In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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The Seven Deadly Sins — and
their Remedies Source Originally published in The Anchor as a series of Lenten reflections by Father Thomas Kocik in 2005 –
currently at One Peter Five in 2014.
The
disorder introduced into our human nature by Adam’s fall from grace reveals
itself especially through seven dominant vices known in our Catholic tradition
as the capital sins. These are: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy,
and sloth. We call them “capital” sins (from the Latin caput, meaning
“head”) because they are the sources or fountainheads of all the sins people
commit, whether sins of commission or sins of omission. We call them “deadly”
because they cause spiritual death; Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen liked to call
them the “seven pallbearers of the soul.” Spiritual growth is impossible unless
we try to dig up the roots of our sins with the help of God’s illuminating and
sanctifying grace.
Pride
The first
of the seven deadly sins is pride, defined as inordinate self-esteem or
self-importance. Pride is the prolific source of countless sins, including
presumption, hypocrisy, disobedience to lawful superiors, hardheartedness to
subordinates, acrimony, and boastfulness. Some of the ways in which sinful
pride manifests itself are: exaggerating one’s own talents, attributing to
oneself qualities one lacks, magnifying other people’s defects, putting other
people down, ingratitude, and failing to attribute one’s gifts and talents to
God.
We know from
Sacred Scripture that pride is the bottleneck of all graces (Jas 4:6); that it
is self-ruinous (Lk 14:11); that God hates it (Prov 8:13) and punishes it (Prov
16:5); and that it deprives one’s good works of merit in God’s sight because it
makes one perform them with a wrong intention (cf. Mt 6:1-2).
Humility, or poverty of spirit, is the
opposite of pride. Just as pride is the foundational sin, so humility is the
foundational virtue and thus ranks first among the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3). The
virtue of humility makes us indifferent to worldly power, prestige and riches,
so that we might keep our focus on God, who alone is our supreme joy.
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior in His Passion, undergoing the cruelest torments yet
uttering no complaint and showing no resentment (cf. 1 Pt 2:23). Then
pray: From the sin of pride deliver me, O Lord.
Avarice
Avarice,
also known as covetousness or greed, is defined as the immoderate desire of
earthly goods, especially those that belong to others. Of the Ten Commandments,
two regulate not only our external actions but even our internal desires. These
are the ninth and tenth commandments, both of which forbid avarice (“You shall
not covet…”).
St Paul calls
avarice the “root of all evils” (1 Tim 6:10). Robbery, theft, fraud, parsimony,
and callousness toward the poor all stem from avarice. But there are more
subtle forms of avarice that may blind us to the sinfulness of our actions.
Some people imagine that just because they found some money or personal
belongings, the items belong to them (“Finders keepers!”). Unscrupulous
contractors put in time not required for the job at hand, or use inferior
materials at a higher price. Gambling, playing the stock market, and purchasing
goods on credit are not in themselves sinful, but they become sins if a person
risks loss so great that he cannot pay his debts and support his dependents.
Advertisers convince us that we must have the latest fashions or models, when we
could just as well continue to use our serviceable appliances, clothing, cars,
smartphones, etc.
St
Francis de Sales says that everyone claims to abhor avarice. We wax eloquent
when we explain how we must have the necessary things to get along in the world.
But we never think we have enough, so we always find ourselves wanting more.
How often do we include avarice in our examination of conscience or bring it up
in confession?
We can
enjoy the goods of this world, but we must be on guard not to become unduly
attached to them and thus fall into idolatry (cf. Eph 5:5). God alone is our
supreme happiness. Of all people, Christians should not be overly concerned
with earthly goods; for our heavenly Father has care of us (cf. Mt 6:31-32).
Does this mean we should neglect our duties and occupations? Certainly not. It
means that, while attending to our affairs, we must not neglect the affairs of
the soul. “Seek first [God’s] Kingdom and His righteousness,” Our Lord
promises, “and all these things shall be yours as well” (Mt 6:33).
Mercy is the virtue that opposes
avarice. Peter Kreeft writes in Back to
Virtue that avarice is “the centrifugal
reach to grab and keep the world’s goods for oneself,” whereas mercy is “the
centripetal reach to give, to share the world’s goods with others.” Mercy is
the antidote to the greed that poisons the soul.
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our Savior, whose Passion depicts a progressive impoverishment. He is
abandoned by most of His disciples, then stripped of all honor and finally of
life itself. Then pray: From the sin of avarice deliver me, O Lord.
