DATA PRIVACY NOTICE

This session will be recorded

for sharing the lesson on various platforms
By staying on this call, you consent to being recorded.
If you do not consent to being recorded,
kindly drop from the call.
 TOPIC 35
THE NINTH AND TENTH COMMANDMENTS

References: Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2514-2550

Supplementary reading: https://opusdei.org/en/article/topic-34-the-ninth-and-tenth-commandments/

 THE NINTH AND TENTH COMMANDMENTS

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife

You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods

The 9th & 10th Commandments God calls all of us to holiness: The subject matter of the 9th & 10th
refer to internal acts corresponding to sins against “This is the will of God for you: Commandments strikes at the root
the 6th & 7th Commandments your sanctification” of all disorderly attachments to human goods

The 9th & 10th Commandments forbid Why the 9th & 10th Commandments? 3 Kinds The 9th & 10th Commandments
morally unlawful desires of Internal Sins summarize all the precepts
of the Decalogue
 The 9th & 10th Commandments
refer to internal acts
corresponding to sins
against the 6th & 7th Commandments
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife (9th),
nor desire your neighbor’s house, nor his land,
nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor’s (10th).”
Deut 5:21

“But I say to you that everyone

who looks at a woman lustfully
has already committed adultery with her in his heart (9th).”
Mt 5:28

◦ the moral life does not only involve external acts, but more
importantly, the desires of our heart

◦ the greatest commandment of the Law:

“You shall love the Lord your God
with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your
whole mind,
and with all your strength.”
Mk 12:30
 God calls all of us to holiness:
“This is the will of God for you:
your sanctification”
Holiness is gift of God, fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit (identification with
Christ)
◦ holiness does not fundamentally consist in a life without mortal sin,
but in a life filled with God’s love, being of the same heart
and mind as Christ’s
cf. Phil 2:5ff

◦ Opening Prayer of the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart:

“Clothe us, Lord God, with the virtues of the heart of your Son
and set us aflame with His love, that, conformed to His image,
we may merit a share in eternal redemption.”

this requires “purity of heart”

– the inner order and harmony of our desires and affections,
fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts
◦ “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
modesty, continency.”
Gal 5:22

◦ Our affection for people and desire for material goods

must be ordained and motivated by our desire to love
and glorify God in everything we seek and choose to do.

◦ the moral life does not merely involve avoiding sin, but above all growing in virtue and
patterning our heart after Christ’s Sacred Heart
The subject matter of the 9th & 10th Commandments strikes
at the root
of all disorderly attachments to human goods
3 kinds of goods we can desire:
Principle 1
Pleasurable Goods CCC 2535
• “The sensible appetite moves us to desire pleasurable
• a good meal, a beautiful landscape, or useful goods we still do not possess. We desire to eat
exciting basketball game when hungry, to warm ourselves when feeling cold.

These desires are good in themselves.”

Useful Goods
the moral good must always govern our desire
• money, some position of authority for pleasurable and useful goods.
Principle 2 The latter ought to be ordained
always to the moral good.
• when our desires are regulated by reason and faith, they enable us
to take care not only of our temporal well-being, but also our spiritual:
Moral Goods they lead us to pray more (cf. The Our Father or Lord’s Prayer)
• all the Christian virtues, permeated with they make us make us esteem God’s gifts more highly
faith, hope and charity and feel more duty-bound to use them responsibly

they make us more grateful to God

whom we acknowledge as the source of our blessings
 The 9th & 10th Commandments
forbid morally unlawful desires
“Concupiscence” or the fomes peccati (the “tinder” of sin) = the strong inclination to sin in our fallen human nature
when we consent to it, even internally, it becomes sinful

Desires are sinful when

we desire what is evil in itself
(adultery, drunkenness, murder, etc.)
the intention to desire something not
evil in itself is not upright
(wanting to get rich
for the sake of getting rich)
some other circumstances
makes it wrong to desire it
(for a man to desire as wife someone
who has pledged herself to God in virginity,
for we should not desire anything
we are not permitted to possess)
 The 9th & 10th
Commandments forbid
morally unlawful desires
◦ the 9th forbids the disorderly craving for pleasurable goods related to the
use of the procreative powers
(“lust” or “concupiscence”)

