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The Baltimore Catechism Revised Edition (1941) Part Two: The Commandments   The First Commandment of God Lesson 16 from the Baltimore Cathechism198. What is the first commandment of God? The first commandment of God is: I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. (Exodus 20:3-4)199. What are we commanded by the...

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My wife and I have traveled back and forth across the country the past year. It has given us the opportunity to visit a number of churches. We have felt the movement of the Holy Spirit in every service we have attended. That is, until recently, when he heard a message we found quite disturbing. It actually wasn’t the main topic of the pastor’s sermon. Rather, it was a sidebar at the end of his message. It concerned the church’s finances. He told the congregation that weekly collections had not met budget all year long. And he admonished church members...

Wednesday, March 02, 2011 Being Good or Going to Mass Not long ago I had a conversation with a woman which is pretty typical. She's real nice, wealthy, upper middle class and Catholic. I ask her where they go to Mass. She says they don't go to Mass, but they are "really good people." She then proceeds to tell me how good she is. So I'm at St Joseph's Catholic School and I ask the kids, "So here's a Catholic question for you..what's better to be good and not go to Mass or to go to Mass and be bad?"...

RICHMOND, Va. | A school district in southwestern Virginia is re-posting copies of the Bible's Ten Commandments in all county schools, despite concerns that doing so is unconstitutional. The five-member Giles County School Board voted unanimously to restore the framed, 4-foot-tall, biblical texts after parents and local ministers complained about their removal from the district's five schools and its technology center. The decision was made even though the board's attorney advised that such Christian displays represent unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. The Ten Commandments were up on school walls in Giles County for at least a decade next to framed...

Featured Term (selected at random):MURDER The unjust killing of an innocent person. Directly to intend killing of an innocent person is forbidden either to a private citizen or to the State, and this even in order to secure the common good. God has supreme and exclusive ownership over human lives, and so he is the only one who has the right to allow the taking of a human life. He confers on civil authority the right to take the life of a condemned criminal only when this is necessary for achieving the just purposes of the State. In a commentary...

Featured Term (selected at random):TEN COMMANDMENTS Also called the Decalogue, they are the divinely revealed precepts received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Engrave on two tablets of stone, they occur in two versions in the Bible. The earlier form (Exodus 20:1-17) differs from the alter (Deuteronomy 5:6-18) in tow ways. It gives a religious motive, instead of a humanitarian one, for observing the sabbath; and in prohibitin avarice, it classes a man's wife along with the rest of his possessions, instead of separately. With the exception of forbidding graven images and statues and the precept about the Sabbath, the Ten...

Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With Jump to: The 7 Sacraments (The Holy Mysteries)The 7 Corporal Works of MercyThe 7 Spiritual Works of MercyThe 3 Eminent Good WorksThe 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost (& the Charismata)The 12 Fruits of the Holy GhostThe 3 Theological VirtuesThe 4 Cardinal VirtuesThe 7 Capital Sins & Their Contrary VirtuesThe 6 Sins Against the Holy GhostThe 4 Sins That Cry Out to HeavenThe 3 Conditions of Mortal SinThe 9 Ways We Participate in Others' SinsThe 10 CommandmentsThe 2 Greatest CommandmentsThe 3 Evangelical CounselsThe 6 Precepts of the ChurchThe Holy Days of Obligation (English)The...

Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With Jump to: The 7 Sacraments (The Holy Mysteries)The 7 Corporal Works of MercyThe 7 Spiritual Works of MercyThe 3 Eminent Good WorksThe 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost (& the Charismata)The 12 Fruits of the Holy GhostThe 3 Theological VirtuesThe 4 Cardinal VirtuesThe 7 Capital Sins & Their Contrary VirtuesThe 6 Sins Against the Holy GhostThe 4 Sins That Cry Out to HeavenThe 3 Conditions of Mortal SinThe 9 Ways We Participate in Others' SinsThe 10 CommandmentsThe 2 Greatest CommandmentsThe 3 Evangelical CounselsThe 6 Precepts of the ChurchThe Holy Days of Obligation (English)The...

Eddie, why am I reading your vanity? Because I am going to share a discovery with you that explains everything the left says and does. First, let me introduce you to Irving Lester Janis (26 May 1918 - 15 November 1990). He was a research psychologist at Yale University and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most famous for his theory of "groupthink" which described the systematic errors made by groups when taking collective decisions.So what Eddie? Groupthink is a tired slur that gets tossed around, make this quick or I’m outta here. Wait! Groupthink...

