Fifth Commandment (continuation)

Catholic Morality – Religion 5th. course – Editorial Luis Vives.
Lesson 19 
FIFTH COMMANDMENT (CONTINUATION) 
(Do not kill the soul)
RESPECT THE HEALTH AND LIVE OF THE SOUL
( My comments in [ ] )

220.- Positive duties regarding the soul.- Man has two lives in terms of the body: the vegetable and the animal, both safeguarded by the fifth commandment (as we have seen in the previous lesson).

As for the soul, he has two other lives: the natural (or rational), and the supernatural (or life of the grace). God, by giving us one and the other, He imposed on us the grave obligation to preserve and perfect them, an obligation that is enclosed in this fifth commandment.
As means to preserve and perfect the rational life, we have education and instruction, especially Christian and religious one. We can preserve and perfect the supernatural life through prayer, practicing virtue and above all with the reception of the Holy Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ to be nourishment of the health and life of the soul.
It is particularly necessary the education and formation of the will, which makes man know how to dominate himself and to own himself and his actions. A man with full self-control and iron will is capable of the most heroic acts. He who has the terrible secret of “I want to”, is capable of anything.

Young people of firm and unyielding will were St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Louis Gonzaga (in English: Saint Aloysius), St. Stanislaus of Kostka, St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother [Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother. Feast Day: February 27th. Saint Gabriel Possenti. “I will attempt day by day to break my will into pieces. I want to do God's Holy Will, not my own!”], and many more who knew how to overcome the obstacles that were opposed to them to be faithful to their vocation, and reached the heights of heroic holiness that we admire in them. A young man of righteousness and firmness was St. John Berchmans, who on his deathbed said, "I do not remember having deliberately failed any of my rules."
Instruction is necessary so that understanding may be perfect, and this last one could present to the acceptance of the will what is true, righteous, good.

221.- Negative duties regarding the soul.- In the serious obligation that we have to preserve and perfect the health and life of the soul, it is necessarily included to avoid everything that can damage or destroy them.

Personal venial sins damage more or less the health and life of one's own soul, as they gradually weaken it. Whoever endangers himself in sinning, he attacks the life of the soul and gives it death through mortal sin, for it deprives it of supernatural life; which is a true spiritual suicide, more serious than the bodily, because the life of the soul is worth incomparably more than that of the body.

The life of the soul of the neighbor is attacked, and death is brought to him, by means of bad example and scandal (spiritual homicide), with consequences infinitely more disastrous than the bodily one, because it can bring eternal damnation.

Those who commit willful sin against these duties, especially if they are serious; those who neglect their intellectual and moral improvement, or that of their children and subjects; those who remain in religious indifferentism and do nothing to know the truth; those who, knowing the true and righteous, willingly embrace error; those who give bad examples and scandals, in whatever way; and those who put themselves into risk of being drawn into vices and passions, reading ungodly or immoral books. [TV was not massive in those times, now we have to avoid it as well as cinema, theatre and thematic parks (because in the last ones, our mind and soul learn to put our life into risk like a play)]

222.- Scandal.- Scandal is any word, action or omission, bad in itself or in appearance that induces others to sin, even if they do not get to do so. Any occasion of sin is scandal for others.

He who blasphemes, mocks priests or religion, sings obscene songs, etc., scandalizes in word.
He who works publicly on a Sunday or religious Feast, or allows himself impure acts in front of others; or laughter, and inconvenient talks and manners during Mass, etc.; scandalizes by work or action.

He who does not comply with the precept of the Easter Communion, or for no reason misses Mass on Sundays and religious Feasts, etc. scandalizes by omission.
Sometimes it can happen that these sayings, facts or omissions are bad only in appearance, as it would be to eat meat on a day of abstinence, for just cause that others ignore.
In order that a scandal occurs, it is enough that it gives the occasion of a fall, even if the neighbor is not affected by it, as is the case of the very vicious, because they are always in it; or the very virtuous, because they work to have the Divine help to overcome sinful insinuations.

