Journey with Jesus Part 4

1. Journey with Jesus Part 4 The Ten Commandments Part 4 of Basic Christian Catholic Instructions.

2. The Ten Commandments • God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. • We are to obey the ten commandments in order to enter into eternal life. • The ten commandments teach us to love God and our neighbours. • Jesus did not give us a new commandment, but rather a new spirit in which to observe the ten commandments. To obey not out of fear, but out of love.

3. Sin • Sin is an act of disobedience to the commandments of God. • We sin in thoughts, words, actions, and omissions. • Every sin involves intellect and will. • It is our choice, by the use of our intellect and our will that we sin. • There is venial and mortal sin. • Venial sin is a little sin, which wounds slightly our soul. • The mortal sin is a great sin, which removes from us the sanctifying grace of God.

4. Conscience • Conscience is the mysterious voice of God in our heart, which tells us to do good and avoid evil. • Every one has a conscience. • It is what drives every human being to do good and avoid at all cost evil deeds.

5. Virtues • Virtues are the habitual and strong disposition to do good. • A good deed is a virtue if it is repeated over and over again till, it becomes a habit. • Four Cardinal Virtues • Prudence: is the capacity to discern good from evil; and the steadfast effort to do good and practice it. • Justice: it is the habit to give God and our neighbour what is their own. • Fortitude: the capacity to be constant in doing good, even at the cost of great sacrifices. • Temperance: it is the ability to use the created goods with balance, without abusing them.

6. Vices • Vices are habitual and strong disposition to do evil. • The Seven Deadly Sins: • Pride: it is to believe that we are better than others and/or God. • Avarice: it is not sharing our earthly good with the poor. • Envy: it is to be sad for a good thing which belongs to our neighbour. • Wrath: it is the wild passion to do evil to God and to our neighbour. • Lust: it is the uncontrolled sexual desire. • Gluttony: it is the indiscriminate desire to eat and drink. • Sloth: it is spiritual laziness in doing good.

7. I am the Lord your God: You shall not have any other gods beside me • Commands: • To worship God alone. • Faith in God. • Hope in God. • Love for God. • Forbids • Idolatry. • (To love something or someone more than God. • Superstition, divination, magic. • Sacrilege. • (It is to desecrate people, things, or places consecrated to God.) • Simony. • (To buy or sell spiritual things) • Atheism. • (To refuse to believe in God.) • To worship the images of idols.

8. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in Vain • Command: • To respect the Holy Name of God. • We must keep the Holy Name of God in our heart with love and respect. We can use the Name of God only to bless, praise, and glorify him. • To announce the Holy Name of God. • God wants us to be missionaries and to proclaim his Holy Name to all peoples. • To keep oaths and vows. • The most common vows are the ones of chastity, poverty, and obedience for the religious, and the one of perfect fidelity for married people.

9. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in Vain • Forbids: • Blasphemy. • It is a mortal sin to utter words of hatred against God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. • To make false oaths in the name of God. • Every false oath and promise in the name of God is a

10. Remember to keep Holy the Sabbath Day • Commands: • To participate in the Holy Mass. • We must attend the Holy mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. We also have to sanctify the Lord’s day by means of prayer and good deeds. • To care for the poor and the suffering. • Every Sunday we must take good care of the poor, sick, and suffering poeple.

11. Remember to keep Holy the Sabbath Day • Forbids • Unnecessary servile work. • We must avoid all the works which prevent us from sanctifying the Lord’s day. • To rest, play and enjoy without God. • It is a great sin to spend the Lord’s day concerned only for the body, without taking case of our spirit.

12. Honour your Father and your Mother • Commands: • To honour our parents. • We must love, respect, and obey our parents, because from them we received our life. • To honour the religious and civil authority. • Jesus commands us to respect our priests, teachers, and civil authorities, because every authority comes from God.

13. Honour your Father and your Mother • Forbids: • To dishonour and disobey our parents. • To love our parents more than God. • To obey an evil authority. • We must disobey our parents, teachers, and superiors when they order us to do something against the will of God.

14. You shall not Kill • Commands: • To safeguard life. • The Lord alone is the owner of human life, we are only administrators. • To respect our neighbour. • Whenever we insult our neighbour we are killing them in his heart.

15. You shall not Kill • Forbids: • Murder. • To kill the innocent is one of the greatest sins, and deserve eternal damnation. • Suicide. • Self murder is a sin because your life does not belong to you but it belongs to God. • Abortion. • Euthanasia. • It is a sin to kill the old, sick and abnormal people. In case of incurable sickness we may stop the extraordinary means, but we have to continue the ordinary ones. • To use drugs and other dangerous substances. • We must avoid everything that harms the body that God gave us.

16. You shall not commit adultery • Commands: • Chastity. • To be chaste means to use our sexuality according to the will of God. Those who are married must love their spouse, and have many children. Those who are not married must abstain from any sexual activity.

17. You shall not Commit Adultery • Forbids: • Fornication. • It is the sexual union between a man and a woman outside the sacrament of Marriage. Those who live-in, or who have only civil marriage, are also guilty of fornication. • Homosexuality. • Anyone who has sexual relation with the same sex will not enter into the kingdom of God. • Masturbation. • Pornography. • Child Abuse. • Prostitution. • Artificial birth control. • Premarital sex.

18. You shall not Steal • Commands: • To respect the property of our neighbour. • We must not steal, abuse, or destroy the property of others. • To share our goods with the poor. • To return what we have stolen. • To work. • Every man must work to support himself and his family.

19. You shall not steal • Forbids: • To Steal. • Many forms of stealing are: cheating, not paying taxes, not paying debts, not returning found or borrowed articles, graft, and accepting stolen properties. • To be stingy with the poor.

20. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. • Commands: • Truthfulness. • To testify our faith. • To correct our neighbours. • To accept the brotherly correction. • To respect the good name of our neighbour. • To remedy for our lies.

21. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour • Forbids: • To lie. • Hypocrisy. • We must not behave in a false and ambivalent way in order to attain favours, or to cheat our neighbour. • Gossip. • We must not reveal the defects and the shortcomings of our neighbour to other people. • Slander. • We must not say false accusations to destroy the good name of our neighbour.

22. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife • Commands: • To love our own spouse. • To be pure of heart. • Forbids: • Adultery • Divorce. • Polygamy.

23. You shall not covet your neighbour's goods. • Commands: • Spirit of poverty. • To give up everything and follow Jesus. • Forbids: • Envy. • Greed.