The Fourth Commandment

Honor your father and your mother

Is the usual way of expressing the Fourth Commandment (cf. Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16).
For most Christian Filipinos, this commandment is taken for granted, as it were,
since Filipino culture so stresses their abiding utang na loob to their parents. Yet a
number of clarifications are needed to properly understand the true meaning of the
Commandment.
First point:
Its original meaning referred more to the obligation of grown children, now
adults, to take care of their aged parents.
In time the meaning of the Commandment was legitimately expanded to
include young childrens duties toward their parents.
(a)
(b)

Second:
Human life and parents are not to be evaluated in terms of productivity.
Also like worship and rest on the Lords Day, this respect for aged parents is
necessary virtue not just for the individual family, but for the community as well.
Third:
Both parents are to receive equal respect. The OT books of Exodus and
Deuteronomy have Honor your father and mother, whereas Leviticus has Revere
your father and mother, showing a balance which unfortunately has not always
been kept in the ensuing ages.

Fourth:
Despite its obvious correspondence with Filipino cultural values, the Fourth
Commandment is often not the easiest to keep.
Three encountered obstacles:
(1)
Not all fathers and mothers act as loving parents
(2)
Arises from the particular stages of the childrens and youths natural growth
and development which demand a certain distancing from parents.
(3) Is the generation gap that cultural history has always created between parents
and children, but which has become much more intense in contemporary times
because of the speed and extent of cultural change.
In a sense, these three common obstacles to honoring father and mother can
be viewed as positive force in helping us learn how to respond authentically to
Christs command to love others.

A) The family: Originating Context of Life

God wills all persons to share in His divine life, to become Gods people. The
family is the basic means for carrying out this plan, since it is a community of
persons, serving life through the procreation and education of offspring,
participating in the development of society, and sharing in the mission of the
Church (PCP II 575).
Moreover, this cooperative work of God and the parents does not stop
at birth, but continues all through the years of nurturing and educating the child
(cf. CCC 2201-6). St. Paul indicates the depth relationship between family and God

when he writes: That is why I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in
heaven and on earth takes its name. (Eph #:14f)
The nature of the family can be considered under three titles: Covenant
relationship, Domestic Church, and Foundation for civil society.
Covenant relationship, most Christian Filipinos connect the family with God
creating Adam and Eve through love, and calling them to mutual love, since He
made them in the image and likeness of Himself who is absolute and unfailing Love.
The idea of our family as covenant simply means to bring out this truth: theres
more to the daily acts, talk, and events in family life than first meet the eye. The
more is love, and a love goes all the way back to God as its ultimate source. It
is a covenant love because it creates and sustains the basic community we
need to become and survive as persons.
The Christian family, beyond being this covenant relationship, constitutes
a specific revelation and realization of ecclesial communion, and for this reason, too,
it can and should be called the domestic church (FC21;cf.CCC2204). For the
family is not only where new citizens of human society are born, [but] by the
grace of the Holy Spirit received in Baptism, these are made children of God, thus
perpetuating the People of God through the centuries. Thus the family is, so to
speak, the domestic Church (LG 11).
PCP II calls the family the Church in the home, the basic unit of Christian
life, the first school of discipleship (PCP II Decrees, Art. 48; PCP II Doc. 421, 576).
It is where we come to exercise the daily Christian virtues of generous self-giving in
active charity, in mutual forgiveness and obedience, in prayer and thanksgiving.
The family is the first and vital cell of society (CCC 2207). Through its
service to life by birth and the education of its youth in social virtues, the family
grounds and continually nourishes the existence and development of society itself
(cf. FC 42). The experience of communion and sharing which is characteristic of the
familys daily life represents its first and fundamental contribution to society (cf. FC
43). At a time when even Philippine society is becoming more depersonalized, the
family constitutes and irreplaceable school in developing, guarding and
transmitting the social virtues and values of respect, dialogue, generous service,
justice and love.
But its role goes beyond procreation and education to embrace, in association
with other families, many social and political activities for the common good (cf. FC
44). The family must not live closed in on itself, but [must] remain open to the
community, moved by a sense of justice and concern for others, as well as by a
consciousness of its responsibility towards the whole society (FC 64)

b) Family Relationship
Filial respect for parents is demanded of children and adults by the Fourth
Commandment. This is the common teaching of the Bible. The Wisdom Literature of
the Old Testament advises: Observe, my son, your fathers bidding, and reject not
your mothers teaching (Pr 6:20). In the letter of Ephesian we read : Children,
obey your parents in the Lord, for that is what is expected of you. Honor your father
and mother is the first Commandment to carry a promise with it, that it may go
well with you, and that you may have a long life on earth (Eph 6:1-3)
The Commandments to honor, then, means showing proper gratitude,
affection, respect, obedience and care to parents (cf. CCC 2214f). In the
complex system of typical Filipino family relationships, involving ate, kuya, lola and
lolo, etc. this proper respect is extended to all who have contributed to ones care,

upbringing, and education. The act of honoring , far from being merely a
convention of social custom, is basically a religious act, whose deep roots and true
nature are revealed in Sacred Scripture. In the Old Testament, extreme punishment
was decreed for transgressor: Whoever curse his father or mother shall be put to
death (EX 21:17). A blasphemer is he who despises his father; accursed of his
Creator, he who angers his mother (Sir 3:16)
This indicates how closely ones procreators are linked with the Creator. In
honoring our parents we honor God himself. This is expressed positively in the
rewards promised to those who obey the Commandment. For the Lord sets a father
in honor over his children; a mothers authority He confirms over her sons. He who
honors his father atones for sins; he stores up riches who reveres his mother (Sir
3:2-3; cf. CCC 2218)
Parental respect and responsibility for children. Care and respect for
their children as persons in their own right are enjoined by the Fourth
Commandment. Thus we read in the Pauline letters: Fathers, do not nag your
children lest they lose heart (Col 3:21). Fathers, do not anger your children, bring
them up with the training and instruction befitting the Lord (Eph 6:4).
Duties of Christian parents. Thus the Church teaches that parents have
the duty to provide so far as they can for their childrens needs, guiding them in
faith and morals, and creating for them an environment for personal growth (cf. CCC
2221-31). In infancy and childhood, parents provide for the physical, emotional and
spiritual needs of their children. As they grow older, the parents are called to
promote their growing autonomy and independence. Parents have the primary
responsibility for the education of their children, both secular and religious.

Conclusion:
Noted for our love of family and child-centeredness, we Filipino Christians
would seem to have little difficulty with this Commandment. Yet, problems do arise.
First, parents and children alike must learn how to communicate with one another
openly and deeply, in a loving, forgiving, mutually supporting atmosphere that is
honest and truthful. Secondly, parents as well as children must be willing to admit
errors, since: a) no one is perfect or sinless; b) loving forgiveness is what Christ ask
of all; and c) truth and a proper sense of right and wrong are the only bases for
genuine forgiveness and interpersonal relationship. Thirdly, the whole family must
look beyond itself and strive to offer Christian witness of the Gospel values of
justice and protection of human rights to the wider Philippine community of town,
province, region, and nation.