One popularly transgressed law but is not wittingly considered as so is the express admonition to honor ones father and mother. Many people sin either my omitting to honor or in most cases committing dishonor to ones parents. Human frailty is a common excuse for those who unwittingly disregard respecting their parents. In the course of daily interaction, people tend to forget, albeit unintentionally, giving respect to their parents.
While we keep in our consciousness our obligation to honor our parents, we tend at times to follow our own will and volition and without ill intent, fall prey transgressing the divine admonition. While there are no direct imposable sanctions for violating God’s commandment, such sin breaks our connection with God and unknowingly we fall out of His grace.
Many disputes in the family are rooted in the utter failure to observe the fourth commandment. Children asserting their freedom and independence to set the course of their lives often fall into despising the admonitions of their parents or at times choosing to go on a head-on collision course. Options for harmonizing relations and accepting compromises for common positions and directions are often abhorred. The tendency is shut doors for alternative solutions that would eventually eliminate strains in existing close relationships among members of the family. The strains does not only occur between parents and children but among siblings as well, both being cases transgression to the same commandment. It is so because even if the rift is among siblings, it still is so in contempt of parental love and authority that ought to be honored and respected.
On a different plain, we sometimes see transgressions as motivated by ill will owing to the way parents treated their children. We have witnessed a lot of stories where children purposely fail to give honor and respect primarily because of their parents’ doing or undoing. There is that well accepted adage that requires people to give respect in order to be respected. Reciprocity is the rule the adage posits for people to be guided and to follow.
It demands the giving of respect as a precondition to receiving the same respect in return. This is why many children who feel hurt and live with ill-will, rancor and misgivings from their parents thinks not obliged to give respect and honor. But the premise is clearly misplaced because the commandment is unconditional and is expressly demanding without reciprocation. It may perhaps be unfair but we still ought to follow God’s will and trust in His infinite divine wisdom.
The commandment is boundless that in a sense it extends even when the one to be accorded the honor and respect may have joined our Maker in the great beyond. We still keep intact the respect and honor due our fathers and mothers no matter what. Such is in obedience to the commandment that demands honor for parents not because of who or what they are but simply because of their being parents. We set aside everything we think or feel wrong and allow love, honor and respect to prevail according to God’s will.
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The relation between God and our work
THAT rather amusing story of how the sisters Martha and Mary received Christ in their home highlights a very important aspect of our life. (cfr. 10,38-42) And that is that we have to know and live well the proper relationship between God and our work.
As the gospel story narrates, both sisters were obviously very happy to have Christ in their home. But Martha, the elder one, showed that joy by busying herself preparing things for Christ. It was Mary, the younger one, who appeared to be doing nothing other than staying close to Christ.
When Martha complained about Mary to Christ, she was corrected and clearly told, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
While what Martha did was truly good, what made it somehow wrong was when she failed to recognize the priority of prayer over work. Better said, she failed to make her work a form of prayer as it should be, since any work should be a form of prayer. Work should be a means to lead us to God, to glorify him even as it contributes to the good of everybody else also. It should sanctify us.
We need to make this truth of our Christian faith better known, appreciated and lived. We cannot deny that many are those who fail to see, let alone, live the intimate relationship between our work and God and the others.
Very often, our work has become a function of our self-indulgence or self-interest only. Very often, we work to achieve self-satisfaction, or at best, to meet the needs of the family or of some special group. Its relation to God is often taken for granted. Its purpose of sanctifying us, the others and the world itself, is practically ignored.
We need to remember that as our Christian faith tells us, God created us to work just as He created the birds to fly. (cfr. Job 5,7) As such, God designed any work we have as a way to relate ourselves with God, and because of God, with everybody and everything else in this world.
It’s when we work with this truth of our Christian faith in mind that we can truly do a lot of good. Ignoring or, worse, contradicting this truth would only lead us to a lot evil that can cover itself with a lot of transitory and false joy and sense of achievement.
Let’s also remember that God has designed any work in this world as a way to lead us to God. If we work with God always in mind, we would always follow the moral and spiritual laws that govern our work. Ignoring God in our work would only lead us to all kinds of immorality—greed, avarice, lust, envy, etc.
We need to spread this truth of our Christian faith about work more widely. Our different institutions of learning should be experts in carrying out this duty. Of course, the parents should inculcate this truth as soon as their children can understand things.
We should not be interested only in acquiring knowledge and skills. Their pursuit should lead us to God and to the others, never just self-interest. We should not be interested only in gaining money, power and prestige. Most important and indispensable should be desire to be truly holy as God wants us to be.