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“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5)
1. The First Commandment: the root of all Christian life
The First Commandment is not simply “do not worship idols.” It is much more than that. It is the foundation of the entire moral life, the axis around which everything else revolves. If this commandment is lived well, the others naturally fall into place. If it is neglected, everything becomes disordered.
God does not ask to be loved because He is insecure or jealous like a human tyrant, but because only He can occupy the center of our lives without destroying us. When something or someone takes the place of God—money, ideologies, people, or oneself—the soul becomes fragmented and the heart enslaved.
The Catechism teaches that this commandment requires:
- Faith: believing in God and in everything He has revealed
- Hope: trusting in Him
- Charity: loving Him above all things
And, negatively, it forbids everything that denies, replaces, distorts, or instrumentalizes God.
2. Sinning against the First Commandment today: a more current problem than ever
We live in a society that does not always explicitly deny God, but rather pushes Him aside, dilutes Him, or uses Him conveniently. Many sins against this commandment no longer appear “religious,” but instead cultural, emotional, or even “normal.”
That is why it is so important to form one’s conscience properly and not settle for a superficial examination such as:
“I haven’t worshipped idols or practiced witchcraft, so I’m fine.”
The First Commandment is violated far more often than we think.
3. Major classification of sins against the First Commandment
To help you make a serious examination of conscience, we will divide them into major categories:
- Sins against faith
- Sins against hope
- Sins against charity toward God
- Sins of idolatry
- Sins of superstition and occult practices
- Sins of irreverence and profanation
- Sins of religious indifference and lukewarmness
- Sins of spiritual pride and false religiosity
4. Extensive and detailed list of specific sins against the First Commandment
A. Sins against FAITH
- Willfully doubting a truth revealed by God
- Refusing to believe a known dogma of the faith
- Choosing what to believe according to one’s own criteria
- Rejecting the Church’s teaching out of intellectual pride
- Abandoning the faith for comfort, fear, or personal interest
- Ridiculing the Catholic faith (publicly or privately)
- Hiding one’s faith out of human respect or shame
- Preferring worldly opinions to Catholic doctrine
- Reading or spreading doctrines contrary to the faith without discernment
- Relativizing all religions as if they were equal
- Believing that religious truth is “subjective”
- Denying the existence of sin or hell
- Denying the need for grace for salvation
B. Sins against HOPE
- Distrusting God’s mercy
- Believing that one’s sins are “unforgivable”
- Falling into spiritual despair
- Thinking that God has definitively abandoned you
- Believing that salvation is impossible
- Presuming upon divine mercy without repentance
- Deliberately sinning with the intention of confessing later
- Believing one will be saved “no matter what”
- Living as if heaven did not exist
- Desiring material goods as the ultimate goal of life
- Relying solely on human means without trusting in God
C. Sins against CHARITY toward God
- Loving a creature more than God
- Choosing sin rather than losing comfort or advantages
- Refusing to do God’s will out of selfishness
- Rebelling interiorly against God’s commandments
- Habitually living without reference to God
- Failing to thank God for the gifts received
- Attributing to oneself what is truly grace
- Complaining or murmuring against God in adversity
- Becoming angry with God when things do not go as desired
D. Idolatry (ancient and modern)
- Making money the center of one’s life
- Sacrificing family, faith, or morality for professional success
- Living obsessively focused on the body, image, or pleasure
- Idolizing people (spouse, children, leaders, celebrities)
- Absolutizing political or social ideologies
- Turning science or technology into a substitute for God
- Making material well-being the supreme criterion of life
- Living as if God had no right to command
- Systematically prioritizing leisure over God
E. Superstition, occultism, and forbidden practices
- Consulting horoscopes and believing in them
- Trusting astrology as a guide for life
- Participating in spiritist sessions
- Consulting fortune-tellers, tarot readers, or psychics
- Using amulets with superstitious trust
- Practicing reiki, magic, or “energy healings”
- Believing in impersonal energies instead of God
- Attributing divine powers to objects
- Seeking protection outside of God
- Participating in esoteric rituals
- Mixing the Christian faith with pagan practices
F. Irreverence and profanation
- Treating sacred things with contempt or mockery
- Using God’s name without reverence
- Profaning sacred places, objects, or times
- Praying deliberately in an irreverent manner
- Using religious images as banal decoration
- Turning sacred things into objects of business
- Laughing at what is holy or at the sacraments
G. Religious indifference and lukewarmness
- Living as if God did not exist
- Showing no interest in knowing the faith
- Completely neglecting prayer
- Considering God irrelevant in daily life
- Reducing faith to mere cultural tradition
- Indefinitely postponing conversion
- Living without fear of God
- Not fighting habitual sin
- Settling for a minimal and comfortable faith
H. Spiritual pride and false religiosity
- Believing oneself superior to others for being “religious”
- Harshly judging others from a position of faith
- Using religion to dominate or manipulate
- Seeking recognition for religious practices
- Praying only to obtain material favors
- Fulfilling religious duties externally without interior conversion
- Rejecting legitimate correction
- Instrumentalizing God for personal interests
5. For a good examination of conscience
Before going to confession, ask yourself honestly:
- Is God truly at the center of my life?
- Do I trust Him more, or my own securities?
- Have I replaced God with something or someone else?
- Is my faith alive, or merely cultural?
Confession is not a formality: it is placing God back in His rightful place, which is first.
6. Conclusion: returning to the heart of Christianity
The First Commandment is not a burden, but a liberation. When God occupies first place, everything else finds its proper order. When He does not, everything becomes disordered.
Returning to this commandment is returning to what is essential. And there is nothing more current, more revolutionary, or more necessary today than loving God above all things.
