313 Q. Which are the Commandments of God? A. The Commandments of God are these ten:
1. I am the Lord thy God, Who brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before
Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness
of any thing that is in Heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor
of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt
not adore them, nor serve them.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
3. Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.
4. Honor thy father and thy mother.
5. Thou shalt not kill.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
*314 Q. Who gave the Ten Commandments? A. God Himself gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, and Christ Our Lord confirmed them.
Lesson 30
ON THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
315 Q. What is the First Commandment? A. The First Commandment is: "I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange gods before Me."
"Strange gods." The Israelites were surrounded on all sides by pagan nations who worshipped idols and false gods, and sometimes by mingling with these people they fell into sin, and, forgetting the true God, worshipped their idols. Sometimes, too, they were at war with these pagan nations, and when defeated were led captive into pagan countries and there fell into the sin of worshipping false gods. It was against this sin that God cautioned His people in the First Commandment. From this sin of idolatry among the Israelites we have an example of the evil results of associating with persons not of the true religion. One would think that the Israelites, knowing the true God, might have converted their pagan neighbors to the true religion by the influence of their teaching and example; but, on the contrary, they lost the true faith themselves, as nearly always happens in such cases. How do we sometimes worship false or strange gods? By making dress, money, honor, society, company, or pleasure our god—that is, by giving up the worship of God and sinning for their sake, and thus making them god, at least for the time being, by giving them our heart, mind, and service.
*316 Q. How does the First Commandment help us to keep the great Commandment of the love of God? A. The First Commandment helps us to keep the great Commandment of the love of God because it commands us to adore God alone.
317 Q. How do we adore God? A. We adore God by faith, hope, and charity, by prayer and sacrifice.
318 Q. How may the First Commandment be broken? A. The First Commandment may be broken by giving to a creature the honor which belongs to God alone; by false worship; and by attributing to a creature a perfection which belongs to God alone.
"Creature"—that is, anything created; anything but God Himself, for all other persons and things have been created. If one knelt before a king and adored him, he would be giving to a creature the honor due to God alone. "False worship"—that is, worshipping God not as He directs us by His Church, but in some ways pleasing to ourselves. For example, to sacrifice animals to God would now be false worship; to offer now any of the sacrifices commanded in the Old Law would be false worship, because all these were figures of the real sacrifice of the Cross and Mass, and were to put the people in mind that one day Christ the promised Redeemer would offer up the one great sacrifice of His own body and blood to blot out all the sins of the world. And now that we have the real sacrifice it would be sinful to use only figures, and it would be a false worship displeasing to God. So, too, all those who leave the true Church to practice a religion of their own have a false worship, for they worship God not as He wishes, but as they wish.