Opus Dei

The first commandment of the Decalogue is the only possible foundation for a truly successful human life. The highest reason for human dignity consists in our vocation to communion with God. Love for God must include love for those God loves. The second commandment forbids any inappropriate use of God’s name and in particular blasphemy.

The ninth and tenth commandments refer to internal acts corresponding to sins against the sixth and seventh commandments. Internal sins can deform the conscience. The struggle against internal sins is part of the Christian’s endeavour to love with all one’s heart, mind and strength. Purity of heart means having a holy way of feeling.

Only voluntary actions are the object of a moral evaluation properly speaking. The education of the complex world of feelings is a fundamental part of Christian formation and life. The path for ordering the passions is the acquisition of moral habits called virtues. The object, the intention and the circumstances are the “sources” or constitutive elements of the morality of human acts.

In his 5 October general audience, Pope Francis continued his cycle of catechesis on spiritual discernment, speaking about self-knowledge and "passwords" in the spiritual life.

Marriage is an institution foreseen by God in his wisdom, so as to carry out in humanity his divine plan of love. It is born of the personal and irrevocable consent of the spouses. The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility. This special covenant is ordered to the procreation and education of children, who are the most excellent gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of their parents.

Eternal law, natural law, the New Law or Law of Christ, human political and ecclesiastical laws are all moral laws in a very different sense, although they all have something in common. To form an upright conscience it is necessary to instruct the intelligence in the knowledge of the truth – for which we can rely on the help of the Magisterium of the Church – and to educate the will and emotions through the practice of the virtues.

With the prayer of the Our Father, Jesus wants to make his disciples aware of their condition as children of God. An important consequence of the sense of our divine filiation is filial trust and abandonment in God’s hands. The Our Father is the model of all prayer: not only do we ask for everything we can rightly desire, but also according to the order in which it should be desired.

The Eucharist makes Jesus Christ present. He invites us to accept the salvation that He offers us, and to receive the gift of His Body and Blood as the food of eternal life. Our Lord announced the Eucharist during his public life and instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. When the Church celebrates this sacrament, she follows the Eucharistic rite carried out by Christ at the Last Supper.

Penance is a sacrament which brings healing and salvation from sin. Over the course of history, the ministers of Christ and the Church have exercised the power to forgive sins in different ways. At the same time, in this sacrament the Church has maintained a fundamental structure which is made up of two equally essential elements: the action of the person who experiences conversion under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the action of God which occurs through the ministry of the Church.

The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace. Sanctifying grace is a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul to make it capable of living with God. The seven sacraments correspond to all the stages and important moments of each Christian’s life: the sacraments give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. They form an ordered whole, in which the Eucharist is at the centre, since it contains the Author of the sacraments.