Some lines from lesson 14
SINS OPPOSED TO THE SECOND COMMANDMENT
162.- WHAT THIS COMMANDMENT PROHIBITS.- The second Commandment of the Law of God forbids taking the Holy Name of God in vain, that is, pronouncing it uselessly, for not good reason, without necessity, by habit, by lightness, especially in a moment of anger or impatience, because it is a lack of respect to the Lord. Many times it is used as admiration: great God!, Jesus!, my God!, without any inner affection, and for pure relief. In all these cases, ordinarily it does not pass from venial sin, unless there is formal contempt.
Expressions of courtesy or society are exempted: ‘If God wills’, ‘Go you with God’ (“adios” in Spanish), which accompany, at least virtually, the mental intention they express. However, these usual exclamations, such as: Jesus!, my God!, Holy Virgin!, spoken with affection of the heart, are precious short prayers. God's Name is like a two-edged sword: if we invoke Him in temptations, He wounds the devil; but, if we use it without respect, it hurts ourselves. The same happens with the name of the Saints.
This commandment prohibits, above all, blasphemy, imprecation, perjury, and violation of vows.
163.- BLASPHEMY.- Blasphemy is any word, work or gesture insulting God, His Saints or Religion.
It may be mental (of thought) and oral (of word and deed), depending on whether it does not pass from the mind and heart, or manifested with words or gestures. It is direct if it refers directly to God, it is indirect if it is uttered against Religion or some creature related especially to Our Lord. If it contains any heresy it is heretical.
Direct blasphemy is committed by:
1º Denying God’s infinite perfections or doubting them: ‘God is not good..., If He is just, let Him punish such a thing.’
2º Attributing bad things to Him, saying that He is vindictive, that He is a tyrant, etc.
3º Wishing Him some evil and cursing Him, uttering insults and offences against Him.
4º Speaking of God with mockery and contempt, as Julian the Apostate did when he died: "You won, Galilean!"
[Note: for those who believe they will defeat death, read Isaiah 28:15-20. In addition, Jesus has the keys of death and Hell (Rev 1:18).]
Indirect blasphemy is committed by:
1º Denying the perfections and virtues of the Saints, uttering offensive words to their memory, mocking some of their actions, attributing to them defects that they did not have.
2º Speaking badly or ridiculing what belongs to Religion, to the Church, to Cult, etc., saying, for example, that all religions are good [the no-pope Francis said that all religions led to God, so, does he want to lead us on his path of blasphemy and idolatry?], that it is not true that the Bible is an inspired book ...
Certain expressions must be distinguished from blasphemy, certain more or less low and rude, indecorous, undignified, obscene expressions in their usually unknown origin, but which has some relation with impurity. They are not ordinary blasphemies, because they do not refer to God, but they are bad, scandalous words, contrary to the good education and unworthy of a cultured and respected person.
Therefore, they must be avoided, even if they do not pass from venial sin.
164.- MALICE OF BLASPHEMY.- Blasphemy is a very serious sin, because it results in an insult to God Himself, whose Holiness is infinite. It is a crime against divinity.
According to St. Jerome, blasphemy is such a horrendous evil that any other excess is slight when compared to it. Of the same feeling is St. Thomas Aquinas, who adds that it is the sin of demons and of the damned.
Blasphemy is born of opposition to God's highest perfection, which is His goodness. Other sins may have an excuse, but blasphemy has none. It is always a grave sin, it is a serious sin unless the warning is missing.
Every diligence to avoid this horrendous sin is small.
In an inveterate blasphemer, but which, by the grace of God, is retracted with the confession and the purpose of the amendment, a sudden and unthinkable blasphemy would not go more than venial sin; the same can be said for children, who utter profanity without knowing what they say.
Moral and deliberate blasphemy is a very serious sin severely punished by God even in this world, if He does not always punish it in this life, it is because He has the eternity to do so. In Leviticus (XXIV, 14-16 and 22-23) God commanded that the blasphemer be stoned. Examples of tremendous punishments that we have in history: Sennacherib, before Jerusalem; Nebuchadnezzar, turned irrational; the disastrous deaths of Herod Agrippa; the emperors Julian the Apostate and Michael III “the drunkard” of Constantinople, Arius, Nestorius, Voltaire, etc., and in our times the volcanic catastrophes of Martinique (1902) and Messina (1908); the sinking of the Titanic (1912) in the Atlantic, etc.; that cost the lives of several thousand people.
