SINS AGAINST NEIGHBOR – YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF!
Don’t think about what someone has to do for you, but what you have to do for another. Forgive everyone and everything. Do not keep anger in your heart. Always the first give your hand to reconciliation.
4. HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER, SO THAT YOUR DAYS MAY BE LONG IN THE LAND THAT THE LORD YOUR GOD IS GIVING YOU.
God has given us His visible representatives and commands us to honor and obey them as Himself. These are parents, priests, teachers, educators, employers and representatives of public and state power. Tolerate each other in love.
Obedience to our parents binds us in a time of adolescence. Respect and love for them until death. But if our parents prevent us from living a more intense religious life, we can deny them obedience in this area – true, always respectfully. If they lead me to sin, I should not obey.
- If the child is convinced in his conscience that it is wrong to obey the order, should not follow the order.
- Respect for parents contributes to the harmony of the whole family life, it also applies to relationships between siblings.
- Am I not pitting a parent against a sister (brother), have I manipulated my parent, robbed my sibling of inheritance? (Unjustly acquired inheritance – obligation to rectify).
- Parent – did I disinherit some of my children? (Committed injustice also on his grandchildren). Did I unfairly divide the inheritance among my children? (To one more, the other less). Did I express consent to such proceedings? (Also, by silence).
- If I start a family, parents do not have the right to intervene in this family (unless I interfere in their rights in common housing). But they can help me.
- I am obliged to kindly warn them against committing sin. Parents also have a duty to warn and reprimand their children for their sin, even if the children are already adults (and not to support them in sin, or to justify their sin, close eyes in front of it).
- When I present my freedom, it should never be without love and respect for them. Do I demand from my parents? Am I abusing them (with babysitting, cooking, cleaning…)?
- Do I express words of thanks to them? Do I keep in touch with them?
- Am I not insulting them, intimidating them, and not forcing them to boost my benefits (rewriting property, threats not to visit them or help them if they do not agree with it)?
- Did I raise my hand to my parent? Am I not kicking him/her out of the house?
- Am I not communicating with them? Do I despise their advice?
- Am I not tormenting them? (By way of life, bad friendship, going out at nights, drugs, drinking, I live unmarried).
- Am I ashamed of them because of origin, lower education, social status, employment, poorer conditions, health handicap?
- Am I helping them? (Work, care of the sick, material security).
- Did I put a parent in a retirement home? Is he/she my burden?
- Do I provide them – pastoral care, the Sacraments, I call the priest – to receive the Confession, the Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick (anointing with oil)?
- Do I care of my parents’ graves?
- Do I obey and honor my superiors? Those who exercise power, they must do it as a service.
- Do I undermine their authority by judging, grumbling, criticizing, ridiculing, etc.?
- Do I pray for my parents, siblings and superiors?
Family
The marriage and family are focused on the well-being of the spouses and on the procreation and upbringing of children. The family should live in such a way that its members learn to take care of young and old, sick, physically or mentally handicapped people, the poor, to take hold of them. A parent must be interested in the lives of children throughout whole life, and if sees that they are living in sin, has a duty to rebuke them.
Parents should look at their children as children of God, bringing them up to respect God’s law. The child is not my property – it is a gift from God, it belongs to God. They should teach children and keep in mind that the primary mission of a Christian is to follow Jesus Christ – to be an example for them. Love your children and remember that your primary job is to show them the way to God and heaven.
- Do I contribute in the family with my love and patience to the good and joy of others?
- Am I respectful to my wife (husband)? Am I discussing serious decisions with her?
- Am I cultivating her interests, desires, health status? Do I show tenderness, courtesy, recognition, do I appreciate her contribution to marriage, childcare?
- Do I not make fun of my husband (wife), do I not have disrespectful allusions (egg to the character, education, employment)?
- Do I try to resolve conflicts (or a marital crisis)? Am I not just blaming the other side? Am I trying to come to a compromise, an understanding, an agreement?
- Am I jealous? Suspicious? Do I make a scene to her (him)?
- Am I striving for marital cohabitation to be a positive donation even in the intimate side also from the other side? Am I not unreasonably denying my wife’s rights? Am I not forcing her to use contraception?
- Am I tolerant of the mistakes and weaknesses of my husband (wife)? Can I forgive and not remind forgotten old mistakes?
- Do I involve children into conflicts? Am I sending them against my husband (wife), do I use them as a tool to blackmail, do I threat my husband (wife) to limit contact with them?
- Did I unjustifiably take away children from my wife (husband)? (Kidnapped, they were not threatened by neglecting of care from mother/father) – out of revenge, hatred, and self-love so that I could blackmail her (him)…
- Am I able to accept criticism, look at myself through eyes of another person? Can I ask for forgiveness for my own fault? Do I fix wrongdoings?
