RED 6

• 1st Commandment

  "I am the Lord your God, you shall not have other gods beside me."
• MOSES: '"I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no gods except me." (Exodus 20: 2-3)'
• JESUS: '"You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone." (Matthew 4:10)'
• The First Commandment

  • Jesus summed up man's duties toward God in this saying
  • It immediately echoes the solemn call: "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our GOD is one LORD"
  • God has loved us first of the "ten words"
  • The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God
• Why the First Commandment is placed first

  • It serves as the foundation of the other commandments
  • No one can obey the other commandments while breaking the first
  • It is the most important, from it all the other Commandments are derived and governed
  • To know and love God, and gratefully accept His lordship, is the foundation of all Christian moral life
• The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity
• Atheism is not a sin if a person has learned nothing about God or has examined the question about God's existence conscientiously and cannot believe
• Atheism


  • People who don't believe that God exists
• Idolatry


  • Worshipping things, animals and other people as "Gods"
• Superstition and Divination


  • Believing in witchcraft, making it an option for someone to get healed using some strange energy
  • Trying to communicate with the dead using methods like "spirit of the glass" or Ouija board
  • Foretelling of events in the future
• Sacrilege


  • Disrespecting places that are intended as a place to worship God
  • Burning of a cross
  • Vandalizing monuments of Jesus
  • Editing pictures of Mary and Jesus as memes
  • Destroying things that represent our faith to God
• Simony


  • Selling positions in the Church for money
• The veneration of images

  • The First Commandment forbids the making of images of idols and the making of images of the true God
  • However, after the incarnation of the Son, we can have images of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the angels, and the saints
• The prohibition against images was repealed in Christianity; in the Eastern Church, ICONS are even regarded as sacred
• Why we worship God

  • We worship God because he exists and because reverence and worship are the appropriate response to his revelation and his presence
  • Worshipping God frees us from servitude to the powers of this world
• No one may force others to believe, not even one's own children, just as no one may be forced to be an unbeliever
• Christians are called to help other people, by word and example, to find the way to faith
• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind
• 2nd Commandment: "You Shall Not Take The Name of The Lord Your God in Vain."


  • Moses: "You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God to misuse it." (Exodus 20:7)
  • Jesus: "Our Father in Heaven, Holy be your name." (Matthew 6:9)
• Importance of the name of the Lord

  • In the Old Testament, the name stood for the person; the name made the person present and active
  • To swear falsely, using God's name was to break the covenant
  • In the New Testament, the name of Jesus has special quality and power
• Name


  (in the Bible, Old Testament) It stood for the person; the name made the person present and active. God's name was conceived as the presence, the shekinah, of God himself. When the name was truly spoken, when God's word was remembered, then God was really present and speaking through His remembered word. The name of God was God's gift to His covenant people. To swear falsely, using God's name was to break the covenant.
• Name


  (in the Bible, New Testament) This same special quality and power of name is found in the New Testament authors. St. Paul quotes an early Christian hymn: "God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name above every other name, so that at Jesus' name, every knee must bend... and every tongue proclaim: JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!"
• Name of Jesus used

  • In the book of Acts, Peter and John cured the cripple "In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarean."
  • Before the Sanhedrin Peter preached: "There is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved."
• Using someone's name


  It implies an intimacy, for a name reveals who a person is
• We should only use the name of the Lord to bless, praise, and glorify it. Respecting His name is part of respecting God Himself, and we should have the sense that it is sacred.
• Taking the Lord's name in vain

  Don't empty the name. We should not empty the name of the Lord because GOD, CHRIST, THE CROSS, THE THINGS HE IS, THE THINGS HE DID are great.
• Respect for His name is an expression of the respect owed to the mystery of God Himself and to the whole sacred reality it evokes.
• Preaching and catechizing should be permeated with adoration and respect for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• Because we believe that He is present, we shall have these feelings of fear and awe; and not to have them is not to realize, not to believe that He is present.
• The second commandment forbids the abuse of God's name, i.e., every improper use of the names of God, Jesus Christ, and also of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.
• Blasphemy


  • Burning a religious document such as the Bible
  • Vandalizing a church
  • Worshipping Satan
  • To state that God is unkind, unjust or cruel
  • Blaming God for every bad thing that has happened to you
• Perjury


  • Criminal offense of making false statements under oath
  • Bearing false witness
  • Lying under oath
  • Committing perjury occurs when you lie under oath in the court of law. In America, when you are sworn in to give your testimony, you swear upon God's name that you are telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. You have now sworn upon God's name that you will tell the truth. When you intentionally tell a lie under this oath, you have now caused ineffectiveness against the Lord's name.
• Yahweh


  The principal name in the Old Testament by which God reveals himself and is the most sacred, distinctive and incommunicable name of God.
• Baptism "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"


  The person is baptized with a name. The name and the face are ultimately what makes a person unique, even in God's sight. The name can be of a saint, or a disciple who has lived a life of exemplary fidelity, the name can also express a Christian virtue or Christian mystery to the Lord.
• By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, the day that is appropriately called the Lord's Day or Sunday.
• The sick, those who must care for the sick, women who've given birth in the past 6 weeks, and children under the age of reason (the age of 7), are not obliged if their presence would cause undue hardship, but all should do their best to attend, whether 6 months or 106 years of age.
• St. John Marie Vianney: '"Sunday is the property of our good God; it is His own day, the Lord's day. He made all the days of the week: He might have kept them all; He has given you six, and has reserved only the seventh for Himself. What right have you to meddle with what does not belong to you? You know very well that stolen goods never bring any profit. Nor will the day that you steal from Our Lord profit you either. I know two very certain ways of becoming poor: they are working on Sunday and taking other people's property."'
• Holidays of Obligation

  • Mary, Mother of God – January 1
  • Epiphany – January 6
  • St. Joseph – March 19
  • Ascension – 40 days after Easter
  • Corpus Domini – 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
  • Sts. Peter and Paul – June 29
  • Assumption – August 15
  • All Saints – November 1
  • Immaculate Conception – December 8
  • Christmas – December 25
• Policemen and other necessary servicemen can work also on Sundays, provided they will attend the Holy Mass on Saturday evening
• Servile work


  Work that is necessary for a living