Lesson 2: First Commandment: "I From it, all the other commandments so we love Him w/ our whole heart

am the Lord Your God, You shall are derived & governed. To know & completely above all.
not have other gods beside Me." love God & gratefully accept His
Lordship is the foundation of all
Christian moral life. In revealing As a liberating, reconciling & loving
I. OBJECTIVES: Himself as outgoing creative Love, God truth, the Oneness of God can be the
calls every person to share in His love basis of our personal freedom, our
At the end of the lesson, you must be
through a life of faith, hope & charity. unity w/ all our brothers & sisters
able:
True happiness & our final destiny is under our Heavenly Father, & our love
• To explain how Jesus showed His achieved within the framework for one another. This basis is expressed
total commitment to God in making revealed in God's laws. As Christ in our renewal of Baptismal vows
God as the number one in His life taught, “Eternal life is this: to know during the Easter Vigil Eucharistic
• To appreciate the humility and You, only true God & Him You have celebration. Virtues of the First
strength of Jesus in allowing Himself to sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3). Fruits of Commandment The First
be tempted and in overcoming them all the First Commandment Commandment embraces

• To pray with confidence the “Our FAITH, HOPE & CHARITY.

Father” in acknowledging the Lordship  The uniqueness & oneness of God
of the Father and in overcoming the stressed by the first Commandment FAITH
temptations in life. is a liberating truth because
adoration of the one God frees us Our moral life has its source in faith in
from slavery to God Who reveals His love to us. The
II. INTRODUCTION 1st Commandment requires us to
& idolatry of the world. nourish & protect our faith w/
 God's unique oneness is also a prudence& vigilance, & to reject
Engage/Explore reconciling truth since the one God, everything that is opposed to it.
*Activity: Make a list of priorities in life as Father of us all, makes us one There are various ways of sinning
you aspire to attain with the family. Despite the endless against our faith in God:
corresponding ways of attaining them. struggles among nations & peoples,
& our own conflicts & - Voluntary doubt about the faith
misunderstandings, we realize God disregards or refuses to hold as true
Explain/Elaborate created the whole world for unity & what God has revealed and the Church
order. proposes for belief.
This Commandment is "first" not just
because it heads the list but it is the  Finally, the oneness of God is a - Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation
most important. loving truth in that it makes in believing, difficulty in overcoming
possible a genuine unified love of objections connected w/ the faith, or
God. For the One God has no rivals, also anxiety aroused by its obscurity.
If deliberately cultivated, doubt can -Despair makes man cease to hope for  Lukewarmness is hesitation or
lead to spiritual blindness. his personal salvation from God, for negligence in responding to divine
help in attaining it or for the love. It can imply refusal to give
forgiveness of his sins It is contrary to oneself over to the prompting of
-Incredulity is the neglect of revealed God's goodness, to His justice charity.
truth or the willful refusal to assent to  Acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far
- for the Lord is faithful to His promises
it. as to refuse the joy that comes from
& to His mercy.
- Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal God & to be repelled by divine
- Presumption is either man presumes goodness.
denial of some truth w/c must be
upon his capacities (hoping to ably  Hatred of God comes from pride &
believed w/ divine & catholic faith, or
save Himself w/o help from on high) or is contrary to love of God whose
is also obstinate doubt concerning
he presumes upon God's almighty goodness it denies & whom it
same.
power or His mercy (hoping to obtain presumes to curse as the one who
- Apostasy is the total repudiation of His forgiveness w/o conversion, and forbids sins & inflicts punishments.
the Christian faith. glory w/o merit). Charity leads us to render to God
-Schism is the refusal of submission to what we as creatures owe Him in
the Pope or of communion w/ members all justice.
of the Church subject to him. CHARITY

