Worship Vs. Idolatry (Catechism Series Part 32) - Auspice Maria Ep 62

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Welcome back to the Auspice Maria podcast. I'm Bishop James Ruggieri of the Diocese of Portland in Maine. And we continue our series on the Catechism, walking through a new section of part three that pertains to the moral life. And we begin this week delving into the Ten Commandments. But before doing so, I'd like to invoke the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as we pray: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

O Holy Spirit, good and gracious, inspire us, enlighten us, open our hearts and minds. Help us to love, help us to love you, and help us to put into practice these wonderful commandments, not as moral limitations, but really as they are meant to be: means to true freedom in Christ. And we ask all this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

So we have been considering the Christian moral life: the dignity of the human person, freedom, conscience, virtue, sin, community, law, grace, and the Church as mother and teacher. Now the Catechism turns to section two of part three, and the focus now is the Ten Commandments. The paragraphs for this episode are 2052 to 2142.

We will first place the Ten Commandments in their proper setting, and then we will begin with the First Commandment, that famous "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me," that comes from the Book of Exodus, Exodus 20, verses 2 to 3.

The Ten Commandments are not merely a list of rules; they are really rooted in relationship. The Catechism begins this section with the rich young man who approaches Jesus and asks, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" It's according to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 16, and can be found in paragraph 2052.

Now Jesus tells him that if he would enter life, he must keep the commandments. Then Jesus invites him to something even deeper. He says, "Come, follow me." Matthew 19:21.

This is important. The commandments are not opposed to discipleship. They actually belong to discipleship. Jesus does not abolish the law. He fulfills it. He reveals its depth, its spirit, and its final meaning in love.

The word Decalogue means "ten words." These words were revealed by God to Israel at Mount Sinai. They were given after the Exodus, after God liberated his people from slavery. That is why the commandments begin not with a command but with the memory of salvation: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt," Exodus chapter 20, verse 2, paragraph 2061 of the Catechism.

This matters for how we understand the moral life. God first acts, God first liberates, God first loves. The commandments come afterward as the way of living in covenant with Him. The Catechism says, "Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative," a quote from paragraph 2062. The commandments teach Israel, and us, how to live as a people set free.

The commandments are personal. God speaks in the singular, "you." The Catechism notes that the commandments are addressed to each person in particular, "you," second person singular, and at the same time to the whole people, the whole people of Israel, and to us today. Each of us is called personally to fidelity, but never in isolation.

The commandments also form a people. They also unite our relationship with God and our relationship with neighbor. The first three commandments concern love of God. The other seven concern love of neighbor. Yet they cannot be separated. The Catechism says, "The Decalogue brings man's religious and social life into unity," a quote from paragraph 2069. We cannot claim to adore God while despising his creatures. We cannot build a just society while excluding God, the source of truth and goodness.

The commandments also belong to the natural law. They are revealed by God, but they also express moral truths engraved in the human heart. The Catechism teaches that they contain "a privileged expression of the natural law," though through right reason the human person can recognize basic moral truths. Yet, because sin darkens reason and weakens the will, God mercifully reveals what we need to know clearly and certainly, reference to paragraph 2071.

This is why the commandments remain binding. The Catechism says they are "fundamentally immutable," and they "oblige always and everywhere," an important quote from paragraph 2072. So the Ten Commandments are not, we could say, cultural artifacts from an ancient people. They reveal what love of God and neighbor requires.

Now let's turn to the First Commandment. Jesus summarizes our duty toward God with the words of Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5. It's quoted by Jesus in Matthew 22, verse 37. And Jesus' words, of course, echo the Shema, that famous prayer that faithful Jews will say every day, the quote from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone."

The First Commandment begins with God's saving action. God says, "I brought you out of the land of Egypt," Exodus 20, verse 2. Because God has revealed himself as the one true God and the great liberator of his people, the first and just response of the human person is worship. The Catechism says, "God's first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him," from paragraph 2084.

Worship is not flattery offered to God. God does not need our praise. We need to worship because we need to live in truth. To adore God is to acknowledge reality: God is God and we are his creatures. God is the source of life, freedom, mercy, truth, and goodness.

Paragraph 2085 is especially rich. The Catechism says here, "Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation in the image and likeness of God." So we could say, from that statement of the Catechism, holy living is never only private. When a person lives by faith, hope, charity, justice, mercy, and truth, that person manifests something of God. A holy life affects families, parishes, workplaces, and society. If we are made in the image of God, then the way we live either reveals or it can obscure that image.

The First Commandment also embraces faith, hope, and charity, the great theological virtues. Faith means believing in God, accepting his word, and bearing witness to him, reference to paragraph 2087. Hope means trusting God for salvation, forgiveness, help, and eternal life. Charity means loving God above all things and loving all creatures for Him and because of Him.