◦ the 10th forbids the disorderly craving for useful goods

◦ “avarice” if its object is material wealth
◦ “ambition” if its object is power or the fame
that comes with being wealthy

◦ All disorderly desires are manifestations

of one of these 3 lusts or concupiscences

◦ “All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh (concupiscence), and the
lust of the eyes (avarice),
and the pride of life (ambition)”
1 Jn 2:16
Why the 9th & 10th Commandments?
Aren’t such desires already implicitly forbidden by the 6 th and 7th?
(for it is already forbidden to desire what is forbidden to possess)

It is fitting that the Decalogue should explicitly forbid these internal sins.
3 Reasons:

it is not easy for man to be aware of the existence of internal sins being aware of internal sins help us extirpate sin from its roots

• they are very easy to commit: all it takes is deliberate pleasure
in a sinful thought;
• one tends to write off these disorderly desires as “natural” and “harmless” since they
apparently have no external repercussions.
• “It is not what enters the mouth of a man that defiles him, but what goes out of his
mouth. For what goes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and it is from the heart
that all iniquities come.” (Mk 7:17-23)

• But they do much harm to the person.

• the evil of murder, adultery, theft is not primarily in the physical reality of
the action or in its consequences (although these are important), but in the
will that has chosen an orientation opposed to love for one’s neighbor, and
therefore also to love for God.
• e.g., anyone who decides to steal an object, even if something unforeseen
keeps him from doing so, has already carried out an internal act of the will
against the virtue of justice.

• Internal sins darken the intellect and increase the will’s inclination to love the 9th & 10th Commandments are like a mirror
merely apparent goods in which we can behold more clearly the wounds
• “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… Blessed left by Original Sin in our nature
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”(Mt 5:3.8) – the strong proclivity to sin that forms part of fallen nature
• “I would not have known concupiscence if the law did not say, (Rom 7:7)
• internal sins easily deform the conscience ‘Thou shalt not covet.’”
• e.g., one gets accustomed to giving in to irritability, frequent lack of charity, • we become more aware of our need to implore God’s help to overcome temptation and
being judgmental or critical of others, envy to be humble.

• “Who will deliver me from this body of death? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Rom 7:24-25)
 3 Kinds of Internal Sins

Sinful Pleasure Evil Desire Sinful Joy

• taking delight in imagining a sinful act
as though it were really taking place,
but with no intention of actually doing it.
• “The thoughts of the wicked man
are an abomination to God.” (Prov 15:26)
• the deliberate desire to seek after something evil,
a real intention to execute the evil deed.
• “Anyone who so much as looks with lust at a woman
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
(Mt 5:28)
• taking deliberate pleasure in a sinful act
that had previously be done by oneself or by another
(or even worse, to brag about it);
• or to feel sad at not having been able to take advantage of an
opportunity one had to commit sin

• Similarly, evil desires against honesty, justice and charity:

businessmen who desire a shortage of goods to justify
an increase of the prices of their merchandise,
lawyers who desire more lawsuits, etc.

Although disorderly desires incline us to sin, the mere fact of experiencing them is not sinful.
They become sinful when they are consented to or when we take deliberate pleasure in them.
 The 9th & 10th
Commandments summarize
all the precepts of the
Decalogue
they bid us to free our hearts
from any disorderly attachment to creatures
and reject any affection of the heart
incompatible with charity
cf CCC 2548

They show us that all the commandments indeed form a unity

◦ to transgress one commandment is tantamount to transgressing
all the rest, since it means choosing against the same love the Lord wishes us to show Him
whenever we keep His commands.
◦ “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
Mt 14:21

◦ The Decalogue are not simply rules for good external behavior,
but express what is necessary to have purity of heart and poverty of spirit in order to be
free to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul,
our whole mind and all our strength.
 TOPIC 35
THE NINTH AND TENTH COMMANDMENTS

References: Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2514-2550

Supplementary reading: https://opusdei.org/en/article/topic-34-the-ninth-and-tenth-commandments/