The Fifth Commandment of the Law of God
“Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.”
By this commandment, the Lord God commands us to honor our parents, for which He promises a prosperous and long life. To honor parents means: to respect their authority, to love them, under no circumstances to dare to insult them by words or deeds, to obey them, to help them in their labors, to care for them when they are in need, and especially during their illness and old age, also to pray to God for them, both during their life and after their death. Disrespect toward parents is a great sin. In the Old Testament, whoever cursed father or mother was punished with death (Mk. 7:10; Ex. 21:17).
The Lord Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, honored His earthly parents, obeyed them, and helped Joseph in carpentry. The Lord rebuked the Pharisees because, under the pretext of dedicating their property to God, they refused their parents the necessary support and thereby violated the direct requirement of the fifth commandment (Mt. 15:4–6).
The family has always been and will always be the foundation of society and the Church. Therefore, the holy apostles took care to establish proper relationships among family members. They instructed: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged...” “Let children learn to honor their own household and to repay their parents; for this is acceptable before God” (Eph. 5:22–23, 6:1–4; Col. 3:18–20; 1 Tim. 5:4).
As for relations with strangers, the Christian faith teaches the necessity of showing respect to each person according to his age and position: “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor” (Rom. 13:7). In the spirit of this apostolic instruction, a Christian should respect: pastors and spiritual fathers; civil authorities who care for justice, peaceful life, and the well-being of the country; educators, teachers, and benefactors, and in general all those who are older in age. Young people sin when they do not respect the elderly and old people, considering them backward and their ideas outdated. Even in the Old Testament, the Lord said through Moses: “You shall rise before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and fear your God” (Lev. 19:32).
But if it should happen that parents or authorities demand from us something contrary to the faith and the Law of God, then we must say to them, as the apostles said to the Jewish authorities: “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God” (Acts 4:19); one must be ready to endure for the faith and the Law of God whatever may follow.