By JOE SIXPACK
The Fourth Commandment is: “Honor your father and your mother.” This commandment obliges us to respect our parents, help them in their needs, and to obey them in all that is not sinful.
In the days prior to the Communist takeover of China, an old missionary priest stood before a group of his first communicants on the morning of their First Holy Communion and spoke to them about the dangers that are in the world, and showed them how a Christian who carries Jesus in his heart is able to resist these temptations.
He related the story of Tarcisius who, when only 13 years old, during a horrible Roman persecution courageously offered to carry Jesus to his fellow Christians in prison, who were to die the next day.
He carried the Hosts in a linen cloth on his chest with his arms crossed over it. On his way to the prison he was stopped by a crowd of boys. One among them, who had once been a Christian, knew what Tarcisius carried and told his pals to rob the boy of his God. Tarcisius kept his arms firmly folded over his breast. When the boys began to beat him, Tarcisius said, “I cannot, I dare not. I carry my God with me.”
Tarcisius fell dead under his persecutors’ blows. He never surrendered his God.
At Communion time, Albert was the last in line. The old missionary’s hands began to shake as Albert approached. With a fervent prayer on his lips, he hesitantly gave the boy Communion. Albert was the son of a burglar. Only a few days before his father had come home from jail, and his mother died long ago.
When the celebration was over, no one was waiting for Albert. He remained alone in a corner of the church and prayed, “O Jesus, let me be like Tarcisius. I carry you in my heart. Never let me give you up; never let me surrender.”
When Albert got home, his father met him with scornful words. He even wanted the boy to stand lookout for him the following night when he planned to pull off the burglary of a rich man’s house. But Albert said, “I cannot, I dare not. I carry God in my heart.”
The father beat the boy until he was a bloody pulp. Neighbors heard the boy’s screams and ran to his rescue. They found Albert dying, so they called the priest. When he arrived, with his arms crossed over his heart Albert whispered to the old priest, “Father, don’t worry; I didn’t give up Jesus. I didn’t surrender.” Then he died in the missionary’s arms.
What a wonderful son Albert would have been to his father, if the man hadn’t been a criminal. Any man would be proud to have a son like Albert. Any boy who preferred death to mortal sin, especially while Jesus was still in him, would be a son any father could be proud to have. And Albert perfectly obeyed the Fourth Commandment; he refused to obey his father in a sinful act. The opposite is implied by his actions; that he would have otherwise been very obedient.
“The divine fatherhood is the source of human fatherhood; this is the foundation of the honor owed to parents. The respect of children, whether minors or adults, for their father and mother is nourished by the natural affection born of the bond uniting them. It is required by God’s commandment” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2214).
Children are to show their love and respect by speaking and acting with gratitude, trying to please their parents, readily accepting corrections, seeking parental advice in important matters, and praying for their parents. Likewise, grown children are obliged to continue in the respect of their parents, and they are to give both material and moral support when their parents are in need.
The Fourth Commandment forbids disobedience toward parents and every form of disrespect, unkindness, stubbornness, spitefulness, wishing them evil, and violence. All of these are obvious implications of the Fourth Commandment, but it’s sad that they have to be mentioned at all. The decline and destruction of the modern family is the primary cause of the decline and destruction of modern society. We lack the space to go into all the causes of family decline, but I’ll at least mention a few here for you to think about.
It’s terribly destructive and sad that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Divorce rates soared when so-call no-fault divorces were allowed nationwide. We had long been a throwaway society of material things, but no-fault divorce turned marriage into a throwaway item. In turn, this made our children throwaways as well. People think children are resilient, and they are, but the damage caused to a child through divorce is the most overlooked form of child abuse. Very close to 100 percent of convicted felons are products of broken homes.
The throwaway culture is seen in the culture of death. Abortion and artificial contraception send the subliminal message to both spouses and children that they’re disposable, yet we allow it to continue in the case of abortion, and over 90 percent of Catholic couples live in a state of mortal sin by practicing contraception.
It’s illegal to use corporal punishment to discipline children in many jurisdictions, and many parents fear arrest, incarceration, and the loss of their families if they use this much-needed form of discipline. Children, particularly young children, fail to learn that there are consequences to bad decisions when corporal punishment isn’t allowed. Add this to the fact that society no longer goes by any code of moral norm and you have generations of young people who find nothing wrong with every form of evil that is today considered “normal”: homosexuality, abortion, cheating, stealing, lying, sex outside of marriage, et cetera.
The drastic changes in our culture and society since the Second World War — rebellion to authority, wives working outside the home, rejection of any public display of faith, etc. — have led to a doomed future for the American family…unless we return to the established divine moral norms called the Ten Commandments.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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