Potty Mouth
Profanity and obscene speech. I was just noticing how a lot of our modern-day curse words come from the Church - or rather, I should say that the Church made these words hallowed through years of regular usage, and they have now been de-sacralized and made "profane" through flippant usage.
To "damn" someone is to condemn (or con-damn?) them to Hell. An example of condemnding someone might be to so "go to hell" - a curse, but in some cases a legitimate curse.
And how many Catholic prayers begin, "O my God ..." - it's a sad testimony to the state of our culture that I still find it difficult to pray the Act of Faith or the Act of Contrition because I associate "O my God" with cursing.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" is also a prayer - not a curse.
This all goes back to the Old Testament practice of swearing oaths. In fact, that's where we get the term "swearing" from. When you swear an oath, you invoke the Name of God to help you carry out whatever oath you are taking, because you publicly recognize that this oath is going to require more than you are capable of handling on your own strength.
On the flip side of every oath is a curse, which is why we call obsenity "cursing." When you say "I swear to do thus-and-so, so help me God," you are implicitly saying, "and if I fail to do so, so damn me God." That's why in the OT you could really trust someone's word when they swore an oath - because they were saying, "If I'm lying, then may God damn me!"
The Second Commandment prohibits taking God's name in vain. What does that mean? Primarily it means breaking an oath which you swore in His name. If you have taken His name, invoked His name, but broken your oath anyway, then you have taken His name in vain.
On another level, though, it does prohibit flippant use of oaths. You don't say "so help me God!" unless you really, really mean it. You don't swear oaths for every little thing under the sun. Much less should you invoke oath formulas when there is no oath involved - and that's where cursing comes in. "God-damn you," is one of the strongest oath formulas, and it is entirely serious - to use that term over something so simple as hitting your thumb with a hammer is a gross violation of the Second Commandment.
"Amen" is also an oath formula, and the Latin word for "oath" is Sacramentum. So think of it this way: if you receive the sacraments, you're implicitly swearing an oath before God; and if you receive them unworthily, or fail to live up to the oath you are making, you've violated the Second Commandment - there's more involved here than mere words.
Which brings me to another point: why doesn't our society recognize the sacred anymore? Nothing is holy! Nothing is respected! We have a venerable tradition in the Church of only uttering the Holy Name when we need to, but amongst Christians today the name "Jesus" is dropped like crazy.
We used to believe that names meant something, and that His Name in particular had a holiness attached to it, which should make us think twice about invoking that name for any and every reason. A part of that tradition that I mentioned is bowing your head when you have to use His Name - watch the priest the next time he says the Gloria, and you'll see that he bows his head slightly every time he says "Iesu Christe."
Hence, Catholics have preferred to use the term "Our Lord" when referring to Him - at the very least it keeps us from walking around like bobble-heads because we use His name too much.
At any rate ... Catholics do not use profanity. At least, they shouldn't. We have a pretty bad reputation in that area, though, and it's too bad. I remember when I first converted to Catholicism, I was standing in the vestibule after Mass and talking to a friend, when an older man tried to squeeze behind me (he was in a hurry to get out, apparently) and ended up knocking over a basket full of bulletins - there was a gruff "dammit!" and then he was out the door. I thought that was pretty incredible, that you would say it at all, much less inside the House of God, much much less after having just received Holy Communion.
That's why I was pleased with an experience I had while working with a sincere, pious woman at a Catholic bookstore some time ago. She had walked into the room and tripped over a cord, which elicited a "dammit" from her mouth ... the next day, she came into work, sought me out specifically, and apologized. Feeling emboldened, I asked her if Catholics weren't being taught the importance of holy speech, or if they were being given the impression that profanity wasn't so bad - she assured me that, at least when she was growing up, profanity was forbidden.
Now I'm a member of the Holy Name Society, a society dedicated to respecting and promoting respect for the Holy Name of Our Lord, and also to making reparation for sins against that Name. Part of the pledge that the society recites reads, "I pledge myself against perjury, blasphemy, profanity, and obscene speech."
It's not easy, because part of this obligation means not only refraining from profanity myself, but also encouraging others to do so as well. If the guy in the cube next to me drops the big "G.D.", or a flippant "Jesus Christ," I should go and talk to him, at the very least to tell him that his language offends me and offends God even more. Not an easy task.
