Catechism: The 1st Commandment
CCC 2083: The 1st Commandment➜
The first commandment is not only about belief in God’s existence, but also about putting God number one in one’s life as being more important than any created thing. Because God is love, and pours his love into our hearts, we show our reverence for God by loving him with all our mind heart and soul. God is the source of our hope because the divine promises of future blessing are reliable and will be fulfilled by a faithful God. That being so there can be no idols in our lives.
The story of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he should do to attain eternal life is relevant here. Apparently, he had been keeping the commandments. But when Jesus said that if he wanted to be perfect, he should give his wealth to the poor, he was unwilling to do so. This illustrated the fact that in reality, he was more attached to money and all it represented, than he was to God. As scripture warns in 1 Tim 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.”
Although many believers, like the rich young man, honour God with their lips, their hearts can be far from him in reality. As St Ignatius of Loyola pointed out they can be more influenced by such things as a love of possessions, security, reputation, status honours, pleasures and a desire for ethical autonomy, than by reverence for God and the divine will.
Gerald May, who was a Christian psychiatrist pointed out that all of us have addictions of one kind or another, to substances and behaviours. Writing about them he made this perceptive observation. “Augustine and many others observed that human beings seek to satisfy their restlessness through things other than God. In this light, they refined the concept of attachment. The word derives from the Old French a-tache, meaning 'staked' or 'nailed to'. Attachment 'nails' human desire for God to other things, other people, other endeavours. Often associated with original sin, attachment is seen as inherent in human existence, as much a part of our nature as is our desire for God. To a large extent, the long tradition of spiritual asceticism is an expression of human desire for freedom from attachment.” St Paul adverted to the dangers of creaturely attachment when describing gluttons in Phil 3:19 where he wrote, “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”
Finally, I want to talk a little about divination such as conjuring up the dead, consulting horoscopes, astrology, séances, palm reading, interpretation of omens, clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums. They all conceal a desire for power over time, history and are opposed to the first commandment. Some time ago, a woman phoned me to tell me that she was afflicted by evil spirits which were affecting her mind and body in a disturbing way. Having talked to her about her symptoms I asked her if she had done anything interesting in the recent past. She told me that she had attended a workshop on Atlantis. Atlantis was supposed to be an island, which has since disappeared, where super-humans were thought to have lived. I asked the woman what happened during the workshop. Having told me a number of bizarre things she added, “the leader asked us to pray to the Goddess of Atlantis.” I immediately asked her, “Are you a Catholic?” “Yes,” she replied. “Well then” I said, “what about the first commandment about not honouring strange Gods” “Oh, I never thought about that,” she replied, “do you think I did wrong.” “Yes,” I responded, “and in doing so you seem to have opened yourself to the influence of fallen angels.” Tertullian, an early Christian theologian, said that the pagan gods, their names and images, “Were employed by unclean spirits, fallen angels, demons of pagan philosophical tradition, in order to take honour upon themselves and from God.”