First Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
- Those which detract from the honor and worship due to God; such as: neglect of prayer; superstitious practices; divination; consulting fortune-tellers; attaching undue importance to dreams, omens; tempting God by exposing one’s self to danger of soul, life, or health, without grave cause; sacrilige; profane or superstitious use of blessed objects; profanation of places or things consecrated to God; receiving the holy Sacraments in a state of mortal sin.
- Those against faith; such as: willfull doubt of any article of Faith; reading or circulating books or writings against Catholic belief or practice; joining in schismatical or heretical worship; denying one’s religion; neglecting means of religious instruction.
- Those against hope; such as: despair of God’s mercy, or want of confidence in the power of His grace to support us in trouble or temptation; murmuring against God’s providence; presuming on God’s mercy, or on the supposed efficacy of certain pious practices, in order to continue in sin.
- Those against charity; such as: willfully rebellious thoughts against God; boasting of sin; violating God’s law, or omitting good works, through human respect.
Second Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
All irreverence toward God’s most holy name; such as: cursing and profane swearing; false, unlawful, and unnecessary oaths; membership in societies condemned by the Church; breaking or deferring lawful vows; irreverence in divine service, and in churches and holy places even when service is not going on.
Third Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
Neglect to hear Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation; working or making others work without necessity on such days.
Fourth Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
For children: All manner of anger or hatred against parents and other lawful superiors; provoking them to anger; grieving them; insulting them; neglecting them in their necessity; contempt of or disobedience to their lawful commands.
For parents: Hating their children; cursing them; giving scandal to them by cursing, drinking, etc.; allowing them to grow up in ignorance, idleness, or sin; showing habitual partiality, without cause; deferring their children’s Baptism; neglecting to watch over their bodily health, their religious instruction, the company they keep, the books they read, etc.; failing to correct them when needful; being harsh or cruel in correction; sending children to Protestant and other dangerous schools.
For husbands and wives: Ill-usage; putting obstacles to the fulfillment of religious duties; want of gentleness and consideration in regard to each other’s faults; unreasonable jealousy; neglect of household duties; sulkiness; injurious words.
For employers: Not allowing one’s domestics reasonable time for religious duties and instruction; giving bad example to them, or allowing others to do so; withholding their lawful wages; not caring for them in sickness; dismissing them arbitrarily and without cause.
For the employed: Disrespect to employers; want of obedience in matters wherein one has bound one’s self to obey; waste of time; neglect of work; waste of employer’s property, by dishonesty, carelessness, or neglect.
For professional men and public officials: Culpable lack of the knowledge relating to duties of office or profession; neglect in discharging those duties; injustice or partiality; exorbitant fees.
For teachers: Neglecting the progress of those confided to their care; unjust, indiscreet, or excessive punishment; partiality; bad example, loose and false maxims.
For pupils: Disrespect; disobedience; stubbornness; idleness; waste of time.
For all: Contempt for the laws of our state and country, as well as of the Church;
disobedience to lawful authority.
Fifth Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
Unjust taking of human life (and hence, indirectly and implicitly, any violence of thought, word, or act which may lead thereto); exposing life or limb to danger without reasonable cause; carelessness in leaving about poisons, dangerous drugs, weapons, etc.; desires of revenge; quarrels; fights; showing aversion or contempt for others; refusing to speak to them when addressed; ignoring offers of reconciliation, especially between relatives; cherishing an unforgiving spirit; raillery and ridicule; insults; irritating words and actions; sadness at another’s prosperity; rejoicing over another’s misfortune; jealousy at attentions shown to others; tyrannical behavior; inducing others to sin by word or example; gluttony; drunkenness; rash use of opiates; injury to health by overindulgence; giving drink to others, knowing that they will abuse it.
Sixth and Ninth Commandment
The former forbids in action what the latter forbids in thought or desire. We shall not enter into details on this subject. It is a pitch which defiles. Those who sin against these two commandments know it well; those who do not should pray God that they may never learn. It is sufficient to remind penitents that each and every act, if deliberate, contrary to the holy virtue of purity—be it in thought or desire, in look, gesture, word, or deed—is a mortal sin, and as such must be mentioned in Confession intelligibly, yet modestly.
It will be further useful to remark that, in regard to sins of this kind, it is wrong to dwell too much on details; that we should be especially careful to take note of the avoidable occasions of our falls, and to direct our purpose of amendment to the keeping away from them, rather than to the making of vague, general resolutions about the future avoidance of the sin itself.
Seventh and Tenth Commandment
Sins against these commandments are:
Stealing (What value? What damage done to property or interests?); possession of ill-gotten goods; exorbitant prices; false weights and measures; cheating; adulteration of wares; careless or malicious injury to the property of others; cheating at play; appropriation of what is lent or found, without reasonable pains to return it, or to find its owner; concealment of fraud, theft, or damage, when in duty bound to give information; petty thefts; culpable delay in paying lawful debts, of restitution, when able to make it; neglect to make reasonable efforts and sacrifices in this matter, e.g., by gradually laying up the amount required.
Eighth Commandment
Sins against this commandment are:
Lying; perjury; frauds, public and private, such as at elections, etc.; malicious falsehoods; lies for unjust or bad ends; lies against character, especially if told publicly; revealing secrets; publishing discreditable secrets about others, even if true; refusing or delaying to restore the good name we have blackened; slander or detraction, and encouraging these in others; baseless accusations, groundless suspicions, rash judgments of others, in our own mind.
THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH
- 1. Have I neglected, without good reason, to hear Mass on Sundays and holy days
of obligation, and to keep those days holy by avoiding all servile work? - 2. Have I failed to fast or abstain, without sufficient reason, on those days commanded to be so observed by the Church?
- 3 & 4. Have I omitted to confess my mortal sins at least once a year, or to make my Easter duty?
- 5. Have I refused to contribute to the support of my pastor, according to my means?—gone to Mass Sunday after Sunday, without giving anything to the collections?
- 6. Have I entered into marriage, or aided anyone else to do so, without bans, or before a state official or a Protestant minister; or without dispensation within the forbidden degrees of kindred; or with any other known impediment?
