Joseph Hollcraft M.A.
Intro to the Catechism of the Catholic Church CCP 201
Part III: Life in Christ
Week 3: October 31, 2007Review with essential meaning to the teaching of the Church as mother (Paul/Gamaliel). Consider the link with the OT concept of mercy. Consult Word of the Week on Mercy.
The Church is a gift that we ought to reverence for her 2000 years of wisdom . She who is mother has withstood the test of time. We seek the gift of wisdom not just intelligence!
II. Ten Commandments (keep commandments in order to keep communion—God's instruction manual on morality and the moral law. The Natural Law is what we ought to do based on what we are. The TC in Scripture are known as The Decalogue, literally meaning the “ten words”. God gave the Decalogue to Moses on Mt. Sinai as the law of the Old Covenant (law is ordered to freedom that which is ordered to worship). “By his life and teaching Jesus permanently validates the 10 commandments” ( CCC 2076). In order to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus, the 10 commandments are to be interpreted in light of the one great commandment to love God and neighbor above all else (CCC 2055- 2057)...just as we need food to stay healthy so we need to sustain a life of virtue to remain spiritual healthy.
A. “You shall Love the Lord with all Your Heart, and with all your Soul, and with All Your Mind, and with all of your strength” (Mt.22.27; Lk.10.27): The Decalogue is the prescription to achieve the heights of this one great commandment found in Matthew and Luke (CCC 2083).
1. First Commandment: I am the Lord God: You shall not have strange Gods before me. “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve” (Mt.4.10): This first commandment summons man to love God and nothing more. St. Augustine once stated “Love God and then do what you will.” If we offer our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength then ultimately we will be in God's holy will (CCC 2084). This first commandment sets the table categorically for the first three commandments.
a. This call to love is an exercise of the theological virtues. We are called to avoid transgression against the TV and discern the “treasures of goodness” that come from the Father. Prayer, Adoration, worship and sacrifice (consider analogy of drunken husband) all belong to him under obedience of this great commandment (CCC 2095-2100; 2135).
1. Worship is a social dynamism (CCC 2104; 2136): relationship between church and family:
2. We are called to avoid idolatry, the revering creatures in place of God, of any kind as it enslaves us and habitually destroys virtue. The culture of death is often an inventory of graven images—Catholicism will always be persecuted (CCC 2112-2113).
2. Second Commandment: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The revealed name of God is infinite mystery and at the same time ever-present reality (CCC 2143-44). God's name is holy (cf. Ps.8.1). In ancient cultures the human name was sacred as well as its meaning (Is.43.1; CCC 2158; 2167)…What even more to say of God!
a. The name of God is to be professed. We should be as pious and evangelistic ready to witness to the holiness of God (CCC 2145).
b. The second commandment forbids the abuse of God's name and any utterance that is offensive is blasphemy (CCC 2150; 2162). Do not swear, accept truthfully to the reverence and piety of Christ (CCC 2152)…consider the word Covenant—let your yes mean yes and no mean no!
c. Seal yourself with the Trinitarian life (CCC 2156-2157).
3. Third Commandment: Remember to keep the Lord's Day holy. The Sabbath is a day of rest that God hallowed (Hb.menuha). God creates to father so that we might enter a divine sonship through worship. In this way, we become a new creation (CCC 2168-2169).
a. Sunday is the eighth day in which we have become a new creation in the Resurrection of Christ (CCC 2174). We are called to contemplate the paschal mystery in our own lives (CCC 2177). We are to see that the “rest” of Sunday foreshadows the eternal rest of the heavenly Jerusalem .
1. Sunday is reserved to nurture the familial, cultural, social and religious livelihood (CCC 2184).
B. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” : Just as the first commandment was the foundation for the first set of laws, so the fourth commandment is the foundation for the second set of laws. It shows us the order of charity. God has willed that after him we honor our parents to achieve the highest good (CCC 2197). The fourth commandment also includes any kind of overseer whereby authority is given to govern over others or a community of believers (CCC2199).
1. Family in God's Plan: The conjugal union of marriage is established upon the covenant and consent of the individuals and is ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation of children and their education (CCC 2201; 2249).
a. The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of communion of the Trinity. In the procreation of children, marriage reflects the Father's work of creation and is thereby called to reflect the unconditional sacrifice of Christ (CCC 2205).
b. The family is prior to the state in importance, for the family is the first and foundational building block of all society, the original cell of society” (CCC 2207). Therefore, “larger communities should take care not to usurp the family's prerogative or interfere in its life” (CCC 2209).
1.The conversion of society takes shape and form from the inside out—not the outside in. Remember John Paul II's vision of the culture being the product of the person!
c. The parents, by way of authority, and children, by way of obedience, owe each other the respect and dignity of their vocation to grow in holiness.
1. Above all else, the parents are to encourage and teach the ways of Christ, to foster virtuous living as children of God, and to avoid compromising influences that threaten a culture of life (CCC 2222-2227). Through this, their spiritual autonomy leads to sanctity and holiness (CCC 2232).
d. Public authority is obliged to respect the dignity of human life from conception to death for proper conditions to exercise the gift of freedom. In the same manner citizens have a duty in working with public authority to build up the kingdom of peace and justice (CCC 2235-2239).