Thus, the virtue of religion

Faith in God's love encompasses the disposes us to have these attitudes:
HOPE
call & the obligation to respond w/
sincere love to divine charity. The 1st  Adoration to God is to acknowledge
Commandment enjoins us to love God Him as God, as the Creator &
When God reveals Himself & calls him,
above everything. Savior, the Lord & Master of
man cannot fully respond to the divine
everything that exists, as infinite &
love by his own powers. Man must One can sin against God's love in merciful Love. To adore God is to
hope that God will give him the various ways: praise & exalt Him and to humble
capacity to love Him in return & to act
oneself, as Mary did in the
in conformity w/ the commandments of
magnificant, confessing w/
charity. Hope is the confident  Indifference neglects or refuses to gratitude that He has done great
expectation of divine blessing & reflect on divine charity. It fails to things and holy is His name.
beatific vision of God. consider its prevenient goodness &  Prayer, as lifting up the mind
It is also the fear of offending God's denies its power. toward God, an expression of our
love & of incurring punishment.  Ingratitude fails or refuses to adoration of God: is prayer of praise
acknowledge divine charity & to & thanksgiving, intercession &
The 1st Commandment is also return him love for love.
concerned w/ sins against hope in God: petition. It is an indispensable
condition for being able to obey
 God's Commandments. The acts of fulfilling his vow, he renders to God person to civil liberty w/n the just
faith, hope & charity enjoined by what has been promised and limits from external constraint in
the 1st Commandment are consecrated to Him. religious matters by political
accomplished in prayer  The social duty of religion and the authorities.
 Sacrifice is every action done so as right to religious freedom All men The 1st Commandment forbids
to cling to God in communion of are bound to seek the truth, honoring gods other than the one Lord
holiness and thus achieve especially in what concerns God & Who has revealed Himself to His
blessedness. The prophets of the His Church, and to embrace it & people.
Old Covenant often denounced hold on to it as they come to know
sacrifices that were not from the it. This duty derives from the very These are some ways of having
heart and not coupled w/ love of dignity of the human person. The other gods:
neighbor. Christ made the perfect duty of offering God genuine  Superstition is the deviation of
sacrifice when He offered Himself worship concerns man both religious feeling and of the
on the Cross as a total offering to individually & socially. By practices this feeling imposes. It
the Father's love and for our constantly evangelizing men, the can even affect the worship we
salvation. By uniting ourselves w/ Church works toward enabling offer the true God, e.g when one
His sacrifice we can make our lives them to infuse the Christian spirit attributes an importance in some
a living sacrifice to God. into the mentality & mores, laws & way magical to certain practices
 Promises and Vows In many structures of the communities in w/ otherwise lawful or necessary. To
circumstances, the Christian is c they live. The social duty of attribute the efficacy of prayers or
called to make promises to God, Christians is to respect & awaken of sacramental signs to their mere
like in Baptism, Confirmation, in each man the love of the true & external performance, apart from
Matrimony or Holy Orders. Out of the good. It requires them to make the interior dispositions that they
personal devotion the Christian known the worship of the one true demand, is to fall into superstition.
may also promise to God this religion w/c subsists in the Catholic  Idolatry consists in divinizing what
action, that prayer, this alms giving & apostolic Church. Nobody may be is not God. Man commits idolatry
and so forth. forced to act against his when- ever he honors and reveres a
 Fidelity to promises made to God is convictions, nor is anyone to be creature in place of God, whether
a sign of the respect owed to the restrained from acting in this be gods or demons, power,
divine Majesty and of love to a accordance w/ his conscience in pleasure, race, ancestors, the state,
faithful God. Vow is a deliberate & religious matters in private or in money, etc. It does not only refer to
free promise made to God public, alone or in association w/ false pagan worship. It remains a
concerning a possible & better others w/n due limits. But this right constant temptation to faith. The
good w/ c must be fulfilled by to religious liberty is neither a commandment to worship the Lord
reason of the virtue of religion. It is moral license to adhere to error, alone integrates man and saves him
an act of devotion in w/ c Christian nor a supposed right to error but from endless disintegration. It is a
dedicates himself to God. By rather a natural right of the human perversion of man's innate religious
 sense. Those who worship empty supernatural power over others Christ is made substantially present for
idols make themselves empty. even for the sake of restoring their us.
Those who make them are like health- are gravely contrary to the Simony is defined as the buying or
them, so are all who trust in them. virtue of religion. These practices selling of spiritual things. To Simon the
 Divination and Magic God can are even more to be condemned magician who wanted to buy the
reveal the future to his prophets or when accompanied by the intention spiritual powers of the apostles, St.
to other saints. A sound Christian of harming someone or when they Peter responded: "Your silver perishes
attitude consists in putting oneself have recourse to demon's w/ you because you thought you could
confidently into the hands of intervention. Wearing charms is obtain God's gift w/ money! (Acts 8:20).
Providence for whatever concerns also reprehensible. It is impossible to appropriate to
the future, and giving up unhealthy  Spiritism often implies divination or oneself spiritual goods & behave
curiosity about it. Improvidence, magical practices. The Church for toward them as their owner master for
however, can constitute lack of her part warns the faithful against they have their source in God. One can
responsibility. All forms of it. Recourse to so-called traditional receive them only from him w/o
divination are to be rejected: cures does not justify either the payment.
recourse to Satan or demons, invocation of evil powers or
conjuring up the dead or other exploiting others credulity.  Atheism rejects or denies God's
practices falsely supposed to unveil  Irreligion God's 1st Commandment existence & covers different
the future. Consulting horoscopes, condemns the main sins of phenomena: Practical materialism
astrology, palm reading, irreligion: restricts its needs & aspirations to
interpretation of omens & lots, space & time. Atheistic humanism
Tempting God consists in putting his
phenomena of clairvoyance, and falsely considers man to be an end
goodness & almighty power to test by
recourse to mediums all conceal a to himself and the sole maker w/
word or deed. This was what Satan did
desire power over time, history, and supreme control of his own history.
to Jesus in the desert. The challenge
in last analysis, omens & lots, Contemporary atheism looks for the
contained in it wounds the respect &
phenomena of clairvoyance, and liberation of man through economic
trust we owe our Creator & Lord. It
recourse to mediums all conceal a & social liberation. It holds that
always harbors doubt about His love,
desire for power over time, history, religion thwarts such emancipation
His providence & His power.
and in last analysis, other human by raising man's hope in a future
beings, as well as a wish to Sacrilege consists in profaning or life, thus both deceiving &
conciliate hidden powers. They treating unworthily the sacraments & discouraging him from working for
contradict the honor, respect & other liturgical actions, as well as better life on earth. Atheism is
loving fear that we owe to God persons, things or places consecrated often based on a false conception of
alone. All practices of magic & to God. It is a grave sin especially human autonomy, exaggerated to
sorcery by w/c one attempts to when committed against the Eucharist the point of refusing any
tame occult powers so as to place for in this sacrament the true Body of dependence on God. The
them at one's service and have a imputability of this offense can be
 diminished in virtue of the
intentions & circumstances.
 Agnosticism refrains from denying
God, instead postulates the
existence of a transcendent being
incapable of revealing itself & thus
nothing can be said about. It can
sometimes include a certain search
for God but it can express
indifferentism, flight from ultimate
question of existence & sluggish
conscience ...A Carved or Graven
Image? Nevertheless, already in the
Old Testament, God ordained or
permitted the making of images
that pointed symbolically toward
salvation by Incarnate Word, like
bronze serpent, ark of the
covenant. Even Jesus used bread &
wine. Christian veneration of
images is not against 1st
Commandment w/c proscribes
idols. The honor rendered to an
image passes to the person
portrayed in it.