More thoughts from observation then and now...

Monday, 6 August 2012 Repost

More on Perfection-some capital sins

Posted by Supertradmum

As per requests from some readers, I am briefly defining some of the sins and then will define some of the virtues from Garrigou-Lagrange.

Anger leads to violence...Bosch

I think most of us understand and have even heart this idea before from Aquinas: St. Thomas observes that the sins of the flesh are more shameful than those of the spirit, for they lower man to the level of the brute; but those of the spirit, such as pride, the only ones that exist in the devil, are more grave for they are more directly opposed to God and turn us more away from Him.(11)


And, this passage is a repetition, just as a reminder. According to St. Gregory and St. Thomas,(12) pride or arrogance is more than a capital sin; it is the root from which proceed especially four capital sins: vanity or vainglory, spiritual sloth or wicked sadness which embitters, envy, and anger. Vanity is the inordinate love of praise and honors. Spiritual sloth saddens the soul at the thought of the labor involved in sanctification, and at the thought of the spiritual good of good works because of the effort and abnegation they require. Envy inclines us to grow sad over another's good, in so far as it appears to oppose our own excellence. Anger, when it is not just indignation but a sin, is an inordinate movement of the soul which inclines us to repulse violently what displeases us; from it arise quarrels, insults, and abusive words. These capital vices, especially spiritual sloth, envy, and anger, engender a wicked sadness that weighs down the soul; they are quite the opposite of spiritual peace and joy, which are the fruits of charity.


Sadly, most people do not even consider some of these sins as sins. Sloth is a very common sin among the laity, causing people not to read, pray or work at their salvation.


Envy is also common and a basis for many of the "Occupy" movements we has seen since last Fall. Most societies are into the "politics of envy", which is easy to understand.


Sadly, however, especially in light of many events lately, anger as a capital sin, has become more and more common. In these times, some people feel like they have a right to be angry express that anger. Discipline with regard to being patient and not insulting seems to have disappeared.

Notice that all of these serious sins stop peace and joy.

I was on a train last week and a young woman across from me was on a cell phone. I could not ignore her conversations, nor could anyone else. She was unhappy about everything. I really felt sorry for her.

She had phoned several people about this and that and all the stories were negative and complaining.
This young woman will never be happy until she realizes that her anger, envy, and pride weigh her down and damage her judgement. She is in a negative spin about the entire world in which she lives. And, she is only about 23. How sad. But, sin has become a habit with her and she has no one to point out to her that her soul is heavy and not experiencing joy, peace and charity. Her words betray a habit of complaining, and we are warned against this time and again in the Scriptures. So many young people have been raised without any moral framework, and we must pray for her and all who have not the will nor the inclination to break out of negativity.

Capital sins are deadly and become habitual easily. If we are sinning in these areas, we must beg God to break through our complacency and show us the remedies. The remedies, beginning with self-knowledge, are repentance and grace to live the life of virtue.
-
One cannot take a shortcut to heaven. One cannot skip stages of spiritual growth. Not to be arcane, Garrigou-Lagrange points out the consequences of the capital sins.

By the consequences of sin are generally understood the remnants of sin (reliquiae peccati), the evil inclinations left, so to speak, in our temperament even after sin has been forgiven, as concupiscence, which is a remnant of original sin, remains after baptism, like a wound in the course of healing. The consequences of the capital sins may also mean the other sins that spring from them. The capital sins are so called because they are like the head or the principle of many others. We are, first of all, inclined toward them, and by them in turn toward sins that are often more serious.

Thus vainglory or vanity engenders disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contention through rivalry, discord, love of novelties, and stubbornness. It is a vice that may lead to most lamentable falls and apostasy.

Spiritual sloth, disgust for spiritual things and for the work of sanctification, because of the effort it demands, is a vice directly opposed to the love of God and to the holy joy that results from it. Sloth engenders malice, rancor or bitterness toward our neighbor, pusillanimity in the face of duty to be accomplished, discouragement, spiritual torpor, forgetfulness of the precepts, seeking after forbidden things. Slipping downward on the slope of pride, vain­glory, and spiritual sloth, many have lost their vocation.

In the same way, envy or willful displeasure at the sight of another's good, as if it were an evil for us, engenders hatred, slander, calumny, joy at he misfortune of another, and sadness at his success.

