Christopher Wendt: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the February broadcast from the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima. Good evening, Your Excellency.
His Excellency: Good evening.
Christopher Wendt: Tonight’s broadcast is a catechism lesson from His Excellency on the Ten Commandments. I just want you to know that normally we have a tech guy who handles the broadcast. I am going to do the very best I can. But without further ado, Your Excellency, could you lead us with a prayer?
His Excellency: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Christopher Wendt: I would also like to add, before His Excellency begins, that I am broadcasting here from the Philippines, on the island of Leyte, where we have a very active center. I am in the chapel of a place called the House of Mama Mary. The House of Mama Mary is a catechetical center where about 80 elementary school children are learning the Baltimore Catechism and the true faith. I want to thank all of you donors for your support of these missionary activities that we do in the Philippines. Without further ado, Your Excellency.
His Excellency: We now begin a new section of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, focusing on the theme of the commandments of God, the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments of God, also called the Decalogue, summarize all laws. St. Augustine says that although the Lord spoke many things, He gave Moses only two tablets, known to Catholics as the Tablets of the Testimony. These were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. If carefully examined, whatever else is commanded by God will be found to depend on the Ten Commandments, which were engraved on those tablets. Just as these Ten Commandments, in turn, are reducible to two commandments, the lack of which parts and labor defend the whole law.
Before we proceed, let us look at the motive for obeying the commandments. God is the giver of the commandments. Among all the reasons that move man to obey this law, the strongest is that God is its author. Although it is said that the law was delivered by the angel, no one can doubt that its author is God Himself. Man is conscious that the law is inscribed on his heart by God, teaching him to distinguish good from evil, virtue from vice, and justice from injustice.
The force and meaning of this unwritten law do not conflict with the written law. God is the author of the written law, as He is also the author of the unwritten law, the natural law. Even though the Mosaic laws were abrogated by the new and everlasting covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ, the precepts of the Decalogue remain valid and still obligatory. We are not bound to obey the commandments because they were delivered by Moses, but because they are implanted in the heart of man and explained and confirmed by our Lord Jesus Christ.
When God, by His prophets, commands that the law be observed, He proclaims that He is the Lord God. The Decalogue itself opens with these words: I am the Lord your God.
It has been made clear to us that God is the foundation on which our eternal covenant depends. This understanding not only encourages people to observe the commandments but also calls forth their gratitude toward God. Scripture, recalling this great blessing, admonishes the people to recognize their own dignity in the bounty of the law.
Thus, in the book of Deuteronomy, it is said that the law brings peaceful wisdom and understanding to the sight of nations. When these precepts are observed, people may say, “Behold a wise and understanding people, a great nation.” The psalm also states that God has not done this for every nation, nor made His judgments manifest to them.
The commandments of God were proclaimed with great solemnity. All were commanded by God that for three days before the giving of the commandments and the law, people should wash their garments and practice sexual abstinence so that they might be more holy and better prepared to receive the law. On the third day, they were to be in readiness.
When they reached the mountain from which the law was to be delivered by Moses, only Moses was commanded to ascend the mountain.
God came to the mountain with great majesty, filling the place with thunder, lightning, and fire. Then He spoke to Moses and delivered the commandments to him. This divine wisdom had the purpose of admonishing us that the law of the Lord should be received with a pure and humble mind. Any neglect of His commands invites the chastisements of Divine justice.
The observance of the Ten Commandments is not difficult, as St. Augustine says. He asks if it can be impossible for man to love, to desire to love, to love an efficient Creator, a most loving Father, and to love his brethren as his own flesh. The law has been found, and the Apostle John expressed that the commandments of God are not burdensome. Nothing more just could be required of man, and nothing could give him a more exalted dignity or greater advantage than these commands.
If anyone uses human weakness to excuse himself from loving God, he should consider that our love works in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the author of this love. The Holy Spirit is given by our heavenly Father to those who trust in Him with faith, granting them strength to obey what God commands and desires. We should thank God, who is always ready to help us.
Since the redeeming death of Christ on the cross, by which the prince of this world was cast out, there is no reason why anyone could be excused by the difficulty of observing the commandments. For him, nothing is difficult. The observance of the Ten Commandments is necessary. The Apostle Paul says, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments.” He teaches against false doctrines. Paul says, “You are a new creature in Christ,” and only through Christ can one be saved.