A Catholic priest stole $1.3 million from his Waterbury, Conn., parish to finance a gay old time in New York, authorities charged yesterday. The Rev. Kevin Gray allegedly blew the money he looted from his financially struggling parish over seven years on male escorts, rooms at hotels, including the Waldorf, designer clothes, trendy restaurants and tuition for several young studs. Gray, 64, regularly shacked up in an Upper East Side apartment that he rented for a 35-year-old man, court documents charge. The priest not only paid for the apartment, but also the Harvard tuition for his male friend, authorities said....

Excerpt 19 I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness. 20 For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. 21 And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; 22 And all those who...

So Protestants and Catholics may not agree on which books should be in the Bible. And we don’t agree on which translations are best. But at least we can always agree on the Ten Commandments, right?  Well, not exactly. We agree on the scripture passages that the ten commandments come from (Deut 5 and Exodus 20). But scripture doesn’t enumerate them for us and break them into 10 nice, neat “commandments.” Because of this, there have been a number of different variations of the ten commandments as we know them today. The Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant versions are very...

A copy of the commandments is back on the wall of a Kentucky courthouse after the federal court ruled late last week that the display does not violate the U.S. Constitution. After a decade of court battles with the American Civil Liberties Union and others, advocates of religious expression seem to be on a winning streak.

Part Three:  The Will of God Eighth Commandment Table of Contents     In both versions of the Decalogue, the wording of the Eighth Commandment is the same: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20). Throughout the Old Testament, the full meaning of this commandment includes both the prohibition against telling a lie and the precept of telling the truth. Thus, “Lips that tell the truth abide firm forever; the tongue that lies lasts only for a moment. Lips that lie are abhorrent to Yahweh; dear to Him those who speak the truth” (Proverbs 12:19, 19:22).The...

Part Three:  The Will of God Seventh and Tenth Commandments Table of Contents     The biblical precept of the Seventh Commandment, like the Sixth, is a short imperative, “You shall not steal.” It is the same in both versions of the Decalogue. The Tenth Commandment, as already seen, is that part of the Ten Commandments which forbids coveting what belongs to someone else, whether his house, servant, ox, donkey, or anything else. Deuteronomy distinguishes between coveting “your neighbor’s wife,” and “setting your heart” on other possessions, including the neighbor’s field (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19). Like the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, the...

Part Three:  The Will of God Sixth and Ninth Commandments Table of Contents     In the Catholic version of the Decalogue, the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are coupled together. They both prescribe the practice of chastity. The biblical text for the Sixth Commandment is simply “You shall not commit adultery” in both Exodus 20:14 and Deuteronomy 5:18. But the Ninth Commandment is part of a longer prohibition of covetousness. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his servant, man or woman, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is his (Exodus...

Part Three:  The Will of God Fifth Commandment Table of Contents     The wording of the Fifth Commandment is identical in the two biblical texts of the Decalogue, “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 20:5-17). Already in the Old Testament the prohibition was understood to mean “You shall not murder.” Always understood was that it was forbidden to kill an innocent person.The first recorded crime in the moral degradation after the Fall was the murder of Abel by his envious brother Cain (Genesis 4:1-16). Cain’s punishment by God reveals the gravity of the sin of murder. Several times, the prophets...

Part Three:  The Will of God Fourth Commandment Table of Contents     The first three commandments pertain to our relationship with God. They oblige us to recognize God as our Lord and Master, to honor His Name in language and song, and to pay Him public homage as a people whom He has called to be His own. With the Fourth Commandment, we enter on a new relationship with God. If the first three commandments summarize what may be called “religion,” the last seven synthesize “morality.” From the fourth through the tenth precepts, our duties toward others are identified as the...

Part Three:  The Will of God Third Commandment Table of Contents     The longest biblical text in the Decalogue is for the Third Commandment. While both Exodus and Deuteronomy prescribe the Sabbath, the motive and the manner of its observance are different. Both passages, though lengthy, should be quoted in full.In Exodus, the Sabbath is a weekly commemoration of God’s creation. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do your work, but the seventh is a sabbath for Yahweh, your God. You shall do no work that day, neither you nor your son...