Gluttony and sensuality also produce other vices and may lead to blindness of spirit, to hardness of heart, to attachment to the present life even to the loss of hope of eternal life, and to love of self even to hatred of God, and to final impenitence.

I have highlighted important points here. We need to make hard decisions to break away from sin and most of the capital sins are mortal. A good confessor can help.

To break away from such sins may mean changing one's lifestyle and even dropping some friends who lead one into sin.

May I add that calumny is not the same as slander. Calumny is lying about someone on purpose to cause that person harm. It is malicious. Slander is also malicious, but involves the spreading of perhaps true evil done by another. Gossip is usually involved in slander. A person who judges another and spreads negative information about another is committing slander.

A few others words have been defined in another post. One more is the phrase spiritual torpor. This is not quite the same thing as sloth, but can be connected. Here is a section which may help.

Sloth in general, pigritia, is a voluntary and culpable repugnance to work, to effort, and consequently a tendency to idleness, or at least to negligence, to pusillanimity,(2) which is opposed to generosity or magnanimity.
Sloth is not the languor or torpor in action which comes from poor health; it is an evil disposition of the will and of the sensible appetites, by which one fears and refuses effort, wishes to avoid all trouble, and seeks a dolce farniente. It has often been remarked that the slothful man is a parasite, who lives at the expense of others, as tranquil as a woodchuck when he is undisturbed in his idleness, and ill-humored when an effort is made to oblige him to work. This vice begins with unconcern and negligence in work, and manifests itself by a progressive dislike for all serious, physical and mental labor.
When idleness affects the accomplishment of the religious duties necessary to sanctification, it is called acedia.(3) It is an evil sadness: opposed to spiritual joy, which is the fruit of generosity in the love of God. Acedia is a disgust for spiritual things, a disgust which leads one to perform them negligently, to shorten them, or to omit them under vain pretexts. It is the cause of tepidity.
This sadness, which is radically opposed to that of contrition, depresses the soul and weighs it down because it does not react as it should. Then it reaches a voluntary disgust for spiritual things, because they demand too much effort and self-discipline. Whereas devotion, which is the promptness of the will in the service of God, lifts the soul up, spiritual sloth weighs down and crushes the soul and ends by causing it to find the yoke of the Lord unbearable and to flee the divine light, which reminds it of its duties. St. Augustine says: "Light which is so pleasant to pure eyes, becomes hateful to infirm eyes which can no longer bear it."
This depressing sadness, the result of negligence, and this disgust, which is at least indirectly voluntary, are quite different from the sensible or spiritual aridity which, in divine trials, is accompanied by true contrition for our sins, by fear of offending God, by a keen desire for perfection, by a need of solitude, of recollection, and of the prayer of simple gaze.

Sloth by Bosch

Torpor is a state which must be broken to grow and move away from sin. It can be depression from sinning.


One last long quotation, which will bring hope follows here:



Happily, contrary to what is true of the virtues, these vices or defects are not connected. One may have some without the others; several indeed are contradictory: for example, one cannot be avaricious and prodigal at one and the same time.

But we have to practice numerous virtues, forty or more, if we count all the virtues annexed to the principal ones. With the exception of justice, each stands like a summit between two contrary vices: the one by excess, such as temerity; the other by defect, such as cowardice.
Moreover, certain defects resemble certain virtues: for instance, pride is in some ways similar to magnanimity. It is important to have discretion or Christian prudence to discern clearly the virtue from the defect which in certain respects resembles it. Otherwise, false notes may be struck on the keyboard of the virtues: for example, pusillanimity may be confounded with humility, severity with justice, weakness with mercy.


This is why we cannot grow on our own. We must be in relationships. This is God's plan for us.


to be continued...

The Seven Mortal Sins of Contraception

When a person contracepts, he or she commits not one mortal sin, but seven. The use of contraception is forbidden in the Catholic Church for many reasons.

I shall list the Ten Commandments and note which ones are deliberately broken by those who contracept. My comments are in blue.

Exodus 20 Douay-Rheims

20 And the Lord spoke all these words:

2 I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. (1) Idolatry is the first sin of contraception for several reasons. One is playing God and not letting God be God in creating life. One is also making sex and pleasure into gods, thus denying God His sovereignty. One becomes or tries to become God.

4 Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. (2)

8 Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. (3)

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works.

10 But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.

12 Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. (4) Contraception denies grandparents grandchildren, and breaking the family bond of generations. Thus, one no longer honors the family or one's parents when one contracepts.

