The Seven Deadlies
I apologise for the lack of posting new talks recently. The popularity of the Open Q&A (below) caught me quite by surprise. But at 180 comments, it seems to have petered out. Though, I would point out, that it is still open! For now, I'd like to catch up on a talk we had a few weeks ago, on sin.
Since the Fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of us have been born with what's called a "sinful nature". Basically, while Adam and Eve were created perfect by God, completely holy and just, their decision to sin affected their nature in such a way that that holiness and justice was destroyed in them. Because of that, they became subjected to ignorance, suffering, sin, and death. We kind of inherited that state. Our natures are wounded, and we are born with the desire to be sinful and with our hearts turned away from God.
Before our baptisms, we were completely alienated from God. We were outside of His family. But through baptism, and our faith and repentance, we enter into a life-giving relationship with God, and He fills us with His grace--the grace to live that life of holiness and justice that Adam and Eve lost. But our baptism didn't completely erase the consequences of sin. We still suffer and die. Our minds are still subject to ignorance, and we still have that pesky urge to sin. We are often tempted, and we constantly struggle.
So what is sin? It is an action (or lack of action) that violates God's law. At its heart, it is a rebellion against God, which says, "I know better", or "I don't care." Or, more famously expressed by Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way!"
There are degrees of sin, which the Church has labelled "mortal" and "venial" sins (1 John 5:16-17). A venial sin is one that only wounds our relationship with Christ, but does not kill it outright. We don't exclude ourselves from His Covenant with us. Mortal sins on the other hand, are just that: Mortal. They kill the life of grace within us. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Mortal sin "destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to Him" (1855).
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: It must be a grave matter, committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.
Venial sins can become mortal if we persist in them, and make a habit of them.
A further distinction in sin is known as the Capital sins, or more familiarly as the Seven Deadly Sins. These are "capital [head] sins" because they are the root or the cause of all other sins. They are Pride, Avarice (Greed), Envy, Wrath (Anger), Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth.
These are the sins in our lives that we need to watch for, because they are the causes of other sin in your life. If you constantly struggle with certain actions, and no matter how much you try to change them, then you need to look deeper. Sin is like a weed. You can pull the weed up, grabbing the stalk, leaves and flower, so that it is no longer visible--but if you do not grab the root, the weed will grow back. It is the same with these deadly sins.
Before we look in detail at the sins, a few thoughts, from a website about the deadly sins might be useful.
"The following pages on the deadly sins may lead to horrible discoveries. Bear in mind:
1. Friends will almost never volunteer this information.
2. If they do, we will not accept it.
3. God forgives anything, even repeatedly, so do not be afraid."
"If one or more of these doesn't seem like a big sin to you, it almost certainly means you have already rationalised it. Work on that one first."
How do we work on these sins? Through discipline, spiritual reading (especially Scripture), frequent prayer, Mass, Confession, and the practice of Christian virtues in our lives. So let us examine each sin, what it is exactly, and what virtue(s) we should foster in order to counter and defeat it.
Pride: If any sin could be considered "the deadliest", this is it. It is the very sin that got Lucifer kicked out of heaven, and the very sin that he used to tempt Adam and Eve. Basically, pride is the notion that "I deserve better." It is the desire to be the master of our own destiny. It says, basically, that I should be my own god. Is it any wonder then, that "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)?
As those verses point out, Humility is the key virtue in the fight against pride. Humility is seeing ourselves as we truly are, and not comparing ourselves with others. It is the willingness to accept criticism and grow from it, to realise that we really aren't the be all and end all of the universe. It is ultimately being open to God's leading and direction, and a willingness to follow and to serve Him.
Greed or Avarice: The vice of Greed is about more than money. Similar to pride, it is the desire to be the centre, to "get what we deserve" and maybe a little more. It is the desire to hold tightly to what we have, because "it's mine!" In a non-monetary way (though it often becomes about money) people who speak of their "rights" are often being greedy. Lawsuits over rights issues involve large cash settlements in our society.
