352 GOD IS ALMIGHTY, MERCIFUL, AND INFINITELY BENEFICIENT

YOUCAT Lesson 352

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

Chapter One:  “ You Shall Love the Lord Your God with All Your Heart, and with All Your Soul, and with All Your Mind”

The First Commandment: I am the Lord, your God.  You shall not have strange Gods before me.

352  What is the meaning of the commandment, “I am the Lord, your God” (Exodus 20:2)?

Because the Almighty has revealed himself to us as our God and Lord, we must not place anything above him or consider anything more important or give any other thing or person priority over him.  To know God and to serve and worship him has absolute priority in our life.  [2083-2094, 2133-2134]

God expects us to give him our full faith; we should place all of our hope in him and direct all the strength of our love toward him.  The commandment to love God is the most important of all commandments and the key to all the others.  That is why it stands at the beginning of the Ten Commandments.

“Where God is made great, men and women are not made small: there (also) men and women become great and the world is filled with light.” Pope Benedict XVI September 11, 2006

“By ‘praying’ I do not mean the recitation of prayers that have been learned by heart, but rather simple worship, with or without words; remaining at God’s feet for the purpose and with the intention of worshiping him.”--Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

[2083-2094, 2133-2134]

SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

CHAPTER ONE 
"YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"

2083 Jesus summed up man's duties toward God in this saying: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."( Matthew 22:37; compare Luke 10:27:". . . and with all your strength.")¹ This immediately echoes the solemn call:"Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD."( Deuteronomy 6:4)² –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the "ten words." The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God. –CCC

ARTICLE 1
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.( Exodus 20:2-5; compare Deuteronomy 5:6-9.)³ –CCC

It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."(  Matthew 4:10)⁴  --CCC

"YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE"

2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: "I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: "You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him. . . . You shall not go after other gods."( Deuteronomy 6:13-14)⁵ God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him. –CCC

2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel.( Compare Exodus 19:16-25; Ex 24:15-18.)⁶ The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation "in the image and likeness of God": --CCC

There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt "by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm." We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.( St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone Judaeo 11,1:Patrologia Graeca 6,497.)⁷ --CCC

2086 "The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When we say 'God' we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the beginning and end of his commandments: 'I am the LORD.'"( Roman Catechism 3,2,4.)⁸ --CCC

Faith

2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"( Roman Catechism 3,2,4.)⁹ as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.(  Compare Romans 1:18-32.)¹⁰ Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him. –CCC

2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith: --CCC

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness. –CCC

2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."( Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 751: emphasis added.)¹¹ –CCC

Hope

2090 When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God's love and of incurring punishment. –CCC

2091 The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption: --CCC

By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy. –CCC

2092 There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit). –CCC

IN BRIEF

2133 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5). –CCC

2134 The first commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else. --CCC