13 Thou shalt not kill. Obviously, as all but a few contracepts kill the fertilized egg, now a human being with a soul, contraception is murder. (5)

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery. Fornication, having sex outside of marriage, is covered under the term adultery. Adultery is having sexual relations with a married person, but from the earliest days, fornication, having sex outside of marriage, and thus endangering the entire concept of marriage, is part of this sin. Sins here include sodomy. This sin is repeated in the traditional ninth commandment, so contraception breaks that one as well. (6)

15 Thou shalt not steal. (7) When one contracepts, one steals not only from the glory of God in creating a new person, but one steals life. One also steals from one's self the dignity of being a human being in co-creating with God in the image and likeness of God, in which we were made.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. (8) Contraception is lying, as one is being deceitful about the real purpose of intercourse, which is procreation. Also, one is lying to one's self about the reality of marriage, and the fact that the marriage act only belongs in a sanctified marriage.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. Coveting or desiring what is illicit like a person when one is not married, or even desiring someone above God is the sin when contraception is used for the enjoyment of sex without procreation.  (9  and 10). Also, contraception is done because of the desire for things, for choosing things over life--such as houses, status, money, vacations, comfort...etc.). Therefore contraception breaks both th 9 and 10th commandments.

18 And all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking: and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood afar off...

Thankfully, we have the wonderful sacrament of Confession to release us, to absolve us from such sins, and to give us the grace to start over again in Christ.

The Modern Misunderstanding of Mercy

On this blog, in several posts, I have written about the neo-religion of psychology as ruining people's awareness of sin. This idea is not new, and some prominent people in the 1970s, '80s and '90s wrote about this problem. One can follow the tags for my notes on this problem.

The worst expression of this would be the denial of personal responsibility for sin because of circumstances.

But, a nuance on the false religion of psychology seems to come up in conversations more with the Gen-Xers than with the Boomers.

This false idea involves the great misunderstanding of God's Mercy.

For most people who want to discuss sin and mercy, the idea of mercy seems to be that God excuses one from sin because of a set of circumstances, emotional problems, history, or even genetics.

Not so.

The CCC helps us realize, first of all, how sin is actually defined.


II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."121

1850 Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight."122 Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods,"123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God."124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125

1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate's cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas' betrayal - so bitter to Jesus, Peter's denial and the disciples' flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.

III. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SINS

1852 There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God."127

1853 Sins can be distinguished according to their objects, as can every human act; or according to the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or according to the commandments they violate. They can also be classed according to whether they concern God, neighbor, or oneself; they can be divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as sins in thought, word, deed, or omission. The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man."128 But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.

and

868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:

- by participating directly and voluntarily in them;

- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;

- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;

- by protecting evil-doers.

1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. "Structures of sin" are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a "social sin."144

What we have now in America and in many Western countries are structures of sin, "legal moralism" as I wrote days ago.

Sin is in the will, not in the emotions, which psychology falsely teaches. Sin may be of a less or more culpability, but never completely without culpability. There are too many so-called healing ministries which attempt to "heal" sin, when in reality, one must decide not to sin.

Can trauma or abuse, for example, lead to sin? Yes, but even if one's will is weak, one can choose not to sin.

God always gives one enough grace not to sin.

Here is St. Paul on this subject:

Romans 5 Douay-Rheims

5 Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access through faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.

3 And not only so; but we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

4 And patience trial; and trial hope;

5 And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.

6 For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly?

7 For scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die.

8 But God commendeth his charity towards us; because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time,

9 Christ died for us; much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him.

10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

11 And not only so; but also we glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation.

12 Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

13 For until the law sin was in the world; but sin was not imputed, when the law was not.

14 But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them also who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come.

15 But not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence of one, many died; much more the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

16 And not as it was by one sin, so also is the gift. For judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation; but grace is of many offences, unto justification.

17 For if by one man's offence death reigned through one; much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift, and of justice, shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.

18 Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.

19 For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just.

20 Now the law entered in, that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did more abound.

21 That as sin hath reigned to death; so also grace might reign by justice unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psychological problems do not justify us, Faith does.

And, God's Mercy does not make excuses for our sins so that we "get off the hook". God's Mercy shows us the depth of our sins, shows us the Justice which would demand reparation, or even hell, and then, forgives us, not because we are worthy, or emotionally damaged, or ill, or poor, or abandoned, but because Christ died for each one of us.