1. The Church is not to be confused in any way with a political community that has strayed from the higher natural law. All social laws must be judged by the higher natural law.
a. “The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order” (CCC 2242).
1. This has been the point of martyrdom for a great number of saints!
2. Fifth Commandment: You shall not kill. Every human life from the moment of conception until death is sacred because God has willed that every human is to image and reflect the gift of the Father as a child of God aspiring toward holiness (CCC 2258). We are subject not objects. The question of quality of life vs ethic of life (Kreeft).
a. Self defense is legitimate for the same reasons that suicide is not: life is a gift from God that we are to safeguard and preserve. It is natural to be bound to protect those you love. The death of the other is not intentional if it is self defense—motus operandi. (CCC 2263-2264).
b. The embryonic state of life is exactly that--life and ought to be treated with the dignity of persons (CCC 2274-2275). Likewise, in the case of Euthanasia it is gravely contrary to the dignity inherent in the gift of the creator and moreover father to select the “hour” of death. It is morally unacceptable (CCC 2277). Consider redemptive suffering!!!
c. The ‘just war” doctrine. War in itself is a barbaric invention to solve matters, but self-defense opens the door to a “just” going to war (CCC 2309).
1. Due to the evil and injustices of war, we must do everything within reason of the higher moral law to avoid it. The church also calls out the power of prayer to stop wars (CCC 2307-2308; 2327).
3. Sixth (and ninth) Commandment: You shall not commit adultery and shall covet your neighbor's wife. The tradition of the Church has always embraced that the sixth (and ninth) commandment as (cf. Kreeft pg.241 # 1) enveloping the whole of sexuality (CCC 2236). Male and female reflect the language of the trinity in and through a communion of love that is always open to the gift of life (CCC 2231-2232). This participation in the Trinity is also a shadow of God's own Fatherhood (CCC 2366-2367).
a. Love is stamped in the very language of our bodies. Just not on a physical level, but also psychological, emotional and spiritual, there is a divine complementarity that is ordered to the building up of the “domestic trinity” (CCC 2333).
1. Chastity is the virtue that integrates the power of Christ's love in and through a self-mastery of purity into every loving relationship (CCC 2337-2245).
a. Lust, masturbation (cf Kreeft # 12), fornication, pornography, prostitution, rape, and homosexual practices (Kreeft Pg. 248 # 12--handout) are all (most grave) offenses against chastity (CCC 2351-2359).
b. “Adultery, divorce, polygamy, and free union (cf. Kreeft # 13) are grave offenses against the dignity of marriage” (CCC 2400).
4. Seventh (and tenth) Commandment: You shall not steal and you shall covet your neighbor's goods. These two commandments come together in the exercise of social and economic morality. They call out the relationship between justice and charity to the administration of temporal goods and the fruit of man's labor (CCC 2401-2406; 2451).
a. “The seventh commandment forbids theft” (CCC 2408). Reparation for injustice demands restitution of any stolen goods.
b. Holy mother Church, exercising the right of paternity given to her by Christ is always vigilant to clarify and make judgments upon economic and social matters when necessary. Collectively, the Church has the authority to guide and direct the temporal common good for the building up of the Kingdom of justice and peace (CCC 2419-2420).
1. “Human work proceeds directly from person created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation” (CCC 2427). In this “theology of work”, we are called to be artisans of Truth—creating something out of nothing (CCC 2500.
2. Works of Mercy: Corporal and Spiritual (CCC 2447).
c. Spiritual Poverty or Poverty of Heart (10 C): The first Beatitude (Law of the NC), “Blessed are the poor in Spirit” (Mt.5.3—cf. PBXVI from Jesus of Nazareth )), draws out the last Commandment (law of the OC); “you shall not covet your neighbor's goods.”
1. In any addiction, we begin to reflect, in one form or another, what we worship…we need to embrace detachment from wants (CCC 2544) and temperance to our needs.
a. Mt.5.48…meaning of compassion
5. Eighth Commandment : “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex.20.16). This commandment is a call to bear witness to the Truth, which is the law of love incarnate in Jesus Christ. By becoming a new creation in the spirit we have put on the cloth of Christ, “the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph.4.24) where we discern what ought to be said verses what is to be kept secret.(CCC 2464-2469). Truthfulness is the virtue, which consists of authenticity and sincerity of words and deeds. “It guards against duplicity and hypocrisy” (CCC2468
a. We are to be unashamed of our faith and willing to give our life for our bride—martyrdom, just as Christ took his own cross to the mountaintop for the sake of truth…Remember Pontius Pilate! (CCC 2471-2473).
b. “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving” (Jn.8.44). All sin is lying in different forms and shapes and is an offense against Truth (CCC 2482-2483). “The gravity of the lie” is conditioned by circumstance, measure of seriousness and “motus operandi.”
1. Sin is Satan's “false advertisement” (Kreeft, pg. 270) in which a lie was used to deform God's relationship with man. Knowledge was abused and contorted to Satan's advantage…he who is the “father of lies” (Jn.8.44).
2. Art—Truth
Conclude with reflection on memory-Fr. Cantalamessa's homily (you can download off the internet--google)