By contrast, then, Generosity is a virtue that we need. After all, "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). The angel Raphael reminds us, "Prayer with fasting and alms with uprightness are better than riches with iniquity. Better to practise almsgiving than to hoard up gold. Almsgiving saves from death and purges every kind of sin. Those who give alms have their fill of days; those who commit sin and do evil bring harm on themselves" (Tobit 12:8-10).
Envy: Envy resents the good others receive or even might receive. In this sense, it is almost indistinguishable from pride at times. Pride is inwardly working, drawing the attention toward ourselves. Envy is outwardly focussed. It obsesses about attention given to others. In that way, they are like two sides of the same sin. Envy is desiring something for ourselves that does not rightfully belong to us. It is "coveting" (the tenth commandment).
As a note: It is distinct from "Jealousy" in that envy desires to gain something not rightfully belonging to the person, whereas jealousy seeks to retain hold of something that does belong to the person. Thus, envy is always sinful, while jealousy can become sinful, but is not inherently so. This is why God can be called a "jealous" God, and still be holy and righteous in prohibiting envy among His people. Many people misunderstand the difference.
Against envy we must Love. Love is always outward focussed. It seeks the best in others, and works for their good. While the virtue of love is effective in nullifying all the vices (which is why it is the greatest of the virtues) it specifically speaks to envy, and to pride, demanding that we take the focus off ourselves and direct it to others.
Anger or Wrath: Living with bitterness and unforgiveness, quickly flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, waving at other drivers with only one finger...These are symptoms of anger. While anger is usually a reactionary issue, it can become a deep-seated habit, leading to lovelessness and abusive behaviour. When anger becomes a behavioural trait, it ceases to be a simple emotional response, and becomes sinful. While there is an anger that is good, a "righteous anger" directed at sin and injustice, truly seeing or experiencing such noble anger is rare.
Its antidote is Kindness. It means taking the tender approach, being patient and compassionate. It seeks to understand and forgive the other person, to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Lust: This is something usually associated with sex, but it is not limited to that. Lust is the out of control desire for pleasure, beyond what it is worth. That pleasure might be sexual, or power, or image. But when it becomes our focus, our desire, then it is out of control. Image, power, and sex are good things when in their proper place and understood with their proper value--but when they are sought for their own sake, it is sin.
The virtues opposed to lust are Love and self-control. Lust is a selfish desire for pleasure. Love seeks the good of others above self. It is able to weild the good things that lust seeks, but does so for the good of others. Self-control maintains the balance between pleasure and over-indulgence. It keeps the true value of true riches in sight, and does not elevate pleasure beyond its worth.
Gluttony: Like lust goes beyond sex, gluttony goes beyond food. It is the undue desire for pleasure more in the realm of leisure and entertainment, whether it be through food, other forms of entertainment such as television, or even the company of others.
It is battled by Faith and temperance. Temperance accepts the natural limits of pleasures and preserves this natural balance. Faith or faithfulness, keeps us focussed on what is truly important.
Sloth: Laziness affects us both physically and spiritually--and often, if one is lax in one area, the same is true in the other area. Disorganisation, forgetfulness, and a lack of dependability are symptoms of sloth. As well, failure to be diligent in your spiritual walk, not praying, sleeping through church, failure to read the Bible and other spiritual reading are indications that sloth has affected our spiritual life. Sloth is more subtle than some of the others, because we don't notice it right away. Rationalising away spiritual exercises begins by saying, "God won't mind if I skip it once" and ends up being a great effort to read or pray or in any way draw closer to Christ.
We must counter sloth with Zeal. Zeal is the energetic response of the heart to God's commands. It is the quickening of our spirit to follow hard after Him. Like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, we must watch and pray, so that we do not fall asleep in service to Christ. With zeal, we must maintain discipline, so that habits will form. Habitually meeting with God will enflame our zeal, and our zeal will reinforce our habits.
