ARTICLE 9 - THE NINTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your
neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his
ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.[298]
Every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart.[299]
2514 St. John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the
flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life.[300] In the Catholic catechetical tradition, the
ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another's
goods.
2515 Etymologically, "concupiscence" can refer to any intense form of human desire.
Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive
appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason. The apostle St. Paul identifies it
with the rebellion of the "flesh" against the "spirit."[301] Concupiscence stems from the
disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man's moral faculties and, without being in
itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins.[302]
2516 Because man is a composite being, spirit and body, there already exists a certain
tension in him; a certain struggle of tendencies between "spirit" and "flesh" develops.
But in fact this struggle belongs to the heritage of sin. It is a consequence of sin and at
the same time a confirmation of it. It is part of the daily experience of the spiritual battle:
For the Apostle it is not a matter of despising and condemning the body which with the
spiritual soul constitutes man's nature and personal subjectivity. Rather, he is concerned
with the morally good or bad works, or better, the permanent dispositions - virtues and
vices - which are the fruit of submission (in the first case) or of resistance (in the
second case) to the saving action of the Holy Spirit. For this reason the Apostle writes:
"If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit."[303]
I. PURIFICATION OF THE HEART
2517 The heart is the seat of moral personality: "Out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, fornication...."[304] The struggle against carnal covetousness entails
purifying the heart and practicing temperance:
Remain simple and innocent, and you will be like little children who do not know the
evil that destroys man's life.[305]
2518 The sixth beatitude proclaims, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God."[306] "Pure in heart" refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to
the demands of God's holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity;[307] chastity or sexual
rectitude;[308] love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.[309] There is a connection between
purity of heart, of body, and of faith:
The faithful must believe the articles of the Creed "so that by believing they may obey
God, by obeying may live well, by living well may purify their hearts, and with pure
hearts may understand what they believe."[310]
2519 The "pure in heart" are promised that they will see God face to face and be like
him.[311] Purity of heart is the precondition of the vision of God. Even now it enables
us to see according to God, to accept others as "neighbors"; it lets us perceive the
human body - ours and our neighbor's - as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation
of divine beauty.
II. THE BATTLE FOR PURITY
2520 Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the
baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered
desires. With God's grace he will prevail
- by the virtue and gift of chastity, for chastity lets us love with upright and undivided
heart;
- by purity of intention which consists in seeking the true end of man: with simplicity of
vision, the baptized person seeks to find and to fulfill God's will in everything;[312]
- by purity of vision, external and internal; by discipline of feelings and imagination; by
refusing all complicity in impure thoughts that incline us to turn aside from the path of
God's commandments: "Appearance arouses yearning in fools";[313]
- by prayer:
I thought that continence arose from one's own powers, which I did not recognize in
myself. I was foolish enough not to know . . . that no one can be continent unless you
grant it. For you would surely have granted it if my inner groaning had reached your
ears and I with firm faith had cast my cares on you.[314]
2521 Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the
intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It
is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at
others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their
solidarity.
2522 Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and
moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive
giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is
decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is
evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.
2523 There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example,
against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or
against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate
things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of
fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.
2524 The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere,
however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born
with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and
adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.
2525 Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the
communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint.
Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism and avoids entertainment
inclined to voyeurism and illusion.
2526 So called moral permissiveness rests on an erroneous conception of human
freedom; the necessary precondition for the development of true freedom is to let
oneself be educated in the moral law. Those in charge of education can reasonably be
expected to give young people instruction respectful of the truth, the qualities of the
heart, and the moral and spiritual dignity of man.
2527 "The Good News of Christ continually renews the life and culture of fallen man; it
combats and removes the error and evil which flow from the ever-present attraction of
sin. It never ceases to purify and elevate the morality of peoples. It takes the spiritual
qualities and endowments of every age and nation, and with supernatural riches it causes
them to blossom, as it were, from within; it fortifies, completes, and restores them in
Christ."[315]
IN BRIEF
2528 "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her
in his heart" (Mt 5:28).
2529 The ninth commandment warns against lust or carnal concupiscence.
2530 The struggle against carnal lust involves purifying the heart and practicing
temperance.
2531 Purity of heart will enable us to see God: it enables us even now to see things
according to God.
2532 Purification of the heart demands prayer, the practice of chastity, purity of
intention and of vision.
2533 Purity of heart requires the modesty which is patience, decency, and discretion.
Modesty protects the intimate center of the person.
ARTICLE 10 - THE TENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not covet ... anything that is your neighbor's....
You shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his
manservant, or his maidservant,, or his ox, or his ass, or
anything that is your neighbor's.[316]
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also.[317]
2534 The tenth commandment unfolds and completes the ninth, which is concerned
with concupiscence of the flesh. It forbids coveting the goods of another, as the root of
theft, robbery, and fraud, which the seventh commandment forbids. "Lust of the eyes"
leads to the violence and injustice forbidden by the fifth commandment.[318] Avarice,
like fornication, originates in the idolatry prohibited by the first three prescriptions of
the Law.[319] The tenth commandment concerns the intentions of the heart; with the
ninth, it summarizes all the precepts of the Law.
I. THE DISORDER OF COVETOUS DESIRES
2535 The sensitive appetite leads us to desire pleasant things we do not have, e.g., the
desire to eat when we are hungry or to warm ourselves when we are cold. These desires
are good in themselves; but often they exceed the limits of reason and drive us to covet
unjustly what is not ours and belongs to another or is owed to him.