[Note: it would be great to know the story they quote from Messina and Martinique, about the Titanic I have heard that they had engraved in the engine room a sign that said (my translation): "neither even God sinks it", now I found in the page of The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration that at the launch of the Titanic, May 31, 1911, an employee of the White Star Line, said: "Not even God himself could sink this ship." …Confidence was so high that the owners and builders rejected plans calling for as many as 64 lifeboats. Although the number of lifeboats on the Titanic (20) exceeded government standards, the boats would only accommodate about half of the 2,228 people aboard]
The Lord says in Leviticus (XXIV, 15): Whoever curses his God will carry upon himself his iniquity.
Countless are in our days the examples of blasphemies punished everywhere with sudden deaths, serious accidents, rotten mouths, numb lips, etc.
EXAMPLES: Fatima is not to be trifled with: In the press of 1949 and 1950 the following piece of news was read: During the days of carnival, three students from a Belgian university had the audacity to fake a procession, a parody of those processions that had been done with the pilgrim Virgin of Fatima. In front was one of them in the costume of Our Lady, followed by another with cardinal purple imitating the Cardinal of Lisbon, and, finally, another with an unclean brush, made a gesture of blessing the people.
A girl of few years, seeing this desecration, exclaimed in indignation: "This is indeed a great sin. Our Lady is to punish you."
Shortly afterwards there was a disastrous car accident in Brussels, it collided with great violence against a light pole and its occupants had an instant death. They were the three desecrators.
[Note: they say it was read in the press 2 years probably because in the second, they probably remembered what had happened the previous year]
166.- REPARATION OF BLASPHEMY: When a blasphemy is heard it is highly recommended to oppose a praise to God, at least inwardly: Praise be to God, blessed be God, blessed be His Holy Name. In some places, anti-blasphemy brotherhoods and associations have been formed.
If we truly love God we must not remain mute when we hear any blasphemy. Here are some beautiful examples:
EXAMPLES.- 1. A boy and a girl, barefoot in the countryside, heard a man and a woman blaspheming. Immediately, as they had learned in the catechism, they knelt like little angels, and at every blasphemy they heard, they said: God be praised! The blasphemers fell into the account and repented.
2. In Namur, after a mission, a boy was reprimanded by his father with blasphemies. The boy kneels before him and says, "Father, punish me as much as you want, but do not blaspheme; blasphemy is a horrible sin, as we have been told by the Missionary Fathers." And the blasphemy disappeared from that house.
3. One day when a father was sitting at the table with his children, he uttered blasphemy. An eight-year-old daughter corrected him, saying, "Dad, that's sin," and she burst into tears. Such was the father's impression that he did not utter a blasphemy again.
4. In France, in times of religious persecution, a teacher tried to get a pious child to write a blasphemy on the wax; but the boy took the chalk and wrote, "I believe in God, Almighty Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth."
5. Four children from a school in Tarragona, when they returned home, found some young people singing lewd couplet, interspersed with some blasphemies. At each blasphemy the children repeated together: "God be praised!" As blasphemers were disturbed by being reproved, they chased them and managed to reach one of them, whom they raised in the air, and one of those evil ones said: "If you do not shut up, I will crush you." "Well, I will not be silent, even if you kill me," replied the child, "I have just confessed, and, if you kill me, I will go to Heaven and be a martyr of the anti-blasphemy crusade: Praises be to God!"
6. In Mataró, six students from a Catholic school went to a fair box to shoot the target. As the owner did not succeed in fixing the shotgun, he began to throw toads and snakes through his mouth, to which the boys replied: "Praise be to God!" Seeing the boys that neither the man nor the woman ceased in their blasphemies, at last one student said: "Wow, wow, let's not spend money on this place of so much filth." And they left, leaving them embarrassed.
167.- IMPRECATION.- Imprecation is a kind of blasphemy that consists of invoking the name of God asking for some evil for oneself or for another; eg: ‘May God annihilate you’. But it can also occur without invoking the name of God: ‘Damn you’, ‘the devil take you’. In the first case it is sin against the second Commandment; but in the second case it is rather opposed to the fifth.
Imprecation has the same malice as blasphemy; it is therefore a grave sin; but, if the curse is not sincere, neither grave, nor scandalous, it will be only venial sin.
EXAMPLES: 1. Near the city of Caen (France), on a holiday in 1849, two individuals were blaspheming in a tavern during Mass. Taking a glass of wine in his hand, one of them said, "If there is God, let Him not let me drink from this glass." And at that moment he fell dead of a stroke.
2. Making a speech, a demagogue said, among other horrible blasphemies: "If there is God, let He send an angel to take my life right here." Outraged, a catholic worker approaches him and says: "To a scoundrel like you God does not send an angel; He has commissioned me to give you the answer." And he gave him two tremendous slaps.