Paul means that God loves those who serve Him by observing His commandments. As Our Lord Himself testifies in Saint John, “Anyone who loves me will keep my commandments.” A person who truly keeps the commandments may be justified and become righteous before God. To be justified, one must fulfill each commandment. However, no one who has reached the use of reason can be justified unless he is resolved to obey all of God’s commandments.
The observance of the commandments is accompanied by many blessings. The Psalmist celebrates and praises the divine law. The highest praise of the law is that it proclaims the glory and majesty of God more eloquently than even the heavenly bodies, whose beauty and order excite the admiration of all, even the most uncivilized, and compel them to acknowledge the glory, wisdom, and power of the Creator.
The law of the Lord also converts and guides us, moving us to follow the ways of God, His holy will. This law tunes our steps into the race of God. The law also gives wisdom and spiritual life, but only to those who love God and are truly alive in Him. Hence, the observance of the law by faith is living and filled with knowledge of divine mysteries, holiness, and spiritual rewards, both of which inspire and increase our love in observing the law.
Our own advantage is simple: the law reveals God’s will to man. If other creatures obey God’s will, how much more reasonable is it that man should follow? God’s goodness invites us to His commands. God desires to display His mercy and the riches of His goodness. Indeed, man’s nature compels us to serve His glory even without the law. Yet God has united His glory with our salvation by commanding what tends to His honor and leads to our salvation.
Not only are we promised God’s blessings, but the Scripture says we will be “pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” The gospel, aided by divine mercy, is merited by our holy and faithful observance of the law. When God promulgated the law to the people of Israel, He said, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The commandments included prohibitions against idolatry, taking God’s name in vain, and other sins.
The law delivered to the Jews by the Lord was long before written and impressed by nature on the heart of man, and therefore was made universally binding by God for all men and all times. Before Israel received the law after their deliverance from Egypt, and as they journeyed through the wilderness, God prepared them through memory, reason, and experience so they might be better disposed to receive His law.
From all of this, we learn that the more a faithful heart is detached from the allurements of the world and the pleasures of sin, the more disposed it becomes to accept heavenly doctrine.
Let us now make a summary. What are our duties today? We must follow and be directed by this command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” We must strive to know, love, and serve God in this life to be happy with Him in the next.
We must also put on the new man, as Saint Paul says, by ridding ourselves of error and imperfect attachments to worldly things. We must conform ourselves to the new life of God’s grace in us, remembering that he who grows in iniquity injures his own soul and offends God.
Therefore, what are our duties to our neighbor? We must observe the second commandment, which is like the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We must act for our neighbor’s good and, above all, for his eternal salvation. “Love one another,” says the Lord, “as I have loved you.”
The commandments were given on the fifteenth day after the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. When giving them, God prefaced them with the solemn declaration: “I am the Lord your God.” The Ten Commandments were written by God on stone tablets to indicate that they were not new but rather an amplification of the natural law already written in the hearts of men.
They are called the Commandments of God because He is their author. They are also known as the Decalogue, which means “ten words.” It must be noted that the Catholic Church, acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has slightly adapted the Decalogue within a Christian context.
The Jewish Decalogue, given on Mount Sinai, consists of the following precepts: the command to worship no god but the true God, the prohibition against the worship of images, the command not to take God’s name in vain, the command to keep holy the Sabbath, the command to honor one’s parents, and the prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting others’ goods. The Catholic Church combines the prohibition of image worship with the first commandment and divides the final commandment about coveting into two: one forbidding coveting a neighbor’s wife, and the other forbidding coveting a neighbor’s goods. This is done so that the Christian faithful may show due respect for both aspects of that command.
The command to keep holy the Sabbath has been changed to the precept of sanctifying Sunday, the Lord’s Day. The Jewish belief that the five laws were inscribed on each of the two tablets is prophetic. The first five commandments express duties toward God and His representatives; the latter five express duties toward one’s neighbor.
Moreover, when Our Lord responded to the rich young man, He began with the commandment against murder and listed the last five commandments, which in the Jewish Decalogue correspond to the last six in the Christian version.
We Christians are bound to observe the Ten Commandments of the law not only because God has imprinted them upon the human heart, but also because Christ confirmed and perfected them. The Ten Commandments are binding on us all.
The commandments were imprinted on the heart of every man. It was only because the divine light in man had been obscured by evil ways and corrupt memories that the law of the Lord was given on Mount Sinai. What man could no longer read in his own heart, God wrote anew in stone.