These sins conspire together to deaden our spiritual life. Because of the nature of mortal sin, a new initiative of God's mercy is needed, as well as a conversion of our hearts. This is accomplished through the sacrament of Penance. Basically, because in mortal sin, we've flipped God off, and left the Covenant relationship with Him, killing His life of grace in our hearts, we need to receive that grace again from Him to be welcomed back into the Covenant. Through the sacrament of Reconciliation, we demonstrate our sincere repentance by confession (1 John 1:9; James 5:14-16), which is followed by an act of penance, which is our actions that reorient, or redirect, ourselves to God. Repentance is literally a 180 degree U-turn from living in sin to living for God. The penance that we are given to do in the sacrament is the means to point us in the right way, and the first steps on the road back to God.
The penance should be offered to God for the forgiveness of sins, but also for the grace to live out and develop the virtues that He gives us. The virtues are not things that we can muster up on our own, but themselves are gifts from Jesus Christ. We must be open to receiving them and living in them. We must stay close to their source, to Jesus.
Amen.
Since the Fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of us have been born with what's called a "sinful nature". Basically, while Adam and Eve were created perfect by God, completely holy and just, their decision to sin affected their nature in such a way that that holiness and justice was destroyed in them. Because of that, they became subjected to ignorance, suffering, sin, and death. We kind of inherited that state. Our natures are wounded, and we are born with the desire to be sinful and with our hearts turned away from God.
Before our baptisms, we were completely alienated from God. We were outside of His family. But through baptism, and our faith and repentance, we enter into a life-giving relationship with God, and He fills us with His grace--the grace to live that life of holiness and justice that Adam and Eve lost. But our baptism didn't completely erase the consequences of sin. We still suffer and die. Our minds are still subject to ignorance, and we still have that pesky urge to sin. We are often tempted, and we constantly struggle.
So what is sin? It is an action (or lack of action) that violates God's law. At its heart, it is a rebellion against God, which says, "I know better", or "I don't care." Or, more famously expressed by Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way!"
There are degrees of sin, which the Church has labelled "mortal" and "venial" sins (1 John 5:16-17). A venial sin is one that only wounds our relationship with Christ, but does not kill it outright. We don't exclude ourselves from His Covenant with us. Mortal sins on the other hand, are just that: Mortal. They kill the life of grace within us. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Mortal sin "destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to Him" (1855).
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: It must be a grave matter, committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.
1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and your mother." [Mk 10:19] The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart [Cf. Mk 3:5-6; Lk 16:19-31] do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
Venial sins can become mortal if we persist in them, and make a habit of them.
A further distinction in sin is known as the Capital sins, or more familiarly as the Seven Deadly Sins. These are "capital [head] sins" because they are the root or the cause of all other sins. They are Pride, Avarice (Greed), Envy, Wrath (Anger), Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth.
These are the sins in our lives that we need to watch for, because they are the causes of other sin in your life. If you constantly struggle with certain actions, and no matter how much you try to change them, then you need to look deeper. Sin is like a weed. You can pull the weed up, grabbing the stalk, leaves and flower, so that it is no longer visible--but if you do not grab the root, the weed will grow back. It is the same with these deadly sins.
Before we look in detail at the sins, a few thoughts, from a website about the deadly sins might be useful.
"The following pages on the deadly sins may lead to horrible discoveries. Bear in mind:
1. Friends will almost never volunteer this information.
2. If they do, we will not accept it.
3. God forgives anything, even repeatedly, so do not be afraid."
"If one or more of these doesn't seem like a big sin to you, it almost certainly means you have already rationalised it. Work on that one first."
How do we work on these sins? Through discipline, spiritual reading (especially Scripture), frequent prayer, Mass, Confession, and the practice of Christian virtues in our lives. So let us examine each sin, what it is exactly, and what virtue(s) we should foster in order to counter and defeat it.