Envy
Of the
seven deadly sins, envy is the only one that gives us no pleasure at all, not
even fleeting satisfaction. Envy is defined as sadness over another’s
happiness, blessings or achievements, such that we should want to see the other
person deprived of those goods, and we are happy when he has actually lost
them. Like all sins, envy proceeds from the foundational sin of pride, which
cannot tolerate a superior or a rival. It takes many different forms, including
annoyance at hearing another person praised, depreciating the good reputation
of others by speaking ill of them, and desiring to eclipse others even by
questionable methods.
Envy
poisons our whole being. Because Cain was envious of his brother Abel, he “was
very angry, and his countenance fell” (Gen 4:5). Because the sons of Jacob
envied their brother Joseph, “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to
him” (Gen 37:4). Because Saul was envious of David, he “eyed David from that
day on” (1 Sam 18:9). “Jealousy and anger shorten life, and anxiety brings on
old age too soon” (Sir 30:24).
St Paul
places envy among the works of the flesh and declares that “those who do such
things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19-21). He bids us “conduct
ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in … quarreling and jealousy” (Rom
13:13). In private matters, envy produces angry words (1 Cor 1:11) and harmful
deeds (Jas 3:16). In public matters, it breeds war, symbolized in the Apocalypse
by the rider on the red horse who was given power “to take peace from the
earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword”
(Rev 6:4; the sword stands for war). Among Christians, discord born of envy can
lead to the sin of schism, or separation from the universal Church, which is
what the Apostle feared would happen in the Christian community at Corinth (1
Cor 11:18-19). And envy can make priests and vowed religious resent their
celibacy when they see happily married people.
Generosity is the opposite of envy. Whereas
envy brings only sorrow and pain, generosity is the seedbed of joy. This should
come as no surprise, since we are created in the divine image. We are truly
happy insofar as we are conformed to God the Holy Trinity, whose very essence
is self-giving love and receptivity. St Anselm of Canterbury teaches that our
ultimate joy in heaven will be increased by the absence of envy: “If anyone
else whom you love as much as yourself possessed the same blessedness, your joy
would be doubled because you would rejoice as much for him as for yourself.”
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior before Pontius Pilate, delivered up out of envy by
the chief priests (Mk 15:9-10). Then pray: From the sin of envy deliver
me, O Lord.
Anger
Fourth on
the list of the seven deadly sins is anger, or “wrath” in Old English. What
most people mean by “anger” is often not a sin, but simply an emotional
response to a perceived injustice, wrongdoing or annoyance. Such was Our Lord’s
anger at the money-changers in the Temple (Mk 11:15-19).
Just as
it is wrong to be angry without cause, so it is wrong not to be
angry when there is cause. Peter Kreeft illustrates the point in Back to
Virtue: “To be
angry at the lawyer who got the drug pusher free on a technicality is not
sinful, especially when your son is lying in a coffin after an overdose from
that pusher.” A more common example of anger that is not sinful but righteous
is that of a parent at the misconduct of a child, provided the parent’s
response is not excessive. The parent still loves the child but is angry at the
child’s bad behavior.
Alas,
Original Sin has invaded every corner of our soul. Consequently, anger is often
a violent, inordinate desire accompanied by hatred or vengefulness. If anger is
unreasonable and therefore too strong for the occasion or the person at whom we
are angry, it can be a mortal sin. Whereas righteous anger wills what is good
(justice and correction), sinful anger wills evil (“Damn you!”). As a capital
sin, anger easily gives rise to many grave sins, including murder: “For the
stirring of milk brings forth curds, and the stirring of anger brings forth
blood” (Prov 30:33). “Pitch and resin make fires flare up, and insistent
quarrels provoke bloodshed” (Sir 28:11). God warned Cain when Cain grew angry
because God favored Abel and not him; but instead of heeding God’s advice, Cain
nourished his resentment and finally murdered Abel (Gen 4:6-8).
The
Letter of St James cautions: “Everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of
God” (Jas 1:19). And St Paul exhorts: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the
sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil” (Eph 4:26).
Meekness is the virtue that helps us to
control anger. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land” (Mt 5:5).
The essence of meekness is not weakness, but the combination of strength and
gentleness, the ability to use force when necessary and the gentleness to
forego it.
