1 / 12

The first commandment: to love God above all things

MÉNAGEOT, François-Guillaume The Martyrdom of St Sebastian Oil on canvas Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaulkee, Wisconsin. The first commandment: to love God above all things. 45. Compendium of the Catechism.

elpida
Download Presentation

The first commandment: to love God above all things

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. MÉNAGEOT, François-Guillaume The Martyrdom of St Sebastian Oil on canvas Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaulkee, Wisconsin The first commandment: to love God above all things 45

  2. Compendium of the Catechism • 442. What is implied in the affirmation of God: “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2)? • 2083-20942133-2134 • This means that the faithful must guard and activate the three theological virtues and must avoid sins which are opposed to them. Faith believes in God and rejects everything that is opposed to it, such as, deliberate doubt, unbelief, heresy, apostasy, and schism. Hope trustingly awaits the blessed vision of God and his help, while avoiding despair and presumption. Charity loves God above all things and therefore repudiates indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, sloth or spiritual indolence, and that hatred of God which is born of pride.

  3. Introduction • "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment” (Matthew 22:36-38). • In order to love God man has to acknowledge him as the Lord and worship him. He who does not worship God acts that way because he does not know and love him, substituting in his place the false gods of selfishness and sin. PIAZZETTA, Giovanni Battista St James Brought to Martyrdom 1722-23 Oil on canvas, 165 x 138 cm San Stae, Venice

  4. Main ideas

  5. 1. The contents of the first commandment • Man is bound to God by ties and duties that together make up the virtue of religion: • To recognize him as our Lord; • to believe what he has revealed; • to hope what he has promised; • to worship him by internal and external cult; • to serve him by fulfilling his will always; • to pray by raising our mind to God to praise him; • to give him thanks and to ask for whatever we need • to love him above all things. • The first commandment orders us to believe, hope and love God, practising the virtue of religion. VAN EYCK, Jan (1395-1441) The Ghent Altarpiece: Adoration of the Lamb [detail: centre] Oil on wood, 1425-1429 54 1/8 x 95 3/8 inches (137.7 x 242.3 cm) Cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent

  6. 2. The virtue of religion • The virtue of religion consists of internal acts of the soul : • mainly acts of faith, hope and charity; • when we pray and pay due homage to God; • when we give him thanks and ask him for pardon; • when we seek what he wants. • But we also have to do external acts of worship: attending Holy Mass, kneeling before the Tabernacle, bowing our heads in front of a crucifix, taking part with piety in liturgical ceremonies,... We are made of body and soul, both created by God. So we have to show our submission and reverence to him through external acts also. It is a fundamental right of the human person to be able to freely profess one’s religion in public and in private. LE GROS, Pierre the Younger (1666-1719) Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred Marble, 1695-1699 Private collection

  7. 3. The will of God should always be done • God is the Lord and we should joyfully fulfil his will, being ready to do with love all that he wishes, just as Jesus Christ, our master, did: “Father …let your will, not mine, be done” (Luke, 22:42). • At times what God asks from us requires effort and sacrifice, yet we have to do it with equal, or even greater, determination. • By doing God’s will we also discover our divine vocation or personal calling, trying to respond to it faithfully and perseveringly. BROWN, Ford Madox (1821-1893) Jesus washing Peter's feet at the Last Supper Oil on canvas, 1865 Tate Gallery, London

  8. 4. Sins against the first commandment • Specific sins against this commandment comprise those acts that go against the virtue of religion. Some of these are : • Superstition. • Idolatry. • Divination, séance and magic. • Sacrilege. • Tempting God with words or deeds. • Irreligion. • Atheism and agnosticism. MAGNASCO, Alessandro (1667-1749) Sacrilegious Robbery Oil on canvas, 1731 Private collection

  9. 5. The veneration of the Virgin Mary and the saints • We honour God in his angels and saints, who are like mirrors reflecting some of God’s infinite perfections. • It if for this reason that we, Christians, have images of the Virgin Mary, angels and saints and that we preserve with reverence the relics of the saints. In honouring the images and relics we honour the saints they represent or from whom they come. CRIVELLI, Carlo (1435-1495) Coronation of the Virgin Panel, 1493 88 1/2 x 100 3/8 inches (225 x 255 cm) Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

  10. 6. The importance of the first commandment • The first commandment is the most holy and most important. Observing it well we observe all the others. We cannot forget that to love God above all things comes before anything else: it is the only thing that really matters. BLOCH, Carl Heinrich (1834-1890) Christ and a Boy Oil on canvas Public collection

  11. Resolutions for Christian life

  12. Resolutions to move forward • Try to do God’s will, as expressed in the commandments, at all moments. • Make acts of faith, hope and charity. (You will find some helpful versions in a book of traditional Christian prayers and devotions.)

More Related