Lesson 7 - The Fourth Commandment
Lesson 7 - The Fourth Commandment
I. I START
This module talks about Christ’s command to love others expressed in respecting the
quality of their human life which is a necessary condition for both loving them as well as
receiving our love. It is concerned with the parents as procreators of human life, acting as
God’s free, loving agents in bringing to birth new human life.
Objectives:
1. Understand the true meaning of the Fourth Commandment.
2. Observe the Fourth Commandment by showing gratitude, love, and respect to one’s
parents.
3. Recognize that the Christian family, as a domestic Church, shares in the Holy Trinity’s
communion of love.
II. I KNOW
Explain this quote from the encyclical letter of Pope John Paul II: “Man cannot live without
love” (Redemptoris Hominis 10). Cite your personal experience to elaborate on your
explanation.
To love others is to foster the quality of human life, since, for human persons, life and love
are inseparable. For Filipinos, to love one another involves the primary obligation for
fostering communion within one’s own family and between families, as well as respecting
the life of every human person, regardless of creed, color, or sex (CFC 1001).
III. I LEARN
The Fourth Commandment opens the second table of the Decalogue. It shows us the order
of charity. God had willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe
life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. We are obliged to honor and
respect all those whom God, for our good, have vested with his authority (CCC 2197). This
commandment is expressed in positive terms of duties to be fulfilled (CCC 2198).
To whom does the Fourth Commandment refer, and what does it require of us?
The Commandment refers in the first place to one’s physical parents, but also the people to
whom we owe our life, our well-being, our security, and our faith. What we owe to our
parents – namely love, gratitude, and respect – should also govern our relations to people
who guide us and are there for us (YouCat 367).
The original meaning of its commandment referred more to the obligation of grown
children, now adults, to take care of their aged parents (CFC 1003).
Secondly, both parents are to receive equal respect. The context for this Commandment is
the Exodus event expressed in the preamble: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery (Exodus 20:2). This liberates and frees us from
enslavement to false norms for human worth and responsibility (CFC 1005).
Thirdly, the Fourth Commandment is not the easiest to keep in practical life because of
these three obstacles: (1) not all fathers and mothers act as loving parents (CFC 1006); (2)
stages of children’s and youth’s natural growth and development which demand a certain
“distancing” from parents (CFC 1007); and (3) the generation gap that cultural history has
always created between parents and children (CFC 1008). These three common obstacles to
honoring father and mother can be viewed as a positive force in helping us learn how to
respond authentically to Christ’s command to “love others”. For they force us to look more
carefully into the true meaning and values fostered by this commandment (CFC 1009).
Observing the Fourth Commandment brings its reward: “Honor your father and your
mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Exodus
20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16). Respecting this commandment provides, along with spiritual fruits,
temporal fruits of peace and prosperity. Conversely, failure to observe it brings great harm
to communities and to individuals (CCC 2200).
A man and woman married to each other form, together with their children, a family (YouCat
368). God wills all persons to share in His divine life, to become God’s people. The family is
the basic means of carrying out this plan, since it is “a community of persons, serving life
through the procreation and education of offspring, participating in the development of
society, and sharing in the mission of the Church” (Second Plenary Council of the Philippines [PCP
II] 575).
God himself, in the depths of the Trinity, is communion. In the human sphere, the family is
the primordial image of communion. The family is the unique school of living in
relationships. Nowhere do children grow up as well as in an intact family, in which they
experience heartfelt affection, mutual respect, and responsibility for one another. Finally,
faith grows in the family, too; the family is, the Church tells us, the miniature church, a
“domestic church”, the radiance of which should invite others into this fellowship of faith,
charity, and hope (YouCat 368).
Our Christian families, like the Church itself, in some real way share in the Communion of
Persons and Love of the Blessed Trinity (CCC 2205). For in the mutual sharing of thoughts,
affections, and in all their ups and downs, Christian families are actively creative like the
Father. In offering prayers and sacrifices to God, they share in Jesus the Incarnate Son’s
own prayer and redemptive sacrifice. Finally, Christian families from a community of
interpersonal love by being inspired and strengthened by the indwelling Holy Spirit (CFC
1015).
A child respects and honors his parents by showing them love and gratitude. Children
should be grateful to their parents in the first place because they received their life from the
love of their parents. This gratitude establishes a lifelong relationship of love, respect,
responsibility, and obedience, rightly understood. Especially in times of need, sickness, and
old age, children should lovingly be there for their parents and care for them faithfully
(YouCat 371).
God entrusted children to parents so that they might be steady, righteous examples for those
children, that they might love and respect them and do everything possible so that their
children can develop physically and spiritually. Children are a gift from God and not the
property of the parents. Before they are their parents’ children, they are God’s children. The
primary duty of parents is to present to their children the Good News and to communicate
the Christian faith to them (YouCat 372).
Children do not belong to parents, nor do the parents belong to their children. Every person
belongs directly to God. Only to God is man bound absolutely and always. This is how we
understand what Jesus said to those who are called: “He who loves father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me” (Matthew 10:37).
IV. I ACCOMPLISH
Make simple gestures of love and kindness to your parents /guardians this week (e.g. hug
and kiss them, help them in the household chores, etc).
V. I REVIEW
Noted for our love of family and child-centeredness, we would seem to have a little
difficulty with this Commandment. Yet, problems do arise. First, parents and children alike
must learn how to communicate with one another openly and deeply, in a loving, forgiving,
mutually supporting atmosphere that is honest and truthful. Secondly, parents as well as
children must be willing to admit errors. Thirdly, the whole family must look beyond itself
and strive to offer Christian witness of the Gospel values of justice and protection of human
rights (CFC 1027).