Council 112 This is the Faith November 2006

Tony Marino is an Air Force veteran who later received a degree in English Literature at Long Island University. For more than 30 years, he was an insurance agent for Aetna before eventually becoming a private insurance consultant. Since his retirement in 2003, he has devoted himself to the service of St. Peter's Parish in Concord and the Right to Life movement in New Hampshire. Tony has been married to his wife, Annette for more than 40 years. They have ten children and 22 grandchildren.

I. “YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE.”

There is a third aspect to the First Commandment not previously covered in my two previous essays: “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me”. God has revealed himself to us, as his people, and as such we are not permitted to engage in superstition, nor practice irreligion. With superstition, we attribute “magical importance” to practices which otherwise may be lawful or necessary. For example, to place a statue of a particular saint on our dresser because it will bring us luck is to credit the statue with an external performance rather than providing the individual with an interior disposition. Any statue is made of some substance, and has no power, in and of itself. However, if we use the statue as a reminder that the statue represents a saint who devoted his, or her life to God, and we use that reminder to lead us to prayer, than we give honor and glory to God.

The exact opposite of superstition, which is a deviation of religious feeling and the practices that follow such feeling, is irreligion. Irreligion is a hostility toward religion, and therefore a hostility toward God. The First Commandment condemns the sins of irreligion. One of these sins is described as “Tempting God”, which when defined means that we seek to put God to the test. An example of such tempting is a prayer, which places a condition precedent upon the response of God. Such a prayer would be irreligious because the prayer harbors doubt about the love of God, and challenges His providence and His power: e.g. “Dear God, if you really love me, you will let me be cured.”

Other sins of irreligion involve Sacrilege, Simony, Atheism, and Agnosticism: Sacrilege consists of “profaning of treating unworthily” sacraments, liturgical actions, and persons or things consecrated to God. Simony is the belief that a person can purchase or sell spiritual things. Spiritual things have God as their source, so they can only be obtained from Him. Atheism rejects or denies the existence of God.
Another facet of atheism is “atheistic humanism” which occurs when someone considers man as an end to himself, and is the sole maker, with supreme control of his own history. Agnosticism has a number of forms: in some cases it “postulates the existence of a transcendent being” incapable of revealing himself, and about which nothing can be known or stated. In other cases it makes no judgment about the existence of God, but rather affirms that His existence is impossible to prove. Lastly, agnosticism may involve a search for God, but it just as likely will involve indifference. I am sure that all of us have met someone in our lives who claims to be an agnostic, and who wears their agnosticism like a badge of informed intellectualism, but the sad fact is that agnosticism is an attitude toward God, that is equivalent to “practical atheism”.

Other ways to create offense to the First Commandment involve idolatry and divination and magic: We have but one true God, and therefore the practice of polytheism is condemned. We reject not only idols, which are the work of the hands of men, but also the divinization of man or any other creature, and we must reject the “indestructible notion of God to anything other than God”. We cannot serve God and Mammon.

Very often we become concerned about the future, but we must avoid unhealthy curiosity about what is to come. The Bible tells us, and the Church teaches, that we should place ourselves in the hands of God. Belief in recourse to Satan, the conjuring up of the dead, consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, or the interpretation of omens, contradict the honor, respect and loving fear we owe to God alone. All practice of magic or sorcery, in an attempt to tame occult powers is gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. In summation, nothing that we do, or anything that we have, should come between us and our worship and love of God.

Please see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, pages 512 through 517, paragraphs 2110 through 2132. Read your catechism, it’s what we believe.

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This is the Faith November 2006 REFLECTIONS FROM THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THE TEN COMMANDMENTS I. “YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE.” There is a third aspect to the First Commandment not previously covered in my two previous essays: “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me”. God has revealed himself to us, as his people, and as such we are not permitted to engage in superstition, nor practice irreligion. With superstition, we attribute “magical importance” to practices which otherwise may be lawful or necessary. For example, to place a statue of a particular saint on our dresser because it will bring us luck is to credit the statue with an external performance rather than providing the individual with an interior disposition. Any statue is made of some substance, and has no power, in and of itself. However, if we use the statue as a reminder that the statue represents a saint who devoted his, or her life to God, and we use that reminder to lead us to prayer, than we give honor and glory to God. The exact opposite of superstition, which is a deviation of religious feeling and the practices that follow such feeling, is irreligion. Irreligion is a hostility toward religion, and therefore a hostility toward God. The First Commandment condemns the sins of irreligion. One of these sins is described as “Tempting God”, which when defined means that we seek to put God to the test. An example of such tempting is a prayer, which places a condition precedent upon the response of God. Such a prayer would be irreligious because the prayer harbors doubt about the love of God, and challenges His providence and His power: e.g. “Dear God, if you really love me, you will let me be cured.” Other sins of irreligion involve Sacrilege, Simony, Atheism, and Agnosticism: Sacrilege consists of “profaning of treating unworthily” sacraments, liturgical actions, and persons or things consecrated to God. Simony is the belief that a person can purchase or sell spiritual things. Spiritual things have God as their source, so they can only be obtained from Him. Atheism rejects or denies the existence of God. Another facet of atheism is “atheistic humanism” which occurs when someone considers man as an end to himself, and is the sole maker, with supreme control of his own history. Agnosticism has a number of forms: in some cases it “postulates the existence of a transcendent being” incapable of revealing himself, and about which nothing can be known or stated. In other cases it makes no judgment about the existence of God, but rather affirms that His existence is impossible to prove. Lastly, agnosticism may involve a search for God, but it just as likely will involve indifference. I am sure that all of us have met someone in our lives who claims to be an agnostic, and who wears their agnosticism like a badge of informed intellectualism, but the sad fact is that agnosticism is an attitude toward God, that is equivalent to “practical atheism”. Other ways to create offense to the First Commandment involve idolatry and divination and magic: We have but one true God, and therefore the practice of polytheism is condemned. We reject not only idols, which are the work of the hands of men, but also the divinization of man or any other creature, and we must reject the “indestructible notion of God to anything other than God”. We cannot serve God and Mammon. Very often we become concerned about the future, but we must avoid unhealthy curiosity about what is to come. The Bible tells us, and the Church teaches, that we should place ourselves in the hands of God. Belief in recourse to Satan, the conjuring up of the dead, consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, or the interpretation of omens, contradict the honor, respect and loving fear we owe to God alone. All practice of magic or sorcery, in an attempt to tame occult powers is gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. In summation, nothing that we do, or anything that we have, should come between us and our worship and love of God. Please see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, pages 512 through 517, paragraphs 2110 through 2132. Read your catechism, it’s what we believe. Next article -->
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