in technology is giving us today, they are not what is important when it comes to our judgment, we must not forget our lives with God. In this blog I will explain to you the importance of the first three commandments in loving God, explaining them one by one.
The first three commandments, just to let you know, are directed towards God while the other seven are towards other people or as to say, our neighbors. The first three commandments will help us realize how we must show our love, commitment, and passion for God. They guide us in knowing better how to love Him.
The First Commandment states “Thou shall have other gods before me.” Well it is easy to see that our love for God must be true and unique. God does not expect anything from but it is our duty to know and love Him as the one true God. This is what people may think of the commandment, “Yeah, okay I will only love one God.” This is not the point of the first commandment; I think that people must realize that in loving one God we can show this in different ways, through our faith in Him, our hope for a better life and being with Him, and our charity. To better understand what I am telling you here I will explain in what ways we can sin against each factor. Regarding the first commandment there are different ways in which we hurt God and sin against Him through our actions and thinking. First is through our faith in Him, these can be divided into different types: doubt, incredulity, heresy, apostacy, and schism.
Doubting God and His teachings is a sin against Him, it might be even obvious to everyone that doubting means not believing in Him. I think that this is what the skeptics can be categorized in, these people do not believe because there is no real proof of a God and instead of believing in Him, they spend their lives denying Him and glorifying other objects, materialistic objects. Having faith in God means that our love and our faith in Him is already enough to satisfy ourselves that God is true. Doubt can be divided into two ways, voluntary and involuntary doubt. The voluntary doubt is concerned with refusing to hold true what God is and what He teaches us. An example would be the one stated above. The involuntary doubt is what happens when we do not have enough faith in Him, sometimes we think about whether God is really real or not. Another example would when we think “Why did God have to make these commandments? I thought I can do anything I want?” These ideas in our mind which makes us hesitate in our belief in Him and which makes it difficult for us to follow Him are those of the involuntary doubt. I think that almost everyone has gone through or will at least be going through the experience of involuntary doubt, especially if we are alone but we must always try hard and using these experiences to make our belief in God stronger. Do not let these ideas in your head take you down but use these to strengthen more your belief. Incredulity is another sin wherein the person neglects wholely the revealed truth of God. Heresy is much like incredulity but with a rejection of at least one article of the faith. Apostacy is the total rejection of the Catholic faith, the church where God handed down His teachings. Lastly is schism, schism has been going on since the late middle ages, where people reject the Pope but still believe in the catholic faith. We must remember that God entrusted the Pope with the responsibility of leading His people, making the Pope the Vicar of Christ as Peter was once was.
Next on would be hope, hope does not only talk about the hope we have in our lives on earth but hope in God as well. The sins against hope is divided into two, despair and presumption. Despair is attributed mostly to our lives here and now, when all hope is gone some people tend to give up on their lives and sometimes some even go above that, giving up hope in God. Presumption on the other hand is all about what we think of God, it stems from the fact that some people tend to take advantage of God’s mercy and love for us, thinking that “I can do anything I want, God will forgive me in the end.” Well sometimes we tend to think that God is all-mercy and all-loving that we take advantage of this and end up basing our actions on that.
Charity is defined as the love for God above all for His own sake and the love for our neighbors out of love of God. There are five different sins against this: indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, acedia, and hatred for God. The indifference talks all about the refusing to accept divine charity, rejecting this love that God has for us and rejecting what love is supposed to be given to others. The second is ingratitude; this concerns the ungratefulness that we can have for God. What I mean by this is that this sin is of being ungrateful for the love we have for God and other people. The third is lukewarmess, this stems from the refusal in responding to the divine love, never responding to the love that we receive. Acedia is much like a spiritual sloth wherein we find God as burdensome instead of loving Him and others back. Hatred of God is concerned primarily with what we think and feel for God. In reviewing the different aspects of the three factors of the first commandment, faith, hope, and charity, I believe that we must always try to practice disciplining ourselves and loving God with all our heart.