Mercy comes flowing out of the Blood of the Lamb of God on the Cross, not from psychological explanations of sin.

Sin is in the will-whether one has a formed conscience, or an ill-formed concscience, sin comes from a decision.

Of course, it can be much more difficult for those who have been wounded in any way to become saints. But, this woundedness makes for great saints, not for little ones.

God allows the woundedness in order for His Own Glory to shine forth.

Mercy is not based on excuses, but on God's tremendous love of the sinner.

Only those who face their own sins, daily, will become saints.

Such is the way of perfection... To face one's woundedness is part of carrying the Cross. To not sin while carrying this cross is sheer grace, and the need for God's Providence, Mercy, and Justice.

to be continued...

but I am having severe problems with the Net and may not be able to blog for the rest of the day...

The Blame Game Part Two

Continuing with thoughts this morning's thoughts and observations, which are not new, I have seen the denial of sins, both venial and mortal, from people who refuse to think outside the psychological box.

One man I know has never comes to grips with his falling away from the Church by his own volition, because he blames his parents.

Another couple blames the bishop for charging for annulments, which he does not in their diocese, for being in an unholy, irregular marriage.

Yet another young woman blames a priest for saying something against contraception, which she did not like, as she was contracepting and did not want to hear the truth--so she blames, still, the Church.

And so on....

The refrain of complaints reveals the lack of truth, the continuation of lies, which cover up the fact that these people, like others, have left the Church by an act of the will, their own wills.

For years, parents have not taught consequences--no time out bench will curb a rebellious spirit, and few parents take away things, such as rights to the TV or own computer, or the use of "grounding", a popular punishment for teens in my day.

I know one parent who literally saved the soul of her girl by refusing to let her to finals in a band competition because of very bad behavior. Yes, for awhile, the teen was angry, but then, she cooled down and recollected that what she had done required a consequence.

I am reminded of the famous scene from the Peter O'Toole version of Good-by Mr. Chips, in which a young lad was not allowed to play in the tennis finals because he had not done his Latin homework.

Where are those adult heroes today?

Too often people think being "strict" with children will harm them when in actuality, in psychological studies. done on adults with problems and parenting styles, children from families with lax parents have more problems than those from strict families.

Boundaries and consequences create maturity.

The blame game has to stop, and adults who are whingers must stop looking to reasons why they sin and stop sinning.

Reading the lives of the saints may help, as the saints are hardest on themselves, as real sinners, realizing that God will not excuse sin.

Is God merciful? Of course, but He is also just, and the two attributes cannot be separated.

Do some people suffer more than others in trying to combat sin? Yes.

Are some people naturally more good than others by grace? Yes.

But, we are not given a pass if we must fight against our natural tendencies towards sin just because we were hurt or even damaged as children or even as adults.

I remind readers of the four heroes of Faith in my own family-three women and a man molested for years and years by a priest in a boarding school. None left the Church, three got married and had as many children as God sent, and all loved God the entire life.

Were their marriages difficult sometimes? Yes. Have they struggled with deep feelings of hurt and rejection? Yes.

Did they forgive the priest, long dead? Yes.

Forgiveness and long-suffering form the two pillars of heroic virtue.

One does not have to walk away from God because of the sins of others. In fact, many times, the gross sins of others can be the means of coming towards God more readily.

Future

http://www.afr.com/business/agriculture/billionaires-beef-up-in-bush-20150710-gi8qlk

The more I read about the shrinking of the middle class through debt and gross consumerism, as well as unemployment, and the more I read about the fast growing underclass completely dependent on the government, the more I am reminded of the old story The Time Machine.

Those with gobs of money seem to be buying up land in many areas, They will control the food supplies.

I predict, and I have thought this for a long time, that in the end, after financial chaos, there will be two classes-the mega-wealthy privileged, who belong to Bilderberg et al, and a slave class.

What I saw in Europe was the sadness of the middle class, from which most of us online have come, as they see their rights and status slipping into the ocean of big interests. In America, people pretend they have money by using credit, and have slipped into la-la land regarding their personal financial futures.

The American Dream was never a reality, but a progressive fallacy based on the isms of Americanism, materialism, consumerism. My intelligent wealthy friends are not in debt, have sold their investments, and are buying land. Why? They know the value of land, and the not-so-future need for access to food supplies. They can see the take-over of a few multi-national companies and they are nervous about this government's ability to control OWG interests.

