UNDERSTANDING THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

I am the Lord your God;
you shall not have other gods besides Me.

Þ   Our duty towards God is to believe in Him and to bear witness to Him. Humans are required to nourish and protect their faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to faith.

Þ   Hope is the confident expression of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God in eternity. Sins against hope are despair (a human ceasing to hope for one’s personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of one’s sins. Despair is contrary to God’s goodness, to His justice, and to His mercy) and presumption (relying only upon one’s own capacities to save one’s self without help from on high or one presumes God’s almighty power or mercy for the forgiveness of sins with conversion and glory without merit).

Þ   The First Commandment enjoins us to love God above everything and all creatures for Him and because of Him.

Sins against the First Commandment

Superstition--attributing an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary;

Idolatry--honoring and revering a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons, power, pleasure, race, ancestors, money, etc.;

Divination & magic--consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens, the phenomena of clairvoyance and recourse to mediums, practices of magic or sorcery (ouija boards), attempts to tame occult powers;

Tempting God--putting His almighty power to test by word or deed;

Sacrilege--profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God;

Simony--the buying or selling of spiritual things.

(continued next week)