The first commandment is all about loving God as He is and never resorting to other idols and such, keeping only one God in our hearts to show our commitment and passion for Him. In carrying out this love we must also know the different sins which are against the first commandments.
The first sin is superstition, while others believe this only others take these things seriously and even put them into their daily practices such as the “anting-antings”. Superstition is defined as the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. The superstitions are just beliefs that people tend to follow and practice over that of their in God, as a result this is a sin. I think that we must all focus on what is really important and don’t anymore take these things seriously because it will only affect how we believe and love God. Next is the idolatry, idolatry is a sin wherein we have many gods, or even putting anything else above God such as material things. Divination and magic is also a sin against the first commandment because like the superstitions, people tend to make these their belief instead of putting God first. Examples of divination may be fortune-telling, horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens, clairvoyance, and the use of mediums to contact souls from the other world. In relation to divination, magic and sorcery is also a sin. This is divided into four: magnetism, hypnotism, sorcery, and vain observance. Magnetism is defined as any physical force emitted by a material. Hypnotism on the other hand is the unlawful communication with the spirits of another world. Hypnotism can be seen and done through different objects such as the spirit glass, the Ouija board, and other such things.
These sins are against the first commandment because of the fact that in these actions we put other gods, materials, and beliefs first in our lives than God. This not only shows disrespect for Him but is also a sign that we do not commit ourselves to Him.
The second commandment states: “You shall not take God’s name in vain.” Well everyone knows that there are people who say bad words as a habit already; this is already present in most teens. We must realize that not only do these bad words hurt the people we tell them to, but hurts God as well. There are two kinds of sins against this commandment, blasphemy and sacrilege.
Blasphemy is described as the “sin of the tongue”. This sin talks about the words spoken against God whether directly or indirectly. There are four kinds of blasphemy: heretical or non-heretical, imprecatory, mediate or immediate. When speaking of heretical, this means a formal heresy when I speak of this, I mean the words spoken are of heretic purpose wherein it is against the articles of the faith. In the case of the non-heretical blasphemy, I mean those which make a mockery out of God, wherein the person makes a joke out of God and His teachings. Imprecatory talks of when the person wishes evil to befall God. The mediate sin would be those which are spoken directly against God. While the immediate would be against the Holy objects such as angels and priests. Well blasphemy is all about the violation of God and other such holy things through the tongue. Blasphemy is of its nature a grave matter but we must also look into the different factors affecting this: the intention of the sinner, whether he did it jokingly or out of anger towards God, the natural meaning of the words spoken, whether they present a bad meaning, or through the common opinion of the district, whether they affect the culture of belief of a group or society and if there is harm done to other people. Well these three are what affects how the sin is intended to be. As you can see it does not only affect the people around you but God most importantly.
The second sin against the second against the second commandment is sacrilege. This is defined as the violation of sacred things. Sacrilege may either mean violation to people of holy stature or violation to sacred objects and places. There are three kinds of sacrilege, personal, local, and real. The personal sacrilege talks mainly of the violation against a person of holy stature and an example may be that of kicking a priest and talking evil of him. This not only hurts the person, but God too in such a way that it is against the church. The local sacrilege on the other hand talks of the defilement of places such as the church and the chapel. The third type of sacrilege is called the real sacrilege, this talks of the defilement of sacred objects such as the sacraments and the church items. There are four types of real sacrilege: sacramental, consecrated, unlawful, and simony. The sacramental sacrilege talks primarily of the violations against the sacraments, its unnecessary and inappropriate use, the Holy Communion, and others such. The consecrated sacrilege talks of the defilement of the sacred vessels, it refers to the objects consecrated to God. Next is the unlawful seizure of church items and property. This is actually self-explanatory, the church items include the candles and such found in the church, its misuse or seizure is a sacrilege. Then, simony, it is the sacrilege wherein there is the buying and selling of grace or spiritual things. The church is the most important factor in the carrying of God’s law and spreading the faith. In violating this or its components such as holy persons and objects, it results to sin. I think that we must all take into mind what the sins are concerning sacrilege. These include: the defilement of a sacred place, theft of holy objects, and the violation of the immunity of a sacred place or in other words the unnecessary implementation of domestic and government laws. I think that through this we must think more about the importance of the church in our lives that it is a holy place, just as the priests are holy persons and that we must give respect to them to show that we respect God. Regarding this, there are offenses against the second commandment they are as follows: false oaths, such as , perjury or the lying under oath, blasphemy, and the magical use of the divine name of God. These are the offenses which are directed towards God. Overall in the second commandment, we must always remember that despite our current conditions and the distractions, we must know that everything holy is directed to God and that we must learn to give respect to those of holy stature. In general, the second commandment talks of not only putting other things such as idols above God, but also refers to the church as a holy place and under it such as the people, objects, sacraments, and others.