In order for an action to be scandalous there are three conditions required: that it is external, that it is bad in itself or in appearance, and that it can lead the neighbor to sin, even if he avoids it.

223.- Kinds of scandal.- The scandal is called active, if it is given to others; and passive, if it is received. The active scandal can be direct or indirect.

The scandal is simply direct, if who gives it does not pursue so much the spiritual damage of others but his own delight. It is interested when sin is induced because of the benefit or utility it brings. It is heretical, if it induces the negation of a particular dogma. It is diabolical, if the scandalous intends the spiritual harm of others, because of hate to God, as it happened during our crusade against communism in which Marxists proposed blasphemy, sacrilege and other horrendous scandals, to believers, religious and priests.

Indirect scandal occurs when the bad action of the neighbor is not attempted, but it is anticipated that he may fall and, despite this, it is not avoided, for example when someone lends a bad book.

Passive scandal can be that of children, who imitate what they see; of fainthearted or weak of character, because of their ignorance or weakness, for example, because they see someone working on Sundays, not knowing that he has permission; and of Pharisees or evil ones, who are scandalized without reason or foundation, because of their own malice, like the Pharisees of the Gospel, who were scandalized of the sayings and deeds of Our Lord, because He healed on the Sabbath, ate with publicans and sinners, etc.

224.- The great scandalous: sources of scandal.- They are culprits of sin of scandal all those who publicly execute sinful actions, because human weakness is easily inclined to imitate bad examples. But there are acts that are of a markedly scandalous nature. The main sources of scandals are:

1. The shows, the amusements and social customs full of frivolity and sensualism; immoral or ungodly theatres and cinemas; dances, radio, etc.

[They do not name TV because the first broadcast in Spain was in 1956, and these books are from 1954. Please, examine all what Our Lady of the Roses says about TV, e.g. in the Directive # 72. 

TV is a source of bad examples (scandal) and a trainer in laziness (the source of all vices). How many tales an adult needs per week? None. In the past, married women were at home and they were the loving heart of the family (in psychology they say mother is tenderness, and father: law), but with feminism all women started to work outside home and no more true love in the family, they return exhausted to do the dinner and to clean a bit and… to watch TV, while children are in the hands of TV most of the time. Families do hardly talk at home, TV does. In the past, a low paid worker earned enough to maintain his wife and children, but now, with too much offering of workers (feminism), now 2 salaries aren’t enough, and society lost the loving soul of it. Children only learn about the world through TV because at school they are just trained, and they are not taken to play with others daily (they go from a blackboard to a TV screen to a play station, to a computer, then they go to sleep and the same no-life).

 Boys are rised like girls, the same gym, TV, computers… so, as women have educated “men” as women wanted (feminism is satanism)... now they are complaining that there are no more men. In fact, with lgtbi education they are rising beasts (not good manhood, not moral, focused on sex, so, when that poison explodes… they have animals that want women to maintain them, to be their sexual partners, to abort (because those men are uncappable to control their sexual impulses neither to make efforts to rise a child), and they are violent, because their manhood has not matured, neither their mind because of TV and lack of healthy readings. TV cannot replace a person, children need their mothers being their guides in Religion and moral and wisdom (so women need to have plenty of time to pray, learn about Religion and exercise charity in the neighborhood… to have a peaceful and fruitful life, to be the loving soul of the home and society, loving God first) but children are now taught empty tales through TV that end with sex or always includes seduction and when they have friends/couples, they exercise what TV showed them: they do not talk about Religion (which is the most important thing for everybody, the basis if they want to chose another) or important things (they have their head empty) they take some drinks, go to dance, and… do what TV showed them: sex, then they kill the baby because they have been rised mostly among things, and they do not know the value of life, they do not even know what they live for. Now, many of them think they are things. What’s more, they are ill because they need a wise, loving mother LOOKING AT THEM and they only have false companions: teachers and TV.

 In a social research they asked children of Europe what they wanted and they asked: 1) many: to be a youtuber (to be looked at), 2) others: those computer games (because they do not have anybody to healthy play with them), 3) and a girl answered: to have a fashion line (to be looked at, too). As children are treated, as how they are LOOKED AT, they will look at the world in that way and they will learn to treat others. But our battle is not only against TV, that satanic box is a consequence, our battle is against Satan. Abortionists are worse than the witches of the past, now they cut babies in to pieces for their satanic leaders (e.g. the illuminati) and they carry adolescents, and now they want to drag children, with them; our war is against Satan and we fight that beast with SAINTHOOD, it is an all time work to be saints and to defeat him. We NEED TO BE SAINTS AS THE GREAT SAINTS, TO GROW IN SANCTITY VERY FAST, everybody must grow spiritually and struggle to defeat demons, to have a pure soul; to obey God completely well (it is the only Justice), to listen to Him and to distinguish Him from the enticements of Satan, and to teach children to do so. Do never look at TV as a “company”, we do not need a satanic box as a company.]

2. The press in its various forms: bad or sectarian newspapers, pornographic magazines, immoral novelties, lascivious pamphlets, ungodly books.
[Even traditional newspapers in this country and other, it is a risk for the soul to read them And the "illustrative drawings in the form of jokes" from traditional left-wing newspapers in Spain, and now even in pseudo-right ones!]
3. Obscene sculptures, paintings, drawings, images and prints.
4. The improper feminine fashions that propagate the depravity of customs.
5. Political speeches and rallies, in which low-streak speakers propagate doctrines contrary to faith or to good customs, against Religion and the Church.
6. Neutral or atheist schools, where teachers teach depraved doctrines or seduce their disciples with bad examples.

225.- Cooperation to evil.- To cooperate is to participate actively in the work of another, whether good or bad.

Participation in the bad work can be formal or only material. It is formal if, in addition to the effort, there is an intention to do wrong; otherwise it is material.
He who commands, advises or induces to it cooperates with the wrongdoing; also he who approves, favors, or remains silent when by charity or justice he should speak; also he who participates in the action or in its consequences; and who does not oppose the evil action, being able and owing to oppose to it.

[Example: homosexuality and abortion condemn sinners to Hell, we have to oppose to those sins. In Noah's time they were murderers and the flood came, and Sodom and Gomorrah were burned by fire from Heaven. And repentance must include the firm purpose of amendment, otherwise it is not valid before God, Who is never deceived. 
The paragraph says: “or in its consequences” we cannot accept any product, vaccine, etc. where aborted babies are implied or any kind of mortal sin (in vitro fertilized so called humans, etc.]

In sins of cooperation, if the matter is slight, sin will be venial; but every evildoer is obliged to repair the damage, because each one is considered to be the only wrongdoer.

226.- Gravity and malice of the scandal.- If it is a huge crime to end the life of the body, how much greater will it be to attack the supernatural life of the soul, a thousand times preferable to that of the body? [Not a thousand, infinitely]. Killing the soul is infinitely worse than killing the body, and, if the victim is an innocent, then the crime is enormous.
The scandalous does the office of Satan, for he leads souls to sin and hell. Against him are the most terrible words of Jesus Christ: "And he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh." (Saint Matthew, 18, 6-7) 

The seriousness of the scandal varies depending on the circumstances. It depends on:
1º the intention of the scandalous and of the malice that he puts in the act.
2º the influence he has on the listeners or neighbors; the greater the authority, the greater the gravity.
3º the number of people scandalized.
4º the gravity of the sin to which it gives occasion.

227.- Consequences of the scandal.- The seriousness of the scandal is also measured by the deplorable consequences it entails. So fearsome are these that Jesus Christ said: “And if thy hand, or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thy eye scandalizes thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two eyes to be cast into the fire of Hell.” (Saint Matthew, XVIII, 8-9).

The scandalous steals from God the souls created by Him and redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, of infinite price, that is why Fray Luis of Granada said that the scandalous desecrates the Blood of Jesus Christ. Scandal is such a senselessness thing that only in a moment of blind passion can someone assume the enormous responsibility that this crime holds.

228.- Rules relating to the scandal.- 
1st In no case is it allowed to scandalize directly or indirectly with a bad work.
2nd It is never lawful to do evil to avoid a passive scandal of others, because you cannot do evil to get good.
3ª To prevent purely passive scandal, there is no obligation to sacrifice temporary goods of any value unless it is an extreme or very serious need. An employer is not obliged to rise the accorded salary although he foresees that a worker would blaspheme if he does not meet the worker’s unjust requirements.
4ª Sometimes it can be lawful to omit a work of precept to avoid scandal. As would be the case of a young woman who occasionally refrained from going to Mass on Sunday, for not giving occasion of sin to a certain person. 
[It cannot be understood. If her life or integrity is in serious danger, it is obvious that she is excused but she must look for help. Nobody can avoid going to Mass on Sundays because the dirtiness that other has in his heart].

5ª Concerning the scandal to weak or fainthearted, it should be avoided, because of charity, whenever possible when it is without great annoyance or serious prejudice, to avoid spiritual harm. 
Unless just cause, especially if the passive scandal is born of ignorance, it is advisable to omit, for some time, certain actions that are indifferent in themselves, and even good, if they are not mandatory.
6ª Regarding the Pharisaic scandal, no one is obliged – to avoid it – to omit any good act, or to sacrifice a spiritual or temporal good, since it is born only of the malice of the scandalized.
7th There will rarely be a serious obligation to avoid the scandal of a corrupted man; for example, of an inveterate blasphemous.
[We can't stop him from blaspheming, but we must avoid his company]

229.- Reparation of the scandal.- The scandalous is seriously obliged – sometimes because of charity, sometimes because of justice – to repair, as far as possible, the spiritual damages and even the material ones that he has caused.

He is obliged to do so by charity, if the scandalized sinned because of him; and he is bound by justice, if he used unjust means to make him commit a fault; or, if by his employment or position, he had the obligation to avoid scandal. If it was public, there must be public reparation.

According to the cases, he who caused any scandal must use proportionate and effective means to repair the damage, to pray to God for those whom he led to evil and to try to bring them to the path of virtue, with good examples and healthy counsels. He has serious reason to devote himself to the apostolate of souls and to compensate God for those he has lost.
In any case, the effects of the scandal can rarely be properly repaired. The spiritual damage caused is largely irreparable; experience shows that many of the scandalized victims do not return to the good way.

230.- Apostolate of good example.- The example has a lot of strength over the will; the will feels subjugated and dragged by the examples that have impressed her. If scandal wreaks disastrous havoc on souls, so too, good example drags and shapes heroes. This is why the lives of Saints and great men are a source of moral energy. Hence the immense influence of life and the examples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to earth to serve as a model for us and to lead so many souls after himself.

"The good example," said St. Bernard, "is a living and effective preaching." St. Francis and his early friars attracted more souls to God with the effectiveness of their examples than with the sermons they preached, and yet, today, they have a special appeal to the heterodox who come to know them, and are magnets that attract great personalities to the fold of the Church.

Friar Luis of Granada says that, "going through the history of the first centuries of the Church, anyone is easily convinced that it has been spread, enriched and multiplied much more without comparison by means of the good examples of the Saints, than by the influence of the most eloquent men".
There is no man who doesn’t owe others to be a good example to them; but particularly obliged are the parents with respect to their children, the masters with their servants and dependents, the patrons with their workers, the parish priests and priests with their parishioners and entrusted to them, the religious with the general public, and the good Catholics with the weak, lost and newly converted.

EXAMPLES.-
1. To the reading of the life of St. Anthony abbot and other monks of Egypt, St. Augustine owed his final conversion. To the examples of the Saints owed St. Ignatius of Loyola his conversion [And where do we find copies of that book of examples of Saints that converted him, "The Flowers of the Saints"? He said, as he read those lives (e.g. from my memory): "St. Francis did this, so I'm going to do the same. Saint Dominic did that, so I will too."]

2. Frederick Ozanam, before consecrating himself entirely to the divine service, entered a church in Paris and found a venerable old man kneeling in a corner, praying the Rosary. He was the great wise man Ampère. He used to say afterwards: "Ampère's Rosary has done me greater good than all the books and all the sermons."

3. The example of his teachers, who were the Jesuit Fathers, attracted St. Louis of Gonzaga [Saint Aloysius] to the Society of Jesus. A former student of the Marist Brothers [friars] said about his former teacher: "When we saw him approaching the Sacred Table [in fact it is not a Table, it is an Altar] with his head bowed and his face illuminated, we wanted to become Brothers to resemble him."

4. In 1950, an Indian leader said, at the university meeting in Madras. "Gentlemen, without realizing it we think and speak in Catholic... this is due to the direct and profound influence that missionaries exert in this country."

5. When Saint Francis of Borja went to Évora, The infant (prince) Don Enrique (then, king), cardinal and archbishop of the city, made him preach in the cathedral, and, as the Saint excused himself because tiredness and illness, the cardinal replied: "I do not want you to preach, but to go up to the pulpit, and that everyone sees him who has left everything he had for God."

6. It is said that Saint Francis of Assisi went out with a friar one day, saying, "Let's preach." And they took a walk around the town, praying the beads of the Rosary with modesty. Having finished he walk, the companion said to San Francisco: "Father, were not you going to preach? "We have already preached," the Saint replied. In his Rule he had said: "All friars shall preach with works and example."

[There is someone reputed in the Church who says that humans are "half gods (speaking badly)". I want clarify this with my reasoning, and I insist, I am not an authority neither do I pretend to be anything. God created us to His image and likeness. Because man has the life of the vital breath that God breathed in him.

"And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. " (Gen 2:7). 
And He gave man lordship over the animals. That is why I think we are image of God, for having a soul (God is Spirit, and God the Son was made man) and we resemble Him because we have that lordship over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky and especially any animal that is over the earth, and every tree and plant with seed that exists on the face of the whole earth was given to us as food (man does not have lordship over " the creation" because creation includes angels and Heaven, Saints gain crowns and Our Lady is the Queen of Heaven and Earth because of Her tremendous virtues and perfection, etc.). 
Genesis 1:28-30 “And God blessed them, saying: procreate and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all animal* that moves upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat”

* the bastards of internet wrote: “living creatures” instead of animals, be careful, because satan hates the creation, and wants us to kill and eat each other, we have to protect true science that states we are all humans since the moment of conception.

When, in Psalm 81:6, it says,: "I said, You are gods." It refers to the fact that those who God addressed they were judges (who were even doing wrong) and are gods in the sense they had power over the lives of men with their decisions. But the decisions of those judges must be in accordance with the Law of God, and ours, common people, must too because we are all masters of our spiritual life according to the decisions we take. With our decisions about ourselves we decide where our soul ends the rest of eternity (Heaven or Hell) and we have to adjust our behavior to the Divine Law. And since God regretted having created us when He send the Universal Diluve, so it is with all the promises He makes: He has all the right to revoke them if people do not keep His Law. Read the entire verses of that psalm. And those who will come with Jesus Christ, in the Revelation to Saint John to defeat the beast, etc., they are "called, chosen, and faithful." So instead of twistingly seeking, as many do, a way to dominate with pride and power like "gods" better that they try to be among the called, and elect, and faithful. And when Jesus Christ says that any fully taught disciple will be like his teacher... forming us as Jesus Christ it implies tremendous love and obedience to God the Father. There's no way the devil can