168.- PERJURY.- Perjury or false oath, is to swear unnecessarily, or uselessly, or doubting whether what is sworn is true, or adding some curse. It is also perjury to make a fault against the promised faith in an oath. No false or illicit thing can be sworn, for this would be contrary to goodness and truth; neither an iniquity, because justice would be lacking.
God forbids perjury in the Holy Books (Exodus, XX, 7): You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God falsely, for Yahweh will not leave him unpunished who takes His name falsely.
[other versions say ‘in vain’, which is not exactly the same]
Perjury is always a grave sin, because God is put like a witness to a falsehood. To swear with a lie is mortal sin, because of the insult that is done to God. To swear without justice will be mortal sin, according to the matter or malice of the sworn thing. To swear unnecessarily but with truth and justice is a slight sin.
The ungodly and guilty oath made by secret societies, such as Freemasonry, is void. This was declared by [Pope] Leo XII in 1825.
The thoughtlessness and irritating frivolity with which many swear without the proper conditions is worth of severe vituperation: it is a terrible custom that [even done because of costume, it] does not absolve of sin, because of the irreverence it contains and the scandal it produces.
One should not swear what cannot be fulfilled, what comes out of passion, or of a momentary exaltation.
There is no obligation to fulfill the feigned oath, that is, the one in which one pronounces the formula with the intention of not swearing or not being bound to anything. There is a slight sin in that [??¿], if there is no serious harm to another.
[I think that is a ridicule adding of an infiltrated snake. In the case they quote, that person is lying, deceiving and making an oath in vain. Remember the words of The Lord in Saint Matthew 12, 36]
In the ancient discipline of the Church a false oath was ordinarily punished with fasting to bread and water and seven years of penance. Among the canons there was one that said, "If anyone breaks the oath made to his Lord and King, he must do penance for a lifetime in a monastery."
169.- PRACTICAL ADVICE.- Regarding the oath, it is good and prudent to avoid it as long as possible, following the very wise advice of Jesus Christ: "Do not swear in any way: not by heaven, throne of God; nor by the earth, pedestal of his feet; nor for Jerusalem,... not even by the head... Say simply: yes, yes; no, no." But if you swear, you will keep your commandments to the Lord. (Read S. Mat., V, 33-37).
Keep in mind what the jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria said: "If you are asked to swear the truth today, promise that you will swear tomorrow; and if tomorrow they ask you again, delay it for the day after tomorrow: who knows if you will avoid having to swear?"
Take an oath only out of absolute necessity or true utility, trying to enter into as few obligations as possible.
[So, God became man and spoke to us, and it turns out to these infiltrated snakes that His Words are mere "a very wise advice"! And on top of that they put the advice of an individual who teaches you to promise by lying for not knowing how to be consistent with what he thinks. In addition, between the Words of Jesus and the biblical quotation they added on their own "but if you swear, you will fulfill ..."]
170.- VIOLATION OF VOTES.- It is not enough to make vows; the important thing is to keep them.
"If you made any vow to God, do not take long to fulfill it, for He dislikes the unfaithful and reckless promise. Therefore, fulfill what you have promised, for it is much better not to make vows than to make them and not to fulfill them" (Eccles., V, 3-4).
The violation of a vow is mortal or venial sin, depending on the gravity of the matter or the cases in question. If someone binds himself under mortal sin, he commits grave sin if he does not fulfill it. If someone has obliged himself under slight fault, he will incur in a slight fault if he does not fulfill the vow. When someone does not know whether he was compelled under grave or minor sin, it is assumed that the guilt will be proportionate to the matter of the vote.
The obligation to vote subsists for as long as it was made for, unless dispensation has been obtained, or its fulfillment becomes impossible.
A CASE.- John promises to pray the Rosary daily for a month, but he omits it, by forgetfulness, or something else, a few days, does he commit serious sin? No, because it has only omitted a non-important part. [note: "something else"... "a few days"... how many? Take the advice with tweezers.]
A distinction must be made between vote, promise, offer and purpose. The promise carries with it the obligation to fulfill what is promised; but the vote contains a much more serious compromise. On the other hand, the offering of a thing is not even a promise, because it is not done with the intention of obliging oneself under sin to fulfill it. The purpose or intention of doing this or that good deed does not imply obligation.
[Regarding an offering, for example: ‘God, I offer You to pass this illness without complaints’… remember what Saint Therese of Avila, Doctor of the Church said: do not be like those that put a jewel in the hand of God and then takes it away.