THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HER SIX COMMANDMENTS (I)
By Rev. Fr. Anselm Jimoh
The church desires that her members be true and authentic Christians by living up to the expectation of Christianity. In other words, Catholic Christians are expected to live lives worthy of the call of Christ. As part of the measures to help and enable Catholics to be true Christians, the Church instituted six commandments, which in recent Church language are now referred to “precepts.” The Church extols and impresses on all Catholics to adhere to these precepts. These precepts do not replace the Ten Commandments of God, neither do they compete with them or deplete them.
The Ten Commandments of God are unchangeable and not subject to alteration of man or the Church. They are divine and the church only interprets and explains them. Whereas, the precepts of the Church are guidelines for Christians to assist and enable them adhere and keep the Ten Commandments. Since they were instituted by the Church, the Church can always amend or even alter them.
A closer look at the precepts of the Church, which is the aim of this article, shows that they are extensions of God's Ten Commandments. They do not remove, diminish, or belittle the Ten Commandments, but spell out the duties and responsibilities of Christians as required by the Ten Commandments.
The 1971 edition of the “Penny Catechism” in question 229 asked: “What are the chief commandments of the church?” Note that this question and questions 247 and 248, which deals with the precepts of the Church, were revised in 1978. Perhaps this explains why the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (ccc) dropped the term “commandments” in preference for “precepts” (ccc. 2041 -2043). As in the revised edition of the Penny Catechism, the precept on the contribution to the support of your Pastor is not listed but referred to in the text.
The precepts of the Church are: (i) To keep the Sundays and holy days of obligation, holy, by hearing Mass and resting from servile works, (ii) To keep the days of fasting and abstinence appointed by the church, (iii) To go to confession at least once a year, (iv) To receive the Blessed Sacrament at least once a year, and that at Easter or thereabouts, (v) To contribute to the support of our Pastors, (vi) Not to marry within certain degrees of kindred.
Many Catholics are not aware of these precepts, let alone make efforts to keep them. What is observable show that a high percentage of Catholics are barely aware of these precepts. They perhaps know there are certain precepts of the Church, but cannot even list them; not to talk about practice them. Catechumens are taught to memorize these precepts and no sooner have they received the sacraments, they forget the precepts. Even at the time they memorize the precepts, they cannot explain them as they are never taught the meaning of some of the operative terms in which the precepts are framed.
The first precept obliges us to keep Sundays holy as a day set aside to serve the Lord. To aid us in dedicating that day to the Lord, we are to attend Mass (ccc 1389) and avoid any strenuous work that would divert our attention from God. This is precisely what “servile works” refer to; any work that brings material benefits. This requires some clarifications to avoid a blind and false interpretation.
Such essential services provided by health care workers, social services or humanitarian workers, as well as transporters are not necessarily included here. Thus, a Nurse on duty, or a doctor on call, a transporter expected to convey a group to certain destination on a particular mission on a day that unavoidably falls on Sunday or a holy day of obligation, may not be bound by this precept. Those seriously sick and saddled with the responsibility of taking care of them are equally exempt from this precept. Therefore, it is not every time one fails to attend mass on Sunday or holy day of obligation that he/she has sinned. However, such excuses like; traveling, the Catholic Church was not close by, I did not know where the Catholic Church was in the area as I was a visitor there, I was attending to my relations who came home for a burial, etc. are definitely not good reasons to miss Sunday Mass.
This precept also binds parents, guardians, and masters to allow all in their charge to attend Mass on Sundays. There are known cases where masters go to church and ask their wards to stay at home or go to the market or do other things that would not allow them attend Mass that Sunday.
Holy days of obligation are days that should be treated as Sundays. These are days of solemnities that may not necessarily fall on a Sunday. Some of such solemnities include Assumption, the feast of All Saints, and others. As stated in the Roman calendar.
The second precept binds all Catholics to keep the days of fasting and abstinence appointed by the Church. These days are Ash Wednesday; that marks the beginning of the Lenten season and Good Friday: the day Jesus Christ was crucified. Apart from these days, the Church encourages all the faithful to periodically practice abstinence and fasting especially during the Lenten season and all Fridays of the year (ccc 1438, SC 109 110). This is to help the faithful with self-control, discipline, and the master over the desires of the flesh, which more often than not disposes us to sin.
We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory (Rom.3:23). But God like the father of the prodigal son, is always willing and happy to welcome us back, so we are called to turn away from sin and do penance. Fasting and abstinence are aspects of penance. The Church encourages us to practice them so as to cultivate the good habit of self discipline that puts our inordinate appetite under check. Fasting and abstinence is recommended for the physically healthy and those who are within the age bracket of 15 - 65 years old. Those who are sick and are under aged are not bound by this as it may do them more harm than good.
Fasting and abstinence is not about food and drink alone but more so, such things that can easily lure us away from God and deceitfully put us on the path of sin. Fasting and abstinence can take the form of suspending our favourite TV programme, social entertainment, limiting the intake of our favourite meal. etc. All these help us to master our instincts and freedom of heart, (ccc 2043).
The third precept obliges the faithful to go to confession at least once a year. This is the barest minimum; otherwise, confession should be a very regular practice for any good Christian. Unfortunately, for various reasons which we cannot discuss within the present scope, it is one of the least utilized sacraments. In most parishes the number of penitents at weekly confession is ridiculously small in comparism to the number of communicants on Sundays. I wonder at times if people no longer sin. As the latter is definitely not the case, it would most likely be the case then that the faithful do not find it necessary to go to confession. Many wait for Easter to keep the once a year obligatory confession.
Every good Christian is encouraged to go to confession as often as he/she falls into serious sin. Serious sin refers to what we generally call “mortal” sin; a term that has been replaced with “grievous” or “serious” in contemporary ecclesia terminology. A serious or grave sin destroys the sanctifying grace of God in us. “Confession is the act of accusing ourselves of our sins to a priest approved by the Bishop.” (Penny Catechism, in. 295). It is a humble act of asking God's forgiveness that avail us of the forgiving grace of God and the restoration of God's sanctifying grace in our lives. Many Catholics are deceived today by the Protestant and Pentecostal claim that we do not need sacramental confession but we can on our own ask God's forgiveness without confessing to a priest