The third commandment states we must keep the Lord’s Day Holy. We, as growing Catholics, must always remember to follow the different traditions and obligations required from us. That is to go to mass on Sundays and the Holy Days of Obligation, and that during those days, we refrain from manual labor. This is not only a part of the commandments but it is also part of every Catholic because in believing and loving God, we must express our faith through public worship and such. The universal Holy Days of Obligation which are include Christmas, the Epiphany, Ascension of Christ, the Corpus Christi, the Feast of Mary, Mother of God, the Immaculate Concepcion, Assumption, the Feast of Saint Joseph, the Feats day of the Apostles Saint Peter and Paul, and the All Saint’s Day. Although in countries such as here in the Philippines, the approved Holy Days of Obligation may be trimmed down according the availability of churches as well as the priests who celebrate the masses. The ones required to attend mass on these days and on Sundays are those of 7 years old and above (baptized).
In attending the masses and obeying the third commandment, their can be many benefits to the person such as: man’s natural powers are rested, this would be because during these days no one is to perform manual labor therefore allowing rest to the body and mind, family life is fostered since in this commandment families are able to join together and strengthen their relationship, lastly, the social worship and universal religion are encouraged since it allows an environment which promotes goodness and love for God.
In attending the mass, we must take into consideration the different requirements. First needed is the bodily presence of the person, being present mentally and physically, next is that the entire mass must be heard by the person, third would be the that there is a devout intention of attending the mass, the fourth is related much to the second wherein you are in a proper place for hearing mass, and lastly there are five excuses wherein a person is not able to attend mass. These are: necessity, charity, and duty. The three are concerned with the statement “the personal need or that of another”, an example would be the stores in the mall wherein some of the workers need to work so as to get the money needed for them and their family. I think that these requirements are made so as to motivate the people more into giving more attention to what is happening to the mass, during the mass people tend go for the comfortable side of the church so as make them relaxed, what I think is that people should rather pay more attention to the mass itself.
Then there are the types of works, as stated before, manual work is not allowed on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. The types of works are servile work, wherein it concerns mainly bodily activity, this type of work is regarded also as those work formerly done by slaves. The next is the cultural work, where the product of the work is concerned primarily on the development of mental faculties. Third is the ordinary or natural work, this is the work done by all people, wherein it is intended mainly for the body’s sustenance. The fourth is the judicial work which refers to the work done in judicial courts and such. Lastly is the commercial work, which concerns the business types of work such as public trading, business transactions and such. With all these we must keep into mind that all servile, judicial, and commercial work is forbidden on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, this helps both the person and the family as stated in the previous paragraphs. But in this principle of work being forbidden there are also excuses wherein the person must work. First is because of the personal need or that of another, second is the legitimate custom, third is the legitimate dispensation. In the first cause for excuse the person must work in order to help the family in terms of financial needs, in the second it may be directed to the customs of the job itself such as the barbers who work during Sundays. Lastly is the legitimate dispensation wherein the person is dispensed by a bishop or such holy person, dispensed to be able to work.
Despite all the advances in technology and the sophistication of lifestyles, we must remember what really matters in the end, what has been our life with God. We must also think through on how our lives have been with God, have we been too distracted that we do not care anymore or have we been not minding anymore about anything about Him? We must take into mind throughout this blog that our lives must also be lived in a good way.