Big is in, small is out.

The easiest examples to see must be the almost total lack of Ma and Pa shops of any kind. Yesterday, a friend of mine and I had to go through my old neighborhood on our way to a restaurant. He is much younger than I am and we had worked on moving my books in the afternoon.

Time for dinner at a new Middle Eastern place brought us through the streets which in the 1950s and 1960s were choc-a-bloc with all the shops necessary for baby-boomer parents-small independent shops and businesses, now all gone--all but one barbershop.

In two generations, small entrepreneurs, once the backbone of America business, have disappeared.

More than that, the good, old work ethic has been swept away as well.


Up and down those blocks were large houses of large families of children of Catholic and Lutheran parents, playing ball, swimming in the local pool, now gone, going in and out of each others' houses and walking to school.

That middle class and lower middle class groupings have contracepted themselves into extinction.

Churches have been decimated and at most daily Masses, I am one of the youngest in the pews, at 66!

The frenetic seeking for comfort has destroyed the middle and lower middle class ability to wait until one has the money to buy something, to put children before goods, to be content with small.

Catholics wanted to be Americans first and Catholics second--this lack of family life and the lack of a cohesive communities are results.

Bargain hunting is now the main entertainment for many people....and garage sales sell things people have bought in knee-jerk compulsive buying.  When I speak to people about frugality or simplicity of life, except for the few, most do not understand the language of temperance.

Less is more. But, the middle class has forgotten this. This class will be forgotten in the future, as a failed experiment growing out of the prosperity and new trade, family banking systems and businesses of the great boom of the birth of the bourgeoisie.

This demographic change will affect the Catholic Church, which historically in America, was made up of the lower middle class and the lower upper classes, not the middle class until the 20th century.

We were a Church of the poor and the wealthy who knew what noblesse oblige was all about. That concept went the way of gross greed and gross capitalism based on gross individualism.

Result: an underclass stuck dependent on the socialist system the Founding Fathers never dreamed of and would decry; and the institutionalized greed of the mega-wealthy.

I shall not see this future of master and slaves, as the process will escalate only after many other changes, which will give power to the few who have been planning this destruction of Christian lifestyles, but this cultural scenario has all happened before in pagan times. Now, that we are in the great time of the Neo-Pagans, one cannot expect either a work ethic or noblesse oblige.

The Church keeps us from the worst errors a civilization can endure and still continue. Without the Church, no family is protected, children are not protected, women are not protected, and the general communal spirit which brings people to work together in simplicity and sharing falls away, decays, and dies.

"See how they love one another" cannot merely be a dream but a reality in the face of the shock of the future, to make a pun out of a famous book.

God will allow us all to be purged of sins, all sins, and purified. Thanks be to God for these times in which we live, but saints are more necessary than ever.

My view of the future of the Church is that God will raise us mighty saints in these times-men like Bernard, Dominic, and Benedict, and women like Etheldreda, Mechthild, Catherine.

I may not see these great saints, but for the Church to survive in the future, families could be these great souls for the benefit of the universal Church.

Exciting but trying times ahead. From today's Lauds:

Habakkuk 3 The Lord will appear in judgement In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion. Lord, I heard what you gave me to hear, and I was struck with awe of your work. In the midst of the years, bring it to life; in the midst of the years you will make it known. When you are angry, you will remember your mercy. God will come from Theman, the holy one from the mountain of Pharan. His glory has covered the heavens and the earth is full of his praise. His brightness shall be like light itself, rays shining from his hands – there is his strength hidden. You went forth for the salvation of the people, for salvation with your anointed one. You made a way through the sea for your horses, in the silt of many waters. I have heard you, Lord, and my stomach churns within me; at the sound of your voice my lips tremble. My bones rot away, my steps stumble. I will rest and be quiet on the day of tribulation and let it overtake those who have invaded us. For the fig will not flower, the vines will not fruit, the work of the olive will be lost. The fields will yield no food, the flocks will be cut off from the sheepfold, there will be no cattle in the stalls. But I will rejoice in the Lord, take joy in God my saviour. The Lord God is my strength. He will make me as sure-footed as the deer. He will lead me up to the heights. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion.

The Spirit of Malice and The Party Spirit

This post is divided as it is about division.