So the First Commandment also warns us against false worship. So in addition to embracing faith, hope, and charity, we have some safeguards against false worship. False worship keeps us from becoming who we're called to be.

One of the dangers, or one of the manifestations, of false worship is superstition. The Catechism defines superstition as, quote, "the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes," from paragraph 2111. Now, this can happen even with Catholic practices. So if someone, for example, treats prayers, sacramentals, medals, holy water, or devotion as though they worked magically apart from faith, conversion, and the interior dispositions they require, they become superstitious, or can become part of superstition. Sacramentals are holy signs. They're not spiritual machinery, sort of like "we do this and we get something." No, not at all.

Idolatry is another danger. The Catechism says idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship, paragraph 2113, it is a constant temptation. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. We can make idols of power, pleasure, money, success, reputation, ideology, the state, another person, or even ourselves. An idol is anything we place where only God belongs.

Another form of false worship: divination and magic, trying to know the future, or we could say force the future according to what we desire or what we need. "Attempts to unveil the future through fortune-telling, astrology, omens, mediums, or similar practices contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear we owe to God alone," from paragraphs 2115 to 2116. Magic and sorcery attempt to manipulate hidden powers for control over events or others, and they're gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. We are not meant to control the future. We are meant to entrust ourselves to the providence and loving care of God, our Heavenly Father.

The First Commandment also forbids irreligion, which includes things like tempting God, like asking for signs — "God, if you really exist, then show me this or do this" — sacrilege, and simony. Sacrilege is especially important to mention because the Catechism says sacrilege consists in "profaning or treating sacraments unworthily," or other liturgical actions, in persons, things, or places consecrated to God. And that is grave, especially when committed against the Eucharist.

This is why the Church teaches that anyone conscious of mortal sin must first receive sacramental absolution before receiving Holy Communion, reference to past paragraphs that we've talked about or have taken into consideration in previous podcasts, paragraphs 1385, 1457. Saint Paul in particular warns that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup, the Eucharistic species, of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord, and he urges each person to examine himself, from First Corinthians chapter 11, verses 27 to 28.

This teaching is not meant to push people away from Christ. It's not meant to put stumbling blocks or obstacles. It is meant to help us come to Jesus truthfully, reverently, and in communion with the Church. The sacrament of confession restores communion with God and the Church and prepares us to receive the Eucharist worthily.

Simony, buying and selling of religious goods or religious services, sacraments, obviously not good, part of this general broad category of false worship.

Atheism and agnosticism also fall under the First Commandment. Atheism rejects or denies the existence of God. Agnosticism may take different forms but can become indifference, flight from the ultimate questions of life, or practical atheism, references to paragraphs 2127 and 2128. And here too, the Church teaches the truth while also recognizing that believers can sometimes contribute to unbelief when their lives obscure rather than reveal God. So it's kind of daunting to think about, that I can contribute to a culture of unbelief when my life, or the way that I live and the choices that I make, sort of veil or obscure God and the image of God in which I'm created rather than reveal God.

Finally, the First Commandment includes the prohibition against graven images. Now, in the Old Testament, this protected Israel from making idols, actual wooden or stone idols of false gods, and reducing the transcendent God to something created, reference to paragraph 2129. Yet this does not mean that Christians may not venerate sacred images. The Catechism says, "By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new economy of images," paragraph 2131.

So because the Son of God truly became visible in the flesh, truly became flesh, sacred images of Christ, and also of Mary, the angels, and the saints, can lead us toward the persons they represent. Catholics do not adore statues or icons. Adoration belongs to God alone. The honor given to an image passes to the one represented. So a family, for example, may keep a photograph of a loved one, not because paper and ink are loved for themselves, but because the image, the photo, recalls a real person. And in a higher way, sacred images help lift the heart toward Christ and the communion of saints.

So in our consideration of the First Commandment, it is not narrow. It is not a restrictive commandment. It is the foundation of freedom. To worship the one true God is to be freed, freed from idols. To put God first is to put everything else in its proper place. To love God above all really will help us to love others better.

So the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, really begins with liberation, and the First Commandment teaches us how to remain free. "The Lord is our God, the Lord alone." Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. As the Catechism prepares to move into the Second Commandment, which concerns reverence for the Lord's name, let's just pause and end this episode with the first and greatest call of the moral life: worship God, love God above all things, and allow no idol to take his place.

Thank you for joining me for the Auspice Maria podcast. As always, I'd like to end and just put it all in the hands of Mary under her intercession as we pray:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.