2536 The tenth commandment forbids greed and the desire to amass earthly goods
without limit. It forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant
power. It also forbids the desire to commit injustice by harming our neighbor in his
temporal goods:
When the Law says, "You shall not covet," these words mean that we should banish
our desires for whatever does not belong to us. Our thirst for another's goods is
immense, infinite, never quenched. Thus it is written: "He who loves money never has
money enough."[320]
2537 It is not a violation of this commandment to desire to obtain things that belong to
one's neighbor, provided this is done by just means. Traditional catechesis realistically
mentions "those who have a harder struggle against their criminal desires" and so who
"must be urged the more to keep this commandment":
. . . merchants who desire scarcity and rising prices, who cannot bear not to be the only
ones buying and selling so that they themselves can sell more dearly and buy more
cheaply; those who hope that their peers will be impoverished, in order to realize a
profit either by selling to them or buying from them . . . physicians who wish disease to
spread; lawyers who are eager for many important cases and trials.[321]
2538 The tenth commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart.
When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King David to repentance, he told him the
story about the poor man who had only one ewe lamb that he treated like his own
daughter and the rich man who, despite the great number of his flocks, envied the poor
man and ended by stealing his lamb.[322] Envy can lead to the worst crimes.[323]
"Through the devil's envy death entered the world":[324]
We fight one another, and envy arms us against one another.... If everyone strives to
unsettle the Body of Christ, where shall we end up? We are engaged in making Christ's
Body a corpse.... We declare ourselves members of one and the same organism, yet we
devour one another like beasts.[325]
2539 Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another's goods and the
immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave
harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin:
St. Augustine saw envy as "the diabolical sin."[326] "From envy are born hatred,
detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused
by his prosperity."[327]
2540 Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized
person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride;
the baptized person should train himself to live in humility:
Would you like to see God glorified by you? Then rejoice in your brother's progress
and you will immediately give glory to God. Because his servant could conquer envy by
rejoicing in the merits of others, God will be praised.[328]
II. THE DESIRES OF THE SPIRIT
2541 The economy of law and grace turns men's hearts away from avarice and envy. It
initiates them into desire for the Sovereign Good; it instructs them in the desires of the
Holy Spirit who satisfies man's heart.
The God of the promises always warned man against seduction by what from the
beginning has seemed "good for food . . . a delight to the eyes . . . to be desired to make
one wise."[329]
2542 The Law entrusted to Israel never sufficed to justify those subject to it; it even
became the instrument of "lust."[330] The gap between wanting and doing points to the
conflict between God's Law which is the "law of my mind," and another law "making
me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members."[331]
2543 "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although
the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ for all who believe."[332] Henceforth, Christ's faithful "have crucified the
flesh with its passions and desires"; they are led by the Spirit and follow the desires of
the Spirit.[333]
III. POVERTY OF HEART
2544 Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them
"renounce all that [they have]" for his sake and that of the Gospel.[334] Shortly before
his passion he gave them the example of the poor widow of Jerusalem who, out of her
poverty, gave all that she had to live on.[335] The precept of detachment from riches is
obligatory for entrance into the Kingdom of heaven.
2545 All Christ's faithful are to "direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered in
their pursuit of perfect charity by the use of worldly things and by an adherence to riches
which is contrary to the spirit of evangelical poverty."[336]
2546 "Blessed are the poor in spirit."[337] The Beatitudes reveal an order of happiness
and grace, of beauty and peace. Jesus celebrates the joy of the poor, to whom the
Kingdom already belongs:[338]
The Word speaks of voluntary humility as "poverty in spirit"; the Apostle gives an
example of God's poverty when he says: "For your sakes he became poor."[339]
2547 The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the
abundance of goods.[340] "Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."[341] Abandonment to the
providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow.[342] Trust in
God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God.
IV. "I WANT TO SEE GOD"
2548 Desire for true happiness frees man from his immoderate attachment to the goods
of this world so that he can find his fulfillment in the vision and beatitude of God. "The
promise [of seeing God] surpasses all beatitude.... In Scripture, to see is to possess....
Whoever sees God has obtained all the goods of which he can conceive."[343]
2549 It remains for the holy people to struggle, with grace from on high, to obtain the
good things God promises. In order to possess and contemplate God, Christ's faithful
mortify their cravings and, with the grace of God, prevail over the seductions of pleasure
and power.
2550 On this way of perfection, the Spirit and the Bride call whoever hears them[344] to
perfect communion with God:
There will true glory be, where no one will be praised by mistake or flattery; true honor
will not be refused to the worthy, nor granted to the unworthy; likewise, no one
unworthy will pretend to be worthy, where only those who are worthy will be admitted.
There true peace will reign, where no one will experience opposition either from self or
others. God himself will be virtue's reward; he gives virtue and has promised to give
himself as the best and greatest reward that could exist.... "I shall be their God and they
will be my people...." This is also the meaning of the Apostle's words: "So that God
may be all in all." God himself will be the goal of our desires; we shall contemplate him
without end, love him without surfeit, praise him without weariness. This gift, this state,
this act, like eternal life itself, will assuredly be common to all.[345]
IN BRIEF
2551 "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Mt 6:21).
2552 The tenth commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and
their attendant power.
2553 Envy is sadness at the sight of another's goods and the immoderate desire to have
them for oneself. It is a capital sin.
2554 The baptized person combats envy through good-will, humility, and abandonment
to the providence of God.
2555 Christ's faithful "have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24);
they are led by the Spirit and follow his desires.
2556 Detachment from riches is necessary for entering the Kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit."
2557 "I want to see God" expresses the true desire of man. Thirst for God is quenched
by the water of eternal life (cf. In 4:14).
No comments:
Post a Comment