Some of these thoughts were incorporate into two other posts, one on another blog in years past.

In the first part, I highlight what I call the Spirit of Malice.

The society is seeing an explosion of malice outside and inside the Church. For years, malice has been subtle and underground, but now, it is obvious and terribly nasty. What is malice? Malice is the intention to do evil on purpose. Those who fall into the habit of malice reveal a will which is always inclined towards evil.

This evil can exhibit itself in words, actions, thoughts through the will, and not through passion. A malicious person chooses to do a certain evil. That person is not acting out of the emotions, the passions. Thomas Aquinas explains this for us.

One can see how despicable this sin is. It is a willed habit. Aquinas states that the sin comes from either a corruption within the person; in other words, the sin "presupposes some inordinateness"; or through habit; but malicious becomes a habit of the will.

Signs of malice can be multiple. Have you ever met a person who constantly is negative, who undermines other people on a regular basis, who is constantly finding fault? Have you ever met someone who thinks mean practical jokes are funny, or destroying someone's reputation a game? Have you ever met someone who simply hates everyone and delights in slander, calumny, gossip? Have you met someone who purposefully wants to hurt others, manipulate them, make them suffer?

These are malicious people. Sometimes someone will say to me, "I really do not like being around this person because she carries a cloud around with her and dampens joy and positive attitudes in others."

That is a good description of the sin of malice.

Or, someone will say, "I get the feeling this person is not real in his liking of me, but that he is waiting to hurt me somehow."

That is another good description of malice.

Of course, Catholics know who the Father of Malice is , the Father of Lies, a Liar from the his first and only sin against God-Satan.

One cannot choose to be friends with persons who are addicted to being malicious unless one is patient and kind. And, this is not necessarily good for a person on one's own. It is not healthy to be around malicious people, as they are living in a powerfully negative world and desire to bring other's down into their hells, which they have created. Pray for such people if you must deal with them at work or in the family. Kindness is a good Christian virtue to combat malice.

Here is Garrigou-Lagrange on the sin of malice, which is a bit of a repetition from the perfection series, but helpful here again.

In contradistinction to the sin of ignorance and that of frailty, the sin of malice is that by which one chooses evil knowingly. In Latin it is called a sin de industria, that is, a sin committed with deliberate calculation, design, and express intention, free from ignorance and even from antecedent passion. The sin of malice is often premeditated. This is not equivalent to saying that evil is willed for the sake of evil; since the adequate object of the will is the good, it can will evil only under the aspect of an apparent good.
Now he who sins through malice, acting with full knowledge of the case and through evil will, knowingly wills a spiritual evil (for example, the loss of charity or divine friendship) in order to possess a temporal good. It is clear that this sin thus defined differs in the degree of gravity from the sin of ignorance and that of frailty. But we must not conclude from this that every sin of malice is a sin against the Holy Ghost. This last sin is one of the gravest of the sins of malice. It is produced when a man rejects through contempt the very thing that would save him or deliver him from evil: for example, when he combats recognized religious truth, or when by reason of jealousy, he deliberately grows sad over the graces and spiritual progress of his neighbor.
The sin of malice often proceeds from a vice engendered by multiple faults; but it can exist even in the absence of this vice. It is thus that the first sin of the devil was a sin of malice, not of habitual malice but of actual malice, of evil will, of an intoxication of pride.
It is clear that the sin of malice is graver than the sins of ignorance and frailty, although these last are sometimes mortal. This explains why human laws inflict greater punishment for premeditated murder than for that committed through passion.
The greatest gravity of the sins of malice comes from the fact that they are more voluntary than the others, from the fact that they generally proceed from a vice engendered by repeated sins, and from the fact that by them man knowingly prefers a temporal good to the divine friendship, without the partial excuse of a certain ignorance or of a strong passion.
In these questions one may err in two ways that are contradictory to each other. Some lean to the opinion that only the sin of malice can be mortal; they do not see with sufficient clearness the gravity of certain sins of voluntary ignorance and of certain sins of frailty, in which, nevertheless, there is serious matter, sufficient advertence, and full consent.
Others, on the contrary, do not see clearly enough the gravity of certain sins of malice committed in cold blood, with an affected moderation and a pretense of good will or of tolerance. Those who thus combat the true religion and take away from children the bread of divine truth may be sinning more gravely than he who blasphemes and kills someone under the impulse of anger.
Sin is so much the more grave as it is more voluntary, as it is committed with greater light and proceeds from a more inordinate love of self, which sometimes even goes so far as contempt of God. On the other hand, a virtuous act is more or less meritorious according as it is more voluntary, more free, and as it is inspired by a greater love of God and neighbor, a love that may even reach holy contempt of self, as St. Augustine says.

