Having examined the Ten Commandments in the past six lessons, Lesson Thirty-Fifth of the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 turns to the commandments of the Church, also known as the precepts of the Church.
Many Catholics misunderstand why the Church requires them to perform certain duties. The precepts of the Church, they say, are "manmade rules," and they bristle at the idea that these rules are binding under pain of mortal sin. God, they argue, will understand if they choose not to go to Confession or eat steak on a Friday during Lent or even miss Mass on occasion because they have something better to do.
But the Church hasn't come up with these rules arbitrarily.Some, like the first commandment of the Church (the Sunday Duty), are simply the practical application of the Ten Commandments. As we saw in our discussion of the Third Commandment, the way that Christians keep holy the Lord's day is to worship God—not on our own, but as a community.
The second commandment of the Church, as listed in the Baltimore Catechism, is to observe the laws of fasting and abstinence. This is an example of another type of rule that the Church includes in the precepts of the Church. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, the precepts (and their binding nature) are "meant to guarantee to the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth of love of God and neighbor." The Church sets aside times for us to fast and abstain in order to help us bring our passions under control and to do penance for our sins.
Next week, we'll examine the last four commandments of the Church, as listed in the Baltimore Catechism. One final thing to note is that the precepts of the Church are subject to change; at different times, the Church has stressed different duties. Thus, the listing in the Baltimore Catechism includes one more commandment than the listing in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church (and you may see other listings elsewhere that rank the precepts differently). Just as parents have different rules for their children at different times, in order to guide their development into responsible adults, the Church revises Her precepts to fit the needs of Christians in each age.
Lesson Thirty-Fifth from the Confirmation Catechism has 8 questions. Note that the lesson begins with Question 389, continuing with the numbering from Lesson Thirty-Fourth.
The parallel lesson this week in the First Communion Catechism is Lesson Thirty-First. It includes 5 questions drawn from Lesson Thirty-Fifth of the Confirmation Catechism.
Check out this week's lesson, and if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or ask them in the Catholicism Forum!
Previous Lessons in Sunday School:- Welcome to Sunday School!
- On God and His Perfections
- On the Unity and Trinity of God
- On Creation
- On Our First Parents and the Fall
- On Sin and Its Kinds
- On the Incarnation and Redemption
- On Our Lord's Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension
- On the Holy Ghost and His Descent Upon the Apostles
- On the Effects of the Redemption
- On the Church
- On the Attributes and Marks of the Church
- On the Sacraments in General
- On Baptism
- On Confirmation
- On the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Ghost
- On the Sacrament of Penance
- On Contrition
- On Confession
- On the Manner of Making a Good Confession
- On Indulgences
- On the Holy Eucharist
- On the Ends for Which the Holy Eucharist Was Instituted
- On the Sacrifice of the Mass
- On Extreme Unction and Holy Orders
- On Matrimony
- On the Sacramentals
- On Prayer
- On the Commandments of God
- On the First Commandment
- On the Honor and Invocation of Saints
- From the Second to the Fourth Commandment
- From the Fourth to the Seventh Commandment
- From the Seventh to the End of the Tenth Commandment
The 10 Commandments – I read with interest the tablets and realized that you left out the second commandment and then split the tenth commandment into two parts to commensate!
By these 10 Commandments, true theology and true worship, the name of God and the Sabbath, family, honor, life, marriage, and property, truth and virtue are well protected. They can also be grouped into 2 broad categories: the vertical, namely man’s relationship to God (Ex 20:2-11), and the horizontal, namely man’s relationship to the community (vv12-17). [These comments from the MacArthur Study Bible, Copyright 1997, Word Publishing].
I am looking at a Bible printed in 1839 (Translated out of the original tongues) as well as the Thompson Chain-Reference Bible (initially copyright 1908) and The MacArthur Study Bible (copyright 1997) and ALL have 10 commandments (Ex 20:3-17) as follows:
1. V3 – THOU SHALL HAVE NO other gods before Me.
[COMMENTS from The MacArthur Study Bible: Meaning "over against Me," a most appropriate expression in the light of the next few verses. ALL false gods stand in opposition to the true God, and the worship of them is incompatible with the worship of Yahweh. When Israel departed from the worship of the only one and true God, she plunged into religious confusion (Judg 17,18)]
2. V4-6 – THOU SHALT NOT make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.
Why this commandment is so important is because: [The mode or fashion of worship appropriate to ONLY ONE LORD forbids any attempt to represent or caricature Him by use of anything He has made. Total censure of artistic expression was not the issue; the ABSOLUTE CENSURE OF IDOLATRY and FALSE WORSHIP was the issue. Violation would seriously affect succeeding generations because the Lord demanded full and exclusive devotion, i.e. He is a jealous God (cf. 34:14; Deut 4:24, 5:9). THE WORSHIP OF MAN-MADE REPRESENTATIONS WAS NOTHING LESS THAN HATRED OF THE TRUE GOD. Moses had made it clear that children were not punished for the sins of their parents (Deut 24:16; see Ezek 18:19-32) BUT children would feel the impact of breaches of God's law by their parents' generation as a natural consequence of its disobedience, its hatred of God. Children reared in such an environment would imbibe and then practice similar idolatry, thus themselves expressing hateful disobedience. The difference in consequence served as both a warning and a motivation. The effect of a disobedient generation was to plant wickedness so deeply that it took several generations to reverse.] COMMENTS from The MacArthur Study Bible.
3. V7 – THOU SHALT NOT take the name of the LORD thy God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Those are the first 3 Commandments according to the Word of God, the Holy Bible. Whether they are changed does not negate the truth contained therein and someday everyone will stand before a Holy God to give account. Who do you want to believe – man made traditions/interpretations or the Bible? Today everyone has the ability to purchase a Bible, or one will be give to them, or they can read it on the internet. When one stands before God, one is without excuse because you can’t blame someone else for the ‘error’ you WILFULLY CHOSE to believe.