Pride: If any sin could be considered "the deadliest", this is it. It is the very sin that got Lucifer kicked out of heaven, and the very sin that he used to tempt Adam and Eve. Basically, pride is the notion that "I deserve better." It is the desire to be the master of our own destiny. It says, basically, that I should be my own god. Is it any wonder then, that "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)?
As those verses point out, Humility is the key virtue in the fight against pride. Humility is seeing ourselves as we truly are, and not comparing ourselves with others. It is the willingness to accept criticism and grow from it, to realise that we really aren't the be all and end all of the universe. It is ultimately being open to God's leading and direction, and a willingness to follow and to serve Him.
Greed or Avarice: The vice of Greed is about more than money. Similar to pride, it is the desire to be the centre, to "get what we deserve" and maybe a little more. It is the desire to hold tightly to what we have, because "it's mine!" In a non-monetary way (though it often becomes about money) people who speak of their "rights" are often being greedy. Lawsuits over rights issues involve large cash settlements in our society.
By contrast, then, Generosity is a virtue that we need. After all, "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). The angel Raphael reminds us, "Prayer with fasting and alms with uprightness are better than riches with iniquity. Better to practise almsgiving than to hoard up gold. Almsgiving saves from death and purges every kind of sin. Those who give alms have their fill of days; those who commit sin and do evil bring harm on themselves" (Tobit 12:8-10).
Envy: Envy resents the good others receive or even might receive. In this sense, it is almost indistinguishable from pride at times. Pride is inwardly working, drawing the attention toward ourselves. Envy is outwardly focussed. It obsesses about attention given to others. In that way, they are like two sides of the same sin. Envy is desiring something for ourselves that does not rightfully belong to us. It is "coveting" (the tenth commandment).
As a note: It is distinct from "Jealousy" in that envy desires to gain something not rightfully belonging to the person, whereas jealousy seeks to retain hold of something that does belong to the person. Thus, envy is always sinful, while jealousy can become sinful, but is not inherently so. This is why God can be called a "jealous" God, and still be holy and righteous in prohibiting envy among His people. Many people misunderstand the difference.
Against envy we must Love. Love is always outward focussed. It seeks the best in others, and works for their good. While the virtue of love is effective in nullifying all the vices (which is why it is the greatest of the virtues) it specifically speaks to envy, and to pride, demanding that we take the focus off ourselves and direct it to others.
Anger or Wrath: Living with bitterness and unforgiveness, quickly flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, waving at other drivers with only one finger...These are symptoms of anger. While anger is usually a reactionary issue, it can become a deep-seated habit, leading to lovelessness and abusive behaviour. When anger becomes a behavioural trait, it ceases to be a simple emotional response, and becomes sinful. While there is an anger that is good, a "righteous anger" directed at sin and injustice, truly seeing or experiencing such noble anger is rare.
Its antidote is Kindness. It means taking the tender approach, being patient and compassionate. It seeks to understand and forgive the other person, to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Lust: This is something usually associated with sex, but it is not limited to that. Lust is the out of control desire for pleasure, beyond what it is worth. That pleasure might be sexual, or power, or image. But when it becomes our focus, our desire, then it is out of control. Image, power, and sex are good things when in their proper place and understood with their proper value--but when they are sought for their own sake, it is sin.
The virtues opposed to lust are Love and self-control. Lust is a selfish desire for pleasure. Love seeks the good of others above self. It is able to weild the good things that lust seeks, but does so for the good of others. Self-control maintains the balance between pleasure and over-indulgence. It keeps the true value of true riches in sight, and does not elevate pleasure beyond its worth.
Gluttony: Like lust goes beyond sex, gluttony goes beyond food. It is the undue desire for pleasure more in the realm of leisure and entertainment, whether it be through food, other forms of entertainment such as television, or even the company of others.
It is battled by Faith and temperance. Temperance accepts the natural limits of pleasures and preserves this natural balance. Faith or faithfulness, keeps us focussed on what is truly important.