Thus he who prays with too great attachment to sensible consolation merits less than he who perseveres in prayer in a continual and profound aridity without any consolation. But on emerging from this trial, his merit does not grow less if his prayer proceeds from an equal degree of charity which now has a happy reaction on his sensibility. It is still true that one interior act of pure love is of greater value in the eyes of God than many exterior works inspired by a lesser charity.
In all these questions, whether good or evil is involved, particular attention must be paid to what proceeds from our higher faculties, the intellect and will: that is, to the act of the will following full knowledge of the case. And, from this point of view, if an evil act committed with full deliberation and consent, like a formal pact with the devil, has formidable consequences, a good act, such as the oblation of self to God, made with full deliberation and consent and frequently renewed, can have even greater consequences in the order of good; for the Holy Ghost is of a certainty infinitely more powerful than the spirit of evil, and He can do more for our sanctification than the latter can for our ruin. It is well to think of this in the face of the gravity of certain present-day events. The love of Christ, dying on the cross for us, pleased God more than all sins taken together displeased Him; so the Savior is more powerful to save us than the enemy of good is to destroy us. With this meaning, Christ said: "Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell." (28) Unless we open the door of our hearts to him, the enemy of good cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of our will, whereas God is closer to us than we are to ourselves and can lead us strongly and sweetly to the most profound and elevated meritorious free acts, to acts that are the prelude of eternal life.

http://www.christianperfection.info/tta33.php

Malice leads to divisiveness in a community, to the party spirit in a church.

The "party spirit" has nothing to do with balloons or cake.

Few Catholics understand what the “party spirit” is and how it comes about. Factions have been within the Church since day one. St. Paul refers to such in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, in Roman 12: 9-21 and Romans 14: 1-12.

St. Paul tells us that the party spirit is a spirit, or demon, of division. Divisiveness is never from God within the Church. Divisiveness is not the same as criticism, which should include positive solutions to problems.

For example, one may criticize a catechetical program in a church, but not offer to find alternatives which may be better or teach. Those who judge and criticize merely to stir up trouble build the doorway for the party spirit.

Divisiveness usually means three things. Firstly, that a lack of charity and forbearance has crept into a parish or a group. This lack of charity comes from concentrating on people’s sins and failings, rather than encouraging their good points.

Secondly, egotism, which rears its hydra head, creates division. Egotism must be heard, seen and is in everybody’s face. Egotism is not humble ever and defends itself constantly.

Thirdly, the seeking for power creates a party spirit. To the extreme, this seeking of power creates entirely new churches, such as the four churches found in the 1960s on one corner in my home town, all split-offs from the other. Division caused confusion, anger, even hatred.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, St. Paul tells us where the party spirit comes from.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, love of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, loves of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.”

The last phrase must include the discernment to know when to avoid and when to correct.
Avoiding means not being friends with those who are untrustworthy of the Gospel of the Lord. Avoiding means that if one does not avoid slanderers or the abusive or the arrogant, on becomes like them and loses the gifts of discernment, temperance, and prudence.

We do not have to win every battle and even fight every battle in the Church. Some battles require great holiness and purity of heart. Some require patience and intense prayer and fasting.

How does one avoid strife in groups? St. Paul has the answer, “Put on then, God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience, forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all of these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”Colossians 3:12-15

One must find peace within one’s self in order to spread peace and only those who have found peace, through meekness to God can truly stay away from unnecessary conflicts.

Grieving the Holy Spirit, another one of Paul’s inspirations, comes about when people engage and encourage, wrath, anger, bitterness, clamor, and slander. See Ephesians 4: 25-32 on these points.

If one reads all the epistles, one finds the theme of communal harmony is almost in each one. If St. Paul had to address divisiveness over and over, one can see that it can be a persistent problem.
I cannot refer to all the passages on this theme, but list a few ways to avoid divisiveness in the Church, in our parishes, in our communities, in our families, and so on.

One, look to one’s own sins in humility and truth. If one sees the horribleness of one’s own weaknesses and failings, one cannot judge nor cause dissension by pointing to another’s faults.

