Thursday, October 19, 2017

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 355 – Part I.




YOUCAT Question n. 355 - Part I. “You shall not have strange Gods before me.” What does that mean?


(Youcat answer) This commandment forbids us: to adore other gods and pagan deities or to worship an earthly idol or to devote oneself entirely to some earthly good (money, influence, success, beauty, youth, and so on); to be superstitious, which means to adhere to esoteric, magic, or occult or New Age practices or to get involved with fortune telling or spiritualism, instead of believing in God’s power, providence, and blessings; to provoke God by word or deed; to commit a sacrilege; to acquire spiritual power through corruption and to desecrate what is holy through trafficking (simony).     

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2110) The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion. 2110

Reflecting and meditating 

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2111) Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition  (Cf. Mt 23:16-22).       

(This question: “You shall not have strange Gods before me.” What does that mean?  is continued)

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