Honoring Parents

[FAH]

You honor your parents by obeying their commands and carrying out their wishes but when does not doing what your parents ask become a sin.

For example if your parents ask you to do something menial like open the window. If you don’t open the window have you committed a mortal sin?

Or if a parent tells you to spit on the floor, random suggestion but if your parent asks you to do it and you don’t, mortal sin?

 

[Hastrman]

You honor your parents by obeying their commands and carrying out their wishes but when does not doing what your parents ask become a sin.

For example if your parents ask you to do something menial like open the window. If you don’t open the window have you committed a mortal sin?

Or if a parent tells you to spit on the floor, random suggestion but if your parent asks you to do it and you don’t, mortal sin?

If they ask you to open the window, and you don’t open it without a good reason, you’re certainly doing something wrong, though other factors would determine whether it’s a mortal sin. For instance, if you’re tired, that’s probably a venial sin, but if you object to being dictated to at all (because, for instance, it’s “menial”), that’s probably a mortal sin.

As for spitting on the floor, no, although they might have a good reason, so you probably ought to ask.

 

[J0SEPH_SG]

In order for a sin to be mortal, it must meet three conditions:

• Mortal sin is a sin of grave matter
• Mortal sin is committed with full knowledge of the sinner
• Mortal sin is committed with deliberate consent of the sinner

This means that mortal sins are “premeditated” by the sinner and thus are truly a rejection of God’s law and love.

Grave matter can be iffy sometimes… but I don’t think that is the case here. You certainly should seek to obey the commands of parents inasmuch as they conform to the will of God.

2199 The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it. This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.

2217 As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family. "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord."22 Children should also obey the reasonable directions of their teachers and all to whom their parents have entrusted them. But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so.
As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents. They should anticipate their wishes, willingly seek their advice, and accept their just admonitions. Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them. This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 2218 The fourth commandment reminds grown children of their responsibilities toward their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress. Jesus recalls this duty of gratitude.23