Sloth: Laziness affects us both physically and spiritually--and often, if one is lax in one area, the same is true in the other area. Disorganisation, forgetfulness, and a lack of dependability are symptoms of sloth. As well, failure to be diligent in your spiritual walk, not praying, sleeping through church, failure to read the Bible and other spiritual reading are indications that sloth has affected our spiritual life. Sloth is more subtle than some of the others, because we don't notice it right away. Rationalising away spiritual exercises begins by saying, "God won't mind if I skip it once" and ends up being a great effort to read or pray or in any way draw closer to Christ.
We must counter sloth with Zeal. Zeal is the energetic response of the heart to God's commands. It is the quickening of our spirit to follow hard after Him. Like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, we must watch and pray, so that we do not fall asleep in service to Christ. With zeal, we must maintain discipline, so that habits will form. Habitually meeting with God will enflame our zeal, and our zeal will reinforce our habits.
These sins conspire together to deaden our spiritual life. Because of the nature of mortal sin, a new initiative of God's mercy is needed, as well as a conversion of our hearts. This is accomplished through the sacrament of Penance. Basically, because in mortal sin, we've flipped God off, and left the Covenant relationship with Him, killing His life of grace in our hearts, we need to receive that grace again from Him to be welcomed back into the Covenant. Through the sacrament of Reconciliation, we demonstrate our sincere repentance by confession (1 John 1:9; James 5:14-16), which is followed by an act of penance, which is our actions that reorient, or redirect, ourselves to God. Repentance is literally a 180 degree U-turn from living in sin to living for God. The penance that we are given to do in the sacrament is the means to point us in the right way, and the first steps on the road back to God.
The penance should be offered to God for the forgiveness of sins, but also for the grace to live out and develop the virtues that He gives us. The virtues are not things that we can muster up on our own, but themselves are gifts from Jesus Christ. We must be open to receiving them and living in them. We must stay close to their source, to Jesus.
Amen.
Labels: Sin, St. Andrew's, Virtue
posted by Gregory at 2:31 p.m.
5 Comments:
Gregory,
When Penance first came about through the Celtic Catholics, it was granted only once, and at a very high premium. For example, a person on the list of penitents was prevented from marrying (if they weren't already), or from serving in the military. Could you comment as to the present-day practice of penance, please?
More, could you distinguish between absolution and penance, please? Perhaps you could also share with your readership how indulgences relate to the penitential system, and if they are still practiced today?
God bless you.
Christopher
If nobody minds, I'll go ahead and fill in for our missing Gregory...
First of all, you got to give those Celtic Catholics a lot of credit, they must've been pretty creative to have come up with something like penance on their own. Especially when you never ever find any examples of people humbling themselves out of contrition for their sins in scripture (or I would have to assume that were the case, else those Celts were obviously plagiarizing...)
After administering the absolution, the priest will prescribe a prayer or series of prayers as penance. In my experience at least, if you request a certain prayer as your penance, the priest will almost always grant the request. This act of faith serves as your expression of contrition for whatever sins you have just confessed, but if you want to fortify yourself against further sin there are other forms of penance which you can impose upon yourself: not eating meat, sugar, or your favorite food for a week, taking cold showers, contributing more to charity, going to Mass more often, increased prayer and spiritual reading - just to name a few possibilities. And there are also indulgences.
If by "indulgence" you mean paying a certain amount of money in exchange for the freedom to indulge in the sin of your choice, then rest assured that kind of "indulgence" does not exist and never really did to the extent that you may have been taught to believe it did depending on your background. The greatest saints did much more than was necessary for their own salvation, therefore in exchange for some act of faith you may partake of their surplus of grace and offer it to God in reparation for your own sins (which, of course, does not do one any good at all if one is not honestly sorry for having committed these sins in the first place.) This is not a substitute for penance but combined with penance it helps repair the damage to your soul sin caused by sin. Similar to with penance, prayer is the usual means of obtaining indulgences nowadays. In the case of what Martin Luther objected to, it was helping fund the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. Not surprisingly, that proved open to corruption and the Church has been more cautious in deciding what kinds of expressions of faith are worthy of an indulgence ever since.
Hey Chris and Blackjack! Sorry. I was pretty busy (and tired) this weekend.
Chris, Blackjack laid it out pretty well in his reply. You may have to forgive his sarcasm in the first paragraph (though I thought it was pretty humourous myself).
I thought I'd just add to what BJ said:
First off, the Celts didn't originate the sacrament of penance. Besides being mentioned in the Bible, Confession and penance is mentioned in the Didache, and all through other early Church writings (which had penalties just as harsh as you describe). I'd look up exactly where in the Didache it spells it out, but it's late, and my copy is all the way upstairs. Maybe tomorrow, if you're good ;)
What the Celts (Those lovable Irish, who gave us trousers, Guinness, and a recivilised Europe, besides) did with Confession and penance was made it private. Before that, Confession was made publicly, before the whole Church. (Wouldn't that suck!) The Celts, those geniuses they, theologised that the priest is the representative of both Christ and the Church, and, as the one in the Church with the authority to forgive sins, it only made sense that we needed to confess only to him to gain absolution.
Absolution, as Blackjack said, is the pronouncement of forgiveness. If I'm not mistaken, it is conditional on both our sincerity and our actual performance of the assigned penance. As I mention in the post above, the penance is designed to be the first step in our new walk with God, in order to point the way and counter the sin that cut us off from God. If you've ever heard the phrase, "Sorry's not good enough!" you'll understand the value of penance!
There's a movie, that I haven't seen and forget the name of, that tells the story of a Spanish Conquistador-slave trader (played by Robert De Niro, if I remember correctly) who has a conversion to Christ, and quits the slave trade. He confesses his crimes to the priest, who makes him, for his penance, bind up his Conquistador armour in a net, carry it up the mountain, and throw it into the river as a sign of giving up his old life of sin.
That dramatic presentation illustrates what our not-always-so-dramatic penance should accomplish. Confession should be more than rattling off our sins, hearing the words of absolution, and being assigned a generic penance. Rather, it can become a mini counselling session, or spiritual direction, where the priest helps you to discern the root causes of the sin, so that they can be dealt with more fully and directly in the penance.
As for indulgences, I have nothing to add to Blackjack's fine description, except to point out that daily Bible reading also gains an indulgence, as does giving alms and aiding the poor, if I'm not way out in left field.
Anyway, I really hope that cleared up your questions. I'll find the reference to confession in the Didache for you, and put it here tomorrow, sometime.
God bless!
Gregory
Gregory, Blackjack:
Confession is not something I'm unclear on. I am familiar with the Didache, too (in class work at seminary demands several readings of that wonderful document!). Sarah and I practice confession regularly.
If I understand correctly, The Roman penitential system is as such:
1. Contrition
2. Confession
3. Penance
4. Absolution
The Reformation church removed penance so that it looks as follows:
1. Contrition
2. Confession
3. Absolution
You're right to point out that there is some merit in penance. Certainly it is good discipline and a pointed physical symbol for spiritual maturation. The idea of "sorry's not good enough," however, walks a tenuous line between 'works righteousness' and 'insightful discipline.'
Indulgences is an issue that I need to look into further. I have many reservations about 'monetary righteousness', if I can be so crass, and need to look deeper into the theology of the practice. Tetzel is certainly not the standard for the practice of indulgences. And St. Peter's bascillica was founded more than on extorted money as a way to cover over religious pluralism by the leaders of Germany. There is a sublimity to it that I need to parse before I continue questioning it.
God bless you, Gregory, and Blackjack!
Christopher J. Freeman
Yeah, I meant that lightheartedly, I hope it didn't come out the wrong way.
You quite right, Greg, studying the Bible daily merits a plenary indulgence every month.
Lots more about indulgences here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
Technically, the order is contrition, confession, absolution and then penance. Though "penance" is sometimes used as a blanket term for all four of those steps.
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