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The Ten Commandments
P. Breen, O.Carm.
When the Jewish
people fled from Egypt they spent forty years wandering in the desert on
their way to the Promised Land, to Israel. When they reached Mount Sinai the
Lord summoned Moses to his presence on the mountain. There he gave him the
Ten Commandments, known also as the Decalogue (deca=10), the most basic law
by which the people were to live. These Commandments are found in the books
of Exodus (20:2-17) and Deuteronomy (5:6-21). In a very basic form they are:
1. I am
the Lord your God, you shall not have strange gods before me.
2. You
shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3.
Remember to keep holy the sabbath day.
4. Honour
your father and your mother.
5. You
shall not kill.
6. You
shall not commit adultery.
7. You
shall not steal.
8. You
shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
9. You
shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.
10. You
shall not covet your neighbour’s goods.
While they may
each appear to refer to something different they are in fact a coherent
whole. During his life on earth, Christ said: “You must love the Lord your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You
must love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40; Deuteronomy 6:5;
Leviticus 19:18). Taking love as the basis of the Commandments we see how
they all hang together. The first three of the commandments refer to God and
the next seven refer to our neighbour. The Ten Commandments are not seen as
ten individual laws but as one law. To love God is to keep all his
commandments and if we break one of the commandments referring to our
neighbour then we refuse to love God and have broken the commandment to love
God. Also, one cannot truly say that they love God unless they truly love
their fellow men and women and all of creation. In the Ten Commandments both
our religious life and our social or civil life are brought together.
There is nothing
truly spectacular about the Ten Commandments. In fact, reason alone could
arrive at these as a basis for the good ordering of society. The fact that
they are obvious does not lesson their impact or their importance. What is
important is that given their simplicity we are under greater obligation to
make every effort to live up to them.
(Catechism of the
Catholic Church, Paragraphs 2052-2557)
Sin
To sin is to
refuse to love God and to fail to keep his Commandments. We can sin by doing
something or by failing to do something. Throughout the Scriptures God calls
us to keep his commandments and to live according to the covenants. In the
Gospels, Christ also calls us to turn away from sin and to keep the
Commandments. He also calls us to conversion – by changing our lives to
confirm with his teachings we will also be turning away from sin. Christ
also taught us to ask for forgiveness and in the Sacrament of Penance and
Reconciliation we have the opportunity to confess our sins to God and
receive forgiveness. Strengthened by the sacrament and God’s forgiveness we
are able to begin anew and continue the process of conversion.
(Catechism of the
Catholic Church, Paragraphs 1846-1876)
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