To make reparation for sins against the Name of Jesus, this prayer is especially recommended:
"May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen."
To "damn" someone is to condemn (or con-damn?) them to Hell. An example of condemnding someone might be to so "go to hell" - a curse, but in some cases a legitimate curse.
And how many Catholic prayers begin, "O my God ..." - it's a sad testimony to the state of our culture that I still find it difficult to pray the Act of Faith or the Act of Contrition because I associate "O my God" with cursing.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" is also a prayer - not a curse.
This all goes back to the Old Testament practice of swearing oaths. In fact, that's where we get the term "swearing" from. When you swear an oath, you invoke the Name of God to help you carry out whatever oath you are taking, because you publicly recognize that this oath is going to require more than you are capable of handling on your own strength.
On the flip side of every oath is a curse, which is why we call obsenity "cursing." When you say "I swear to do thus-and-so, so help me God," you are implicitly saying, "and if I fail to do so, so damn me God." That's why in the OT you could really trust someone's word when they swore an oath - because they were saying, "If I'm lying, then may God damn me!"
The Second Commandment prohibits taking God's name in vain. What does that mean? Primarily it means breaking an oath which you swore in His name. If you have taken His name, invoked His name, but broken your oath anyway, then you have taken His name in vain.
On another level, though, it does prohibit flippant use of oaths. You don't say "so help me God!" unless you really, really mean it. You don't swear oaths for every little thing under the sun. Much less should you invoke oath formulas when there is no oath involved - and that's where cursing comes in. "God-damn you," is one of the strongest oath formulas, and it is entirely serious - to use that term over something so simple as hitting your thumb with a hammer is a gross violation of the Second Commandment.
"Amen" is also an oath formula, and the Latin word for "oath" is Sacramentum. So think of it this way: if you receive the sacraments, you're implicitly swearing an oath before God; and if you receive them unworthily, or fail to live up to the oath you are making, you've violated the Second Commandment - there's more involved here than mere words.
Which brings me to another point: why doesn't our society recognize the sacred anymore? Nothing is holy! Nothing is respected! We have a venerable tradition in the Church of only uttering the Holy Name when we need to, but amongst Christians today the name "Jesus" is dropped like crazy.
We used to believe that names meant something, and that His Name in particular had a holiness attached to it, which should make us think twice about invoking that name for any and every reason. A part of that tradition that I mentioned is bowing your head when you have to use His Name - watch the priest the next time he says the Gloria, and you'll see that he bows his head slightly every time he says "Iesu Christe."
Hence, Catholics have preferred to use the term "Our Lord" when referring to Him - at the very least it keeps us from walking around like bobble-heads because we use His name too much.
At any rate ... Catholics do not use profanity. At least, they shouldn't. We have a pretty bad reputation in that area, though, and it's too bad. I remember when I first converted to Catholicism, I was standing in the vestibule after Mass and talking to a friend, when an older man tried to squeeze behind me (he was in a hurry to get out, apparently) and ended up knocking over a basket full of bulletins - there was a gruff "dammit!" and then he was out the door. I thought that was pretty incredible, that you would say it at all, much less inside the House of God, much much less after having just received Holy Communion.
That's why I was pleased with an experience I had while working with a sincere, pious woman at a Catholic bookstore some time ago. She had walked into the room and tripped over a cord, which elicited a "dammit" from her mouth ... the next day, she came into work, sought me out specifically, and apologized. Feeling emboldened, I asked her if Catholics weren't being taught the importance of holy speech, or if they were being given the impression that profanity wasn't so bad - she assured me that, at least when she was growing up, profanity was forbidden.
Now I'm a member of the Holy Name Society, a society dedicated to respecting and promoting respect for the Holy Name of Our Lord, and also to making reparation for sins against that Name. Part of the pledge that the society recites reads, "I pledge myself against perjury, blasphemy, profanity, and obscene speech."
It's not easy, because part of this obligation means not only refraining from profanity myself, but also encouraging others to do so as well. If the guy in the cube next to me drops the big "G.D.", or a flippant "Jesus Christ," I should go and talk to him, at the very least to tell him that his language offends me and offends God even more. Not an easy task.
To make reparation for sins against the Name of Jesus, this prayer is especially recommended:
"May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen."
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