Two, think on Christ and not on one’s self. If one is truly in love with Christ, the Bridegroom, one supernaturally wants to love His brothers and sisters and find creative ways to show this love.

Three, forgiveness covers a multitude of sins and failings. To forgive is to forget, which some priests do not teach. I would hope people in my life forgive and forget instead of constantly saying a litany of my faults to me. This concentration on negativity rises from unforgiveness and even hatred. The negative litany destroys community.

Four, egotism must go. The rule of the saints and the great teachers on purity of heart, mind and soul tell us that the ego stands between us and God, between us and His Perfect Will in our lives, between us and the community, between us and eternity. If the ego is not destroyed, we shall not see God after our particular judgment as we have chosen our self-will over Him.

Lastly, egotism and narcissism constantly fall back on talking about one’s self and one’s grievances. As we say here in Iowa, “Get over it, he (or she) is not that into you.” I have discovered that really most people are truly not interested in me, but only in themselves. This should be a freeing experience of grace, enabling one to concentrate on God and not one’s self.

St. Paul wraps up this discussion so poignantly: “I hear that there are divisions among you ; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

The genuine are not those who cause the factions, but the Truth of the Gospel itself causes factions-however, we can teach, preach, instruct, but never judge. “For if we judge ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

The genuine are those who allow God to purify them and those who cling to the orthodoxy of the Church in all things.

As in the Days of the Early Church-Five Sins to Avoid

A reader asked me how or if we are to be detached from world events, and politics. Yes, and no.

First the "yes answer".  We need to know what is going on. We are to use our reason and not respond emotionally to world events, domestic issues which break into our daily lives. But, as I have done on this blog, one must use really good sources for news, and this is NOT TELEVISION.

To not follow news is hiding from both the truth and responsibility. I suggest that discernment is necessary.  To not follow news that affects the lives of your children and grandchildren, to me, is not using the gifts of reason and prudence given to us by God. Even the apostles, and Christ Himself kept up with news. How do you think the stories of the martyrs, such as the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste mentioned earlier were known to Catholics? News travels fast, even in the earliest days, with letters, sermons, and so on.

The problem today is that the priests do not talk about current events from the pulpit and they should, absolutely. A holy priest in England, before ssm was passed into law, (and remember, the queen signed the bill into law), talked about this serious event for two weeks daily, as I was at his daily Masses. He told the congregation to sign the petition and to pray against this law. All priests should have done this. I admire him and praise him here, Father Dominic Rolls.

Examples from Scripture of news being important may be found in all the books. Look at the messengers sent from the wars, the prophets, the seers, like Daniel, and so on. People were very aware of events which were evil changing their lives forever.

That is the "yes answer". The "no answer" is that we are not to fall into four sins: one, the sin of curiosity; two,  the sin of incredulity; three, the sin of cynicism; four, the sin of despair; five, the sin of presumption.

A big list to avoid in hard, horrible times............

As I have written about some of these sin, I include some past posts, but to see these all together will impress upon all the need for prayer.

First , the sin of curiosity, a huge sin in our American culture...Father Chad Ripperger has been one of the most influential priests in my life via his amazing set of talks and some personal input. He is the reason I am in the third order which he started. His intellect and spiritual insights are gifts from God.

One of the things he has pointed out is something I have written on this blog-the sin of curiosity.

This sin causes people to run after approved and unapproved apparitions. We do not need to concern ourselves with visions, but we do need to study our faith.

Recently, Father noted that curiosity is a vice, even when it is connected to wanting to know the latest about certain apparitions, even approved ones.

The virtue which is the opposite of this vice is studiosity, the virtue connected to temperance, which is a search for the truth which is disciplined and ordered. 

We are responsible for knowing the Faith, and we are also responsible for dulling our own intellects.

Raissa, as I noted, cried out in her diary for people to know their religion, the Catholic religion.

Without knowledge of the Faith, one easily falls into many other vices, and we are responsible for that type of falling away.

Studiosity is a virtue. If one is an adult and never studies the Faith in the Catechism or the encyclicals, or other excellent books, one is committing two sins at least. One is sloth and the other is neglect of conscience.

Ask yourselves honestly in your examination of conscience whether you are studying. If one merely chooses one author, such as St. Alphonsus, or the Pope Emeritus, or St. Augustine, or St. