Worth Knowing And Worth Keeping

THE commandments are God’s Law. The observance of God’s Law means man’s happiness here and hereafter. Most people think of the commandments in terms of hereafter. The fact is they are the only means of happiness here. God made man to be happy and showed him how to be happy by giving him the commandments. When the world was made up of only two people, it was a happy world. But they spoiled it. They broke God’s rule of happiness, His commandments. It has been an unhappy world ever since. For men have followed the folly of the first man and woman and have tried to make a happy world by ignoring God’s Law. The result has been failure. God’s Law is a plan for human living, a way for human happiness. So God’s Law is worth knowing and worth keeping. 

The commandments were first given to Moses for the Jewish People. In their centuries-old history, they were happy when they kept them, unhappy when they violated them. When our blessed Lord came to Earth He proclaimed the commandments and made their meaning clear. His Church, which is His Living Voice and His Living Self, continues to proclaim them and explain them. There are ten commandments. Their message is love of God and love of fellow man. 

Love means action. If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15) Love means life, true life, a share in God’s Life. If any man love Me, My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and dwell with him. (John 14:23) We only really live when God lives in us. St. Paul expressed it: “I no longer live alone; God lives in me.” (See Galatians 2:20) Our Savior made it clear that we cannot live alone. Life without love is death. And there is no true love without the love of God as beginning, middle and end.

Link (here) to read the full article on the Ten Commandments by Fr. Gerald C. Treacy, S.J.