Immaculate Conception Church

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The Second Commandment (in the Catholic ordering) is: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” This Commandment forbids abusing God's name (i.e., Jesus Christ and other names attributed to God), and, by extension, the names of Mary and the other saints. What this Commandment teaches and reinforces within us is the sense of the sacred and respect for holy things. To break this Commandment is to commit blasphemy, which is defined as uttering – outwardly or in your heart – words of hatred or defiance towards God, the Church, the saints, and other holy things. (see the Catechism #2146, 2148)
 
At first glance, it may seem overkill to make this Commandment #2 – this trumps #5? Really? And you do know #5, right?!?! (Fine, go look it up, I won't call you out on it...this week....) But when you think about it, in order to commit a sin, you have to hold God in contempt, at least interiorly. If you respect God in thought, word, and deed, you're not sinning! So yes, being ranked at two makes sense.
 
But this one is so easy to fall into, and, hence, easy to excuse. So in the hopes of shedding some light on the problem let me explain it this way. Most of us at some point in our lives have embarrassed ourselves in front of people. And sometimes we developed a habit of such behavior so that we garnered quite the reputation. Our name starts to be used as a catch-all phrase of what not to do:
 
Susan: “Hey Joe, what's up with Steve? I can't find him. Is he ok?”
Joe: ”Well, rumor has it he pulled a Tietjen yesterday. He's laying low for a while.”
Susan (wide-eyed): “No way! That's not like Steve! Does the boss know?”
Joe: “What do you think! And keep your voice down!”
 
Of course, this is a hypothetical situation, this type of thing never happens to people like us, but if it did (again, hypothetically speaking), we at least earned the reputation.
 
But that assumes we did something wrong. What if we didn't? What if our “mistake” was doing noble things? What if “pulling a Your Name Here” meant running into a burning house and dragging out some unconscious homeowner? How would we take the backtalk? And wouldn't a person have to be a few fries short of a Happy Meal to malign someone's good name?
 
And yet, when it comes to God, that's exactly what we do.
 
God created the entire universe and gave us life so that we could experience His love. The human race then proceeds (in so many words) to spit in His face. God responds by sending us His Son Jesus to give us a second chance. Jesus proceeds to endure (among other things) a slow, painful death for our sake. And God continues to extend His hand in mercy toward us in the hopes that we come back to Him.
 
God works overtime trying to pull people out of an eternal house fire and their reaction is to curse God when they're having a bad day? Reality check: this is really, really selfish. And completely irrational. You're better than this.
 
So if this is one of your habits, break it. And that means enumerating and internalizing all the blessings that God has given you. Because once you're grateful, you get it.
 

 
  






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