THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
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Lesson 10 of THE CATHOLIC MORAL, Religion 5th course. Editorial Luis Vives.
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To love God above all things; or also: You will have no other God but Me (Ex., XX, 3)
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THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
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109.- What this Commandment commands.- God in this Commandment commands us to recognize, adore, love and serve Him as the only and sovereign Lord.
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God says in Exodus (XX, 2-3): "I am Yahweh (the Lord), your God... You will have no other God but Me." And in the Deuteronomy, Moses expresses himself thus: “Hear, Israel: Yahweh, our God, is the only Yahweh (the only Lord), you will love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength” (VI, 4-5). We express the same thing by saying: You will love God above all things.
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He who loves the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, implicitly manifests that he recognizes only one God and Lord, for he gives all his heart and soul completely to Him.
That only one God of Israel is also the one true God of Christians, and there can be no other God, for there can be only one infinitely perfect being, and this is Yahweh.
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110.- OBLIGATIONS THAT THIS COMMANDMENT IMPOSES.- In the positive aspect, this commandment obliges us to BELIEVE in one true God, to WAIT in Him, to LOVE HIM with all our soul and with all our strength, and to adore Him or tribute Him the supreme cult. That is, this commandment forces us to practice the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity and that of Religion.
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[Next lesson is about the virtue of Religion].
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In the words “I am Yahweh (the Lord), your God”, the following truths are enclosed:
1st That God exists (I am).
2nd He is Lord and creator of all that exists (Yahweh).
3rd That that Lord is God.
4th That God is ours (your God).
5th He is the only God, since He is the Lord of the only world that exists.
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[Note: Lord of Heaven and Earth, of all that is created, of all that is visible and invisible. And besides, only God is infinite.]
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6th That He has the right to impose commandments and duties on us.
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It is the duty of every man to believe that God exists, that He is Creator and Lord of the entire universe world, that everything He has revealed is true, and that He faithfully fulfills His promises.
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111.- PRECEPT OF FAITH.- By faith we are obliged to firmly believe all the revealed truths that the Church teaches us by virtue of the authority She has received from God himself.
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Faith imposes two kinds of obligations on us: some are positive and some are negative. Both are strictly prescribed by Jesus Christ with these words: For everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My heavenly Father. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in Heaven. (Saint Matthew, X, 32-33).
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112.- Reasons of faith.- We have two fundamental reasons to believe the dogmatic truths: the authority and sovereign veracity of God who revealed them and who cannot be deceived, and the infallible magisterium of the Church who cannot make mistakes by virtue of the special assistance that Jesus Christ promised Her. God's testimony begets the absolute certainty of our Faith, because it is essentially infallible.
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[Note: it happens as with mathematics, any law that is discovered has to fit perfectly with the previous ones already discovered, otherwise, it is rejected as false. The Church was founded perfectly by Jesus Christ and then she was helped to be built by the angels and the Founding Fathers…, in a perfect way, and the Magisterium of the Church can never say, or command anything that goes against Jesus Christ’s Word or the Founding Fathers. You may ask: then, is the Magisterium infallible or not? Yes, that of the Church, but I’ve already told you many times that many of us have been changed by clones or impostors, we are up to the eyebrows of false priests, false bishops and false cardinals, without consecration or, probably, without Baptism, therefore they are not part of the Church. And if they have been given Baptism, but they are still impostors, or at some point they became traitors, they are not in a state of Grace, they are in mortal sin and according to the Holy Tradition. Anyone who is in mortal sin should not even be able to enter the church except to confess and therefore change his life. A dully ordained priest can administrate the Sacraments independently of the state of his soul, but, those vipers that come to our Catholic schools since kindergarten and they are trained all their life to be infiltrated, in my opinion, when they are “ordained priests” the ordination is invalid because they do not have Faith in Jesus as God, which is essential to be part of the Church.
And anyone who is not baptized, he cannot enter in a Church except for a few steps to be baptized, so the Baptismal Font was always next to the door, now they put it next to the presbytery. Jesus Christ has already warned us that he who does not enter through the door but climbs up another way to enter in the fold of the sheep, he is a thief and a robber and comes to destroy, and kill and steal, I believe we cannot accept the magisterium of a robber because he comes, precisely, to destroy the Magisterium of the Church. Please read the Messages of Our Lady of the Roses for example that of 1975.Dec.27 . In www.tldm.org you will something because many words and paragraphs have been changed or erased, for example the blessings of Sacramentals in every vigil or even the word AMEN when the Signal of the Cross was made.]
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113.- OBJECT OF FAITH.- The truths that every adult must know and believe explicitly to save himself are the object of Faith, some are by necessity of means, and others by need of precept. He who does not know or believe the former cannot be saved, even if he ignores them by no fault of his own. On the other hand, he who does not know the latter can be saved, if his ignorance is not guilty.
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The truths that must be believed by necessity of means are:
1st That there is one God, creator of all things.
2nd That after death there is another life, in which God rewards the good ones and punishes the bad ones.
3rd The mysteries of the Holy Trinity, Incarnation and Redemption.
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They are of necessity of precept: All the truths that are contained in the Creed; the Commandments of the Law of God and the Church, that we all have to comply with; the Sacraments to be received, especially Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist; and the Lord's Prayer.
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These truths must be believed with explicit faith; but, in addition, we must implicitly believe everything that the Church believes and teaches.
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When we come to the use of reason we are obliged to do acts of Faith inwardly, such as praying the Creed. Implicit acts, such as praying, hearing Mass, to Communicate, etc., they are usually sufficient.
It is never allowed to deny the Faith and we must confess it publicly when necessary.
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114.- PRECEPT OF HOPE.- Because of Hope in God and, based on His promises, we expect from Him what we need, because He is not only infinitely good, but also omnipotent.
We must have absolute confidence that God will faithfully fulfill His promises, especially those concerning eternal life and the graces necessary to achieve it.
We are obliged to make acts of hope since we reach the full use of reason, especially when we need some grace, and in temptations against this virtue. He who prays fulfills this duty, for in so doing he shows virtual hope.
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115.- OBJECT OF HOPE.- The goods that God has promised are the object of Hope, namely: Eternal glory, that is, the possession of God, and the means necessary to achieve it, mainly the forgiveness of sins, through contrition and confession, and divine grace, and even the same temporal goods , as we use them for salvation.
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116.- REASONS FOR HOPE.- Our hope is founded:
1st In the omnipotence and goodness of God, Who can, and wants, to give us all the goods He has promised us.
2nd In His fidelity to fulfill the promises.
3rd In the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, which are the meritorious cause of all the acts we do and all the goods that God grants us.
4th In the good works of each of us, none of which will remain without reward.
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117.- PRECEPT OF CHARITY.- The precept of charity encloses two duties: To love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves by God. But in the First Commandment only the first of these duties is attended to, for love of neighbor is the object of the Fourth Commandment and those who follow it.
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We must love God above all things, that is, to prefer Him to all creatures and be willing to lose our life rather than to offend Him. Being He the most perfect Being, He deserves to be extremely loved with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our strength. We have an obligation to recognize Him in fact, as our God and sovereign Lord.
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We must do acts of love to God, when confessing, when communicating, in temptations, when we need most of the special help of the actual grace [Actual grace derives its name, ‘actual’, from the Latin ‘actualis (ad actum)’, for it is granted by God for the performance of salutary acts and is present and disappears with the action itself], in the hour of death, etc. It is usually fulfilled implicitly by doing acts of contrition, praying the Lord’s Prayer, etc.
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118.- REASONS TO LOVE GOD.- We must love God:
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1º For being Him who He is: The highest Good, infinite Goodness, absolute Perfection.
2º Because He loves us infinitely and we must reciprocate as much as we can
3º For the benefits, graces and favors that He does to us continuously.
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The first reason leads us to the love of benevolence, that is, to love Him seeking only the good of the Beloved.
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The second is a sign of mutual love or love of friendship; there is correspondence to the love of God.
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The third is manifestation of the love of concupiscence, or self-interested love. This love is imperfect charity. The love of benevolence is the most perfect: it is true holiness.
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Works are the best sign of our love to God, the keeping of the Commandments: “if you love Me, you will keep My Commandments... He that hath My Commandments, and keepeth them; he is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” (John, XIV, 15 and 21).
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[Note: Read St. Jn 14,21 " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."
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And in the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 14,24 we also read: “He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me.”
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Please also read St John 15,15]
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We must love God because He is God and because He is infinitely kind. "He who truly loves you, my God," said Saint Magdalena of Pazzi, "sees that You are so great and so infinitely kind, that it is great martyrdom to see that You are not loved as and as much we would like to love You, and that You are not loved, but instead offended by Your creatures."
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We must also love Him because He is the supreme beauty, the greatest goodness and infinite science; for He loves us infinitely, and as a sign of gratitude for the general and particular goods He dispenses to us.
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"One thing I cannot understand," said St. Anthony Claret, "how, loving God us so much, men love Him so little... If we give a piece of bread to a dog, he immediately makes funny, showing himself grateful; and, giving us God as many goods as we enjoy, how can we not love Him and be so ungrateful?"
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[Note: we must meditate this because God is Just. When the lack of everything comes, remember how He was offended when there was everything.
Many would say, "it's a cyclical thing, peace and war, good and bad” but there is no scientific proof that things must come in a cyclical way, instead there is proof of human idiocy: already in the Old Testament God complained that they disobeyed Him and only after punishing them they behaved well for a little while, then… back to offend Him so He had to send more punishments... When the Saint Priest of Ars convinced his parishioners to respect Sundays, their harvests were ALWAYS good.
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Do not repeat the foolish saying: "whenever it rained, then it stopped", because after the Universal Flood (there is archaeological evidence that it occurred), and after the chastisement to Sodom and Gomorrah (there is also scientific evidence because some compounds of the soil, some meters under the surface, there are melted, and they only melt at extremely high temperatures), I continue: after the universal flood only one family survived, yes, those chastisements stopped, but where did most of people go?]