Superstition

One

The first commandment forbids superstition.

When we hear the term “superstition,” we probably think about the things mentioned in the Stevie Wonder song – things like not walking under ladders, or avoiding the number thirteen. And those are sins against God’s Lordship, they are sins against the first commandment, but they actually fall more under the category of magical practices than under superstition.

When the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the term “superstition,” it’s talking about a different sin. 

Here’s what it says, “To attribute the efficacy of prayers or sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions they demand, is to fall into superstition.”

In other words, superstition is the sin that spoils holy and religious practices.

Two

Indulgences

One of the most infamous cases of superstition in the history of the Church was the abuse of indulgences.

The correct practice of indulgence is good. 

With an indulgence you try to make up for some of the sins you’ve committed by doing something righteous – a pilgrimage, prayer before the blessed sacrament, a donation to a good cause – and you invoke God’s mercy through the Church.

That’s just the Christian life – trying to overcome sin, asking for pardon and mercy, and trying to do good to counteract our sins and those of others.

The problem was that people began to think that as long as they did the external behavior, the pilgrimage, or the charitable donation, they didn’t need to change their behavior and stop sinning.

That’s superstition: thinking you can get spiritual benefits without becoming more Christ-like.

The Church has always taught that the only way indulgences benefit you is if you detach yourself more and more from your own sinfulness – but people tried to use it as a shortcut into heaven apart from conversion and holiness. 

And not only did that scandalize people so much that it contributed to the protestant revolt, but it has caused Catholics themselves to largely stop the practice of indulgences.

This is the great tragedy of superstition. It spoils things which are in themselves good and holy.

Three

Other Catholic devotions

The same thing happens with other Catholic devotions, things that are good, that are literally gifts from God Himself through his saints, become tainted when Christians use them as an excuse not to grow in virtue.

The Scapular, for instance, is a powerful sign of consecration and devotion to Our Lady, but you can’t just wear the Scapular and assume that Mary will get you into Heaven no matter what you do.

It’s the same with First Friday devotions, miraculous medals, and even the Rosary

You can’t just go around confidently quantifying spiritual benefits regardless of your continuing sin and selfishness. Even the spiritual benefits of the Sacraments, of the Eucharist and Confession, depend on our disposition.

If we go to confession without repentance, if we receive the eucharist without even trying, even wanting to love the Lord – it’s not going to do us any good.

That’s why the Catechism says that superstition “can even affect the worship we offer the true God, for example when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary.”

When we perform external devotions, even obligatory ones, without desiring to be closer to God and to be more like Him, it warps those very deeds.

Four

Practice and the relationship with God

The first commandment demands that we make God our first priority and that union with Him is the goal of our life.

Now God has given us special means for drawing closer to Him. He demands that we approach Him in the sacraments, He gives us the Rosary and the Scapular, and He encourages us through His Church to make use of indulgences. But all of these are given precisely to enable us to draw closer to Him.

If we just focus on religious practices, without trying to conform ourselves more and more to God through them, then we’re ruining them because we’re missing the point. 

Imagine a man who asks a woman out on a date, and then just focuses on the food and drink at the restaurant without actually saying a word to the girl. He’s ruined the whole date because he’s missed the whole point. What was supposed to help him get closer to the woman has actually become an insult to the woman

And that’s exactly how superstition can turn our religious practices into an insult to God Himself – if we ignore Him and just hope for salvation from the practice itself.

Five

Strive for God, and strive for holiness, through the practices

If a man is interested in a woman, he should ask her out on a date, he should take her to a nice restaurant, but he should also show interest in her and he should also try to make himself worthy of her.

So too, if we want union with God, we should make use of the religious practices we’ve been given. We should frequent the sacraments. We should pray the rosary. We should make use of other devotional practices and sacramental signs. 

But we should also be paying attention to God while we do these things. We should also strive to appreciate and love Him, praise and thank and ask pardon of Him.

And we should be trying to make ourselves worthy of Him. We should be constantly committed to rooting out sin and growing in virtue.

That’s what it means to put God first. That’s what it means to follow the first commandment consistently and thoroughly.