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior, the Suffering Servant whose mercy Isaiah prophecies:
“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smouldering wick he shall not quench”
(Isa 42:3). Precisely because Christ loved sinners, He rebuked them (often
scathingly!), but was always ready to suffer harm rather than inflict it. Then
pray: From the sin of anger deliver me, O Lord.
Lust
Since the
sexual revolution of the 1960s, our Western culture has said that sex has no
intrinsic relation to procreation, or even to love and intimacy. Not
surprisingly, then, these intervening years have brought permissive abortion,
no-fault divorce, legalized prostitution, the mainstreaming of pornography, and
the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Behind this devaluation
of sex is the deadly sin of lust, which the Catechism
of the Catholic Church defines as “disordered desire for or inordinate
enjoyment of sexual pleasure” (no. 2351). Reclaim your sexual health
The
Catholic Church has always taught that sexual pleasure is morally permissible
only to married people and only when they use it in the way God intends.
Regrettably, Christian morality in general and Christian sexual morality in
particular are often seen as arbitrary rules imposed by God or the Church to
keep people from enjoying life’s pleasures. Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of
the Body,” based largely on the Book of Genesis, casts traditional sexual
morality in a fresh light. George Weigel provides a fine overview of the pope’s
approach in The Truth
of Catholicism. In sum,
the only sex worthy of men and women made in God’s image is sex that expresses
complete and irrevocable self-giving, not a use (or abuse) of another for
fleeting gratification. The self-giving that defines real love implies openness
to the gift of new human life, just as God’s love “burst the boundaries of
God’s inner life and poured itself forth in creation.” It is immoral to
separate sex from commitment (as in fornication and adultery) or from
procreation (as in contraceptive and homosexual acts).
Sodom’s
destruction was divine punishment for sexual vice (Gen 19:24-25). Our bodies
are temples of the living God (2 Cor 6:16), and we should control them “in
holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen” (1 Thes 4:3-5).
Impurity should not even be mentioned among Christians, never mind practiced (Eph
5:3-4). Lust enslaves the will, destroys love of prayer, weakens faith, hardens
the heart, and fills the conscience with dissatisfaction.
The
opposite of lust is chastity, a species of that blessed “purity
of heart” (Mt 5:8) and one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).
Sexual feelings, fantasies and desires will ebb and flow as naturally as the
appetite for food and drink; these are perfectly natural and human. The chaste
person subordinates these to God’s will. Chastity is a life’s task requiring
reliance on prayer and the grace of the sacraments. It demands common sense,
too. When Jesus said the desire for adultery is itself adultery (Mt 5:28),
He was following the Jewish tradition of “building a wall around the Torah
(Law),” that is, forbidding a less serious offense so as to avoid a more
grievous one. The great saints of God shut their eyes and ears from everything
that could be for them an occasion of impurity.
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior, who loved selflessly even to the point of
surrendering His life for sinners (cf. Phil 2:8). Then pray: From the sin of
lust deliver me, O Lord.
Gluttony
Eating
and drinking are necessary for our self-preservation. To facilitate these two
functions, God has attached a certain pleasure to them. The pursuit of this
pleasure as an end in itself, however, is the deadly sin of gluttony. Most
people identify gluttony with eating or drinking excessively. They are correct,
but gluttony takes other forms too: fussiness about the quality or presentation
of one’s food; eating too hastily, too hoggishly, too sumptuously, or too
often. Father Benedict Ashley, O.P., in Living
the Truth in Love,
explains that “individual acts of gluttony are not ordinarily seriously harmful
and therefore are venial, but habits that seriously harm health (at least in
the short range), if not corrected, are mortal.” (Of course, in assessing the
gravity of any human act, we must remember that subjective factors such as
chemical dependency or neurotic compulsion can lessen the degree of guilt.)
As one of
the seven deadly sins, gluttony paves the way for more grievous offenses.
Drunkenness caused Noah’s disgrace (Gen 9:20-27), Lot’s incest (Gen 19:30-38),
and the decadence both of the pagan Persians (Est 1:6-10) and of the Jewish
priests and prophets (Isa 28:7-8). Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of
pottage, a kind of bean stew (Gen 25:29-34). Gluttony was the cause of
liturgical abuses within the Christian community at Corinth (1 Cor 11:21). St
Paul calls gluttons idolaters “whose god is their belly” (Phil 3:19).
Because
man is a unity of soul and body, the Church has always insisted that the body
must be disciplined as well as the soul. “Scripture’s cure for gluttony is not
dieting but fasting,” writes Peter Kreeft in Back to
Virtue.
