CL REVIEWER

First Commandment
“I am the lord your God, you shall not have other Gods besides me”

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment”
(Mathhew 22:36-38)

Meaning
● The first commandment is the CENTER of the other commandments
● It is found on the First Table Of The Law
● The first commandment helps us to keep the great commandment of the love of God
because it commands us to adore God alone
● It is in knowing and loving God that we can truly live in our life.
● The first commandment is most holy and most important. Observing it well we
observe all the others. We cannot forget that to love God above all things comes before
anything else: it is the only thing that really matters.
● In order to love God, man has to acknowledge Him as the Lord and worship Him. He
does not worship God acts that way because he does not know and love Him,
substituting in his place the false gods of selfishness and sin

Trust God and love Him with all of your heart and lean not for your own understanding

VALUE & VALUE OF FAITH

● This 1st Commandment, in proclaiming the Lordship of one true God, expresses this
duty of worship.
● Worship - recognition of God's Lordship expressed in filial devotion and service.

The First Commandment fosters all the elements of the virtue of religion:
● Adoration - the first act of virtue of religion. To adore God is to acknowledge, in
respect and absolute submission, the “nothingness of the creature” who would not exist
but for God.
● Prayer – an indispensable condition for being able to obey God's commandments.
● Sacrifice - a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion.

- Love, Honor, Respect- to love and to serve God in faith and hope is our first duty and
privilege.

- Faith – believing without doubting whatever God has revealed.

- Hope – trusting God that will give us eternal life and all the means necessary to obtain it.
- Charity – loving God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves for charity
PROHIBITIONS
● SUPERSTITION
○ Is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices.
○ It is an irrational, but usually deep-seated belief in the magical effects of a
specific action or ritual, especially in the likelihood that good or bad luck will
result from performing it.
BAD LUCKS
- Wag mag salamin sa basag
- Do not walk under an open ladder. You will have bad luck.
- Black Cat

● IDOLATRY
○ Does not only refer to false pagan worship.
○ Idolatry consists of divinizing what is not God.
○ Substitution of someone or something for God.
○ Idolatry is vividly portrayed in the Biblical story of the "Golden Calf"

● Divination/Fortune Telling
○ It is the art of foretelling the future or discovering hidden knowledge by
supernatural means

● Magic and Sorcery or Witchcraft

○ All practices of magic and sorcery by which one attempts to tame occult
powers, so as to place them at one's service and have supernatural power even
if this were for the sake of restoring their health are gravely contrary to the virtue
of religion.
○ These practices are in fact more to be condemned when accompanied by the
intention of harming someone, and especially when they have recourse to the
intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible.
○ Spiritism often implies divination or magical practice.

● Irreligion
○ God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion:
○ Tempting God – consist in putting His goodness and almighty power to
test by word or deed.
○ Sacrilege - consist in profaning or treating unworthy of the sacraments and
other liturgical actions, as well as persons, thing or place consecrated to God.
■ is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in
this sacrament the Body of Christ us is made present for us

● Graven Image
○ The divine injunction included the prohibition of God by the hand of
man.