Here are some helpful hints.
- One must first break away from all mortal and even venial sins. These sins blind one so that the predominant fault, always allusive, remains hidden.
- Tendencies towards venial sins can reveal the predominant fault. Example: if one is always confessing the same venial sins, most likely these are related to the predominant fault.
- Remember the sins of your childhood. Were you greedy, always taking the largest brownie on the plate? Did you steal candy out of the cupboard? Did you lie to your parents regularly? Were you mean to your siblings? And so on. Such an examination of your childhood sins can reveal pride, gluttony, deceit, avarice, malice, and so on.
- Have you really done a serious examination of conscience which includes sins of the imagination and thought? Sometimes, one sins inwardly but not outwardly, and these inward sins can reveal the predominant fault.
- Are you absolutely ruthless in confession, not hiding anything and asking God to show you sins of the past not yet confessed, although forgiven, but indicating patterns?
- What do you think of the most during the day? Sex? Food? Leisure? Money or shopping? These thoughts could indicate Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Avarice and so on without one even sinning except in thought. Such preoccupations most likely point to the predominant fault.
- Ask your mum.
Seriously, the predominant fault is hard to pin down as we all have a survival instinct not to seem "that bad" to ourselves and others. But, until the predominant fault is overcome, there is no Illumination State and no Unitive State with God.
God blesses the pure in heart. And, purity in heart is not intention, but a reality.
Here are some previous posts on the predominant fault.
This one above has a great graph.
Here are some previous posts on the predominant fault.
18 Mar 2015
Before conquering our predominant fault, our virtues are often, to speak more properly, natural good inclinations rather than true and solid virtues that have taken root in us. Prior to victory over this fault, the fountain of graces is ...
12 Oct 2014
When one asks and allows God to enter into one's soul and deal with one's predominant fault or faults, He does. It is hard but once one begins the journey it is not so hard.In fact, one senses the way God breaks up that fault ...
22 Oct 2014
For example, a woman who suffers from the predominant fault of vainglory and cares too much about how she looks or how other people see her, will spend too much time on clothes, make-up, hair, even wasting money on ...
12 Sep 2014
... posts today have been by request of a friend. Now, the discussion of natural law can lead one to ask this question, "Is there a connection between natural law, written on the hearts of man, and people's predominant fault?"
16 Nov 2014
"If we are to be merciful and compassionate towards our neighbour, we ought to be so above all when we know his dominant fault. The first impulse is to bring all our severity to bear on it, but on the contrary, it is one that we ...
08 Apr 2014
Firstly, St. Alphonsus reveals that anyone who gets upset with sin in one's own life is not humble, but proud, and may be exhibiting the predominant fault of anger. Anger is not merely focused on other or events, but one can ...
25 Sep 2013
Youth can spot a hypocrite a mile away and the bad priests and neglectful husbands and fathers will have to face God as to why they did not work on their predominant fault. Being a Catholic man, like being a Catholic woman, ...
13 Aug 2014
The predominant fault is so much the more dangerous as it often compromises our principal good point, which is a happy inclination of our nature that ought to develop and to be increased by grace. For example, a man is ...
07 Apr 2014
Use the tags and labels to read the posts on one's predominant fault, if you have not done so already. Hard stuff, but necessary for the road to perfection. There are 45 posts dealing with that topic directly. And, speaking of ...
22 Jul 2012
Garrigou-Lagrange states that "it is of primary importance that we recognize our predominant fault and have no illusions about it. This is is so much the more necessary as our adversary, the enemy of our soul, knows it quite ...
18 Sep 2013
For without dealing with our predominant fault, there is no moving on into the Dark Night, Illumnative and Unitive states. Later on, I can show how the predominant fault, unless dealt with in this life, is the reason we go to ...
18 Sep 2013
The predominant fault is the defect in us that tends to prevail over the others, and thereby over our manner of feeling, judging, sympathizing, willing, and acting. It is a defect that has in each of us an intimate relation to our ...
19 Sep 2013
Garrigou-Lagrange helps us on our way. The graph at the very end of this post indicates how to break the sins of the predominant fault. This is hard work. This takes time and reflection. One must be ruthless with one's self to a ...
18 Sep 2013
The greatest fault is pride. Thinking that one knows better than a bishop or that one can judge a liberal bishop as unauthorized to make a statement on a visionary is pride. Period. But, those with a predominant fault of sloth or ...
27 Sep 2013
The second most common predominant fault of women could be pride. This is the primordial sin and one easy to fall into. But, if this is the main, underlining fault of all faults, it must be rooted out through serious attention, ...
27 Sep 2013
The Predominant Fault of Some Women. Posted by Supertradmum. Just to be fair, I have been talking with lovely, good Catholic women who want to become saints. They would be in the category of the really beautiful women ...
22 Jul 2012
Predominant Fault Three-perfection series. Posted by Supertradmum. Promptness of will and intolerance of our faults are part of the battle against our predominant faults. This is a battle from which we cannot escape if we ...
24 Jul 2012
Perfection Series continued-the predominant fault--four. Posted by Supertradmum. St. Augustine tells us, using Garrigou-Lagrange, that God never asks us to do the impossible. If God desires us to be one with Him and He ...
08 Apr 2014
St. Francis de Sales on His Predominant Faults-Two. Posted by Supertradmum. After being greatly insulted by a Knight of Malta for not giving a benefice to one of his servants, “the bishop‟s brother …asked him how it was he ...
25 Oct 2014
Ask God to show you your predominant fault or faults. One way is to look at the pattern of sins in your life, as repetitive venial sins reveal the predominant fault. Asking God to purge one of this fault is part of the Dark Night.