Christ reiterated this truth when He spoke to the rich young man, and in the Sermon on the Mount, He amplified the commandments. For example, He deepened the understanding of the second commandment by declaring unnecessary oaths to be sinful. He extended the meaning of the fifth and eighth commandments by condemning hatred, and calumny, and even taught the love of our enemies. He clarified the sixth commandment by condemning not only the act of impurity but also the evil desire itself.
The commandments of God are arranged in a divine order. The first three concern our duty to God, who is our supreme ruler. In the first commandment, He requires our worship, fidelity, and respect. This is a perpetual duty, for God is our greatest benefactor. The fourth commandment transitions to our duty toward His representatives on earth, such as parents and lawful authorities.
The remaining six commandments express our obligations toward our fellow man. The fifth protects life, the sixth purity, the seventh property, the eighth truth and honor, and the ninth and tenth govern the inner desires of the heart, ensuring justice and integrity even in thought.
Whoever keeps all these commandments receives great rewards from God, both on earth and after death. He may look forward to the eternal holy city as his inheritance. God has ordained that these commandments be the very means by which we obtain everlasting happiness.
As Scripture says, godliness has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. The person who keeps God’s commandments builds his house upon a rock. When the storms of life come, that house will not be overthrown. It is only by crossing the bridge of obedience that one can enter heaven. If that bridge has ten arches, representing the Ten Commandments, then it must remain whole and intact.
If we are rewarded on earth for our obedience, our reward in heaven will be even greater, a recompense surpassing all our hopes and expectations, without limit and without end. But both temporal and eternal consequences await the man who deliberately violates even a single one of these commandments.
He who transgresses the commandments will face both temporal and eternal punishment. The house of a person who does not observe the commandments of God is built on sand and will be destroyed. The lightning and smoke on Mount Sinai are symbolic of the fire that will be the penalty for those who violate God’s law.
As Saint James says in his letter, “Whoever shall keep the whole law but offend in one point, is guilty of all.” The reason is that all the commandments are united; they form one whole. They are so closely linked that one cannot be upheld without the other. He who violates one commandment transgresses the foundation on which the entire law is built.
In this, they are like a stringed instrument, one broken string ruins the entire melody. Or like the human body, if one member is diseased, the whole body suffers and may even die. Likewise, if a city is guarded in every area but one, the enemy may enter through that unguarded part.
Keeping the commandments is not beyond our strength, as long as God helps us. Our Lord says to His followers, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Saint John reminds Christians that “God’s commandments are not burdensome.” The burden may be heavy in itself, but God assists us with His grace if we ask for help.
Saint Augustine says, “When God lays a commandment upon you, He requires you to do all that you can, and what you cannot do, He helps you to accomplish.” If you entrust yourself to Him, He will enable you to fulfill it. As Saint Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Moreover, the example of the saints has gone before us all who have striven to keep the commandments of God and to love Him.
Christopher Wendt: Thank you, Your Excellency, for that reflection and overview of the commandments of God.
I don’t have any questions at this time, so I think we’ll have a shorter class today, and we’ll conclude with the Prayer for Holy Popes.
His Excellency: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! Kyrie Eleison! Lord Jesus Christ,
You are the Good Shepherd! With Your almighty hand, You guide Your pilgrim Church through the storms of each age.
Adorn the Holy See with holy popes who neither fear the powerful of this world nor compromise with the spirit of the age, but preserve, strengthen, and defend the Catholic Faith unto the shedding of their blood, and observe, protect, and hand on the venerable liturgy of the Roman Church.
O Lord, return to us through holy popes who, inflamed with the zeal of the Apostles, proclaim to the whole world: “Salvation is found in no other than in Jesus Christ. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which they should be saved” (see Acts 4:10-12).
Through an era of holy popes, may the Holy See, which is home to all who promote the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, always shine as the cathedra of truth for the whole world. Hear us, O Lord, and through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Church, grant us holy Popes, grant us many holy Popes! Have mercy on us and hear us! Amen.
Dominus vobiscum.
Christopher Wendt: Et cum spiritu tuo.
His Excellency: Et benedictio Dei Omnipotentis: Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper. Amen.
Praise be Jesus Christ!
Christopher Wendt: Now and forever!
That concludes our broadcast for this evening. In March, we will return to a question-and-answer format. If you would like to begin sending in your questions, you may do so now. Until next time, Ave Maria.