“Fasting, in addition to reducing weight, reduces gluttony and, best of all, is
a form of prayer. It is recommended to us on the very highest authority, that
of our Lord himself.” Saints Augustine, Jerome, and John Cassian are but three
of the many Church Fathers and spiritual writers who extolled periodic fasting.
Latin-rite Catholics are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and
for one hour prior to receiving Holy Communion. Yet even when not fasting, we
should remember St Josemaría Escrivá’s advice in The Way: “The body must be given a
little less than it needs; otherwise, it will turn traitor.” How much more progress
we could make in the spiritual life if only we accompanied our prayers with
sacrifice! “The day you leave the table without having made some small
mortification,” the saint warns us, “you will have eaten like a pagan.” (Talk
about food for thought!)
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior, forty days and forty nights in the desert, faint
with hunger from fasting. When tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread, He
rejoins, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:3-4). Then pray: From the sin of gluttony
deliver me, O Lord.
Sloth
The last
of the seven deadly sins is sloth, which St Thomas Aquinas defines as disgust
for virtue, a languor of the soul which deprives it of the power to do good.
“Pride may be the root of all evil,” observes R. R. Reno, “but in our day, the
trunk, branches, and leaves of evil are characterized by a belief that moral
responsibility, spiritual effort, and religious discipline are empty burdens,
ineffective and archaic demands that cannot lead us forward, inaccessible
ideals that, even if we believe in them, are beyond our capacity.” This is
sloth.
Medieval
writers often speak of sloth as a waning of confidence in the importance and
power of prayer. St Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of a sterility and dryness of
his soul that makes the sweet honey of psalm-chanting seem tasteless. Dante, on
the fourth ledge of Purgatory, describes the slothful as suffering from a “slow
love” that cannot uplift, leaving the soul stagnant under the heavy burden of
sin. The ancient monastic spiritual writers, recalling Psalm 91:6, nicknamed
sloth the “noonday devil” who tempts monks to sadness and despair. In the heat
of midday, as the monk tires and begins to wonder whether his commitment to
prayer and solitude was a mistake, the demon whispers, “Did God really
intend for human beings to reach for the heavens? Does God really care
whether you pray or not?”
To us
moderns, the whispering voice says, “God is everywhere. Couldn’t you just as
well worship on the golf course as in a church?” Or, “God accepts you just as
you are. Why change?” In our sloth, we avoid any spiritual discipline,
Christian or otherwise. Missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation,
laxity in prayer, disregard for the Church’s laws of fast and abstinence, a
tendency to follow the lines of least resistance — these are all manifestations
of sloth.
An
indolent soul is barren in good works (Prov 24:30-34) and easily falls prey to
the devil, “for idleness teaches much evil” (Sir 33:27). As motionless water
soon becomes stagnant, so the Christian who lives idly will soon become
corrupt. Remember Our Lord’s emphatic warning about the slothful servant and
foolish virgins (Mt 25:1-30), and His promise to spew the lukewarm out of His
mouth (Rev 3:16).
Hungering
for righteousness, or
likeness to God, is the beatitude that remedies sloth (Mt 5:6). God alone
satisfies the deepest desires of the human heart. Sensuality, technology, money
and power are just a few of the false gods that leave us ultimately empty. Seek
the true God and you will find Him (Mt 7:7-8), and in finding Him you will have
the joy that overcomes sloth.
“Learn of
me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).
Imagine our divine Savior on His way to Calvary. Three times He falls under the
weight of the heavy load; yet instead of giving up, He gets up with renewed
resolve to fulfill His mission. Then pray: From the sin of sloth
deliver me, O Lord.
AUTHOR
Father Thomas Kocik is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He is the author of five books: Apostolic Succession in an Ecumenical Context
(Alba House, 1996), The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate
(Ignatius Press, 2003), Loving and Living the Mass
(Zaccheus Press, 2007; 2nd edition, 2011), The Fullness of Truth: Catholicism and the World’s Major Religions (Newman House Press, 2013), and Singing His Song: A Short Introduction to the Liturgical Movement (Chorabooks, 2016), as well as several published articles, series, and book reviews, some of which are accessible online at Academia.edu. He is a member of the Society for Catholic Liturgy and past editor of its journal, Antiphon, and occasionally contributes to the New Liturgical Movement blog.
In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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