Fourth Commandment
| "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you." | ||
| The fourth commandment according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church | ||
Pope Benedict XVI states that Rabbi Neusner "rightly sees this commandment as anchoring the heart of the social order". It strengthens generational relationships, makes explicit the connection between family order and societal stability, and reveals that the family is "both willed and protected by God." Because parents' unconditional love for their children mirrors God's love, and because they have a duty to pass the faith on to their children, the Catechism calls the family "a domestic church", "a privileged community" and the "original cell of social life".
The Catechism says this commandment requires duties of children to parents that include:
- Respect toward parents that also flows to brothers and sisters.
- Gratitude, as expressed in a quote from Sirach: "Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?"
- Obedience to parents for as long as the child lives at home "when it is for his good or the good of the family", except when obedience would require the child to do something morally wrong.
- Support that requires grown children to offer material and moral support for their aging parents, particularly at times of "illness, loneliness, or distress".
Keeping this commandment, according to the Catechism, also requires duties of parents to children which include:
- "Moral education, spiritual formation and evangelization" of their children.
- Respect for their children as children of God and human persons.
- Proper discipline for children while being careful not to provoke them.
- "Avoiding pressure to choose a certain profession or spouse", which does not preclude parents from giving "judicious advice".
- "Being a good example" to their children.
- "Acknowledging their own failings" to their children to guide and correct them.
Read more about this topic: Catholic Doctrine Regarding The Ten Commandments
Famous quotes containing the words fourth and/or commandment:
“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.”
—Frederick Douglass (c.1817–1895)
“Thou shalt not, it is said, make unto thee any graven image of God. The same commandment should apply when God is taken to mean the living part of every human being, the part that cannot be grasped. It is a sin that, however much it is committed against us, we almost continually commit ourselves—Except when we love.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)