Catholic Replies

• 3 years ago

Editor’s Note: Due to the pandemic, we were unable to hold weekly classes for 22 tenth-grade Confirmation students. So instead of using our regular text, Catholicism & Life, which covers the Commandments and Sacraments, we prepared a series of 14 lessons on the material, with a summary of each commandment and sacrament along with some questions to answer, and sent them to the students to complete and return to us. To their credit, they did complete the assignment, and we were able to discuss the material with them at a retreat a few weeks before they were confirmed.

It occurred to us that this material might be of interest to our readers, so we are passing the lessons along for whatever use you can find for them, even if it’s just for your own edification. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well, so please send them along and we will interrupt this series to answer them. See the postal mailing address and email at the bottom of this column.

Special Course On Catholicism And Life – III

The Ten Commandments can be summarized in the two great commandments that Jesus talked about: love of God with all our minds, our hearts, our souls, and our strength, and love of neighbor as ourselves. To love neighbor as we love ourself simply means that, just as we would not hurt ourselves physically or emotionally or spiritually, so, too, we would not hurt another person in these ways.

Jesus summed this up with what is known as the “Golden Rule” — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or treat others as you would like them to treat you. Love of God above all else is covered in the first three Commandments, and love of neighbor in the other seven Commandments. The First Commandment spells out our primary obligation to God. “I am the Lord your God,” it says, “you shall not have strange gods before me.” This means that God must come first in our lives and that we owe Him love, adoration, praise, worship, thanksgiving, and petition for those things we need in our lives.

Prayer is an important way of worshiping God, who hears all of our prayers and answers them, but perhaps not in the way we intended. God may not always give us what we want, but He will always give us what we need. His answer to our prayers may be yes, no, or not right now, but He does listen to us. In fact, He knows what we need even before we ask for it. We must always have trust and confidence that God will help us get to Heaven. This is what we mean by the virtue of hope. Two sins against hope are despair, where we doubt that God will save us, and presumption, where we think that God will save us no matter whether we lead sinful lives or not.

If God is first in our lives, then there is no room for putting in place of God such idols as money, power, pleasure, sports, celebrities, and so on. There is no room for superstition, putting our faith in lucky charms, horoscopes, or fortune tellers, or for getting involved in the spirit world (seances) or with the Devil, who is God’s number one enemy. God has given us saints and angels in Heaven to watch over us, especially St. Michael the Archangel, who drove the bad angels out of Heaven.

List Of Answers:

DESPAIR DEVIL GOD HOPE MICHAEL PRAYER PRESUMPTION SAINTS SUPERSTITION

Quiz:

1. The First Commandment obliges us to put________________________ first in our lives.
2. __________ is trust and confidence in God that He will help us get to Heaven.
3. ____________ is doubt that God will save us.
4. ____________ is expecting that God will save us without any effort on our part.
   
   5._____________ is giving to a person or object power that belongs only to God.
5. The _______________ is our Number One enemy.
6. St. _____________ is the angel in Heaven who will protect us from the Devil.
7. ________________ are holy persons in Heaven who are close to God.
   
   9.________________ is a very important way of worshiping God The Second Commandment (“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”) calls us to use the names of God and Jesus with love and reverence. The name Jesus means “Savior,” because He saved us from our sins, and the name Christ means “the anointed one” sent by God to save us. Because the names of God and Jesus are holy, it is sinful to use insulting language about God by saying that He is not fair or just or doesn’t care about us (blasphemy), or by expressing anger or surprise using Jesus’ name (profanity), or by calling down God’s wrath on someone by saying, “God damn you” (cursing), or by using God’s name falsely in a courtroom by lying under oath (perjury). If we are to call ourselves followers of Jesus, we should never use His name in an unholy way, or stand by while someone else repeatedly shouts, “Jesus Christ!” Why is the name of Jesus, the Son of God, the only name in human history that is used as a swear? No one gets mad at another person and yells, “Julius Caesar!” Make sure you never misuse these holy names.

List Of Answers:

ANOINTED ONE

BLASPHEMY

CURSING

PERJURY

PROFANITY

REVERENCE

SAVIOR

Quiz:

1. The names of God and Jesus are to be used with love and ______________.
2. The name Jesus means ______________________
3. The name Christ means the___________________________________________.
4. ___________________ is insulting language expressing contempt for God.
5. _________________ means to call down evil on someone to send them to Hell.
6. ___________________ means using God’s name to express anger.
7. ________________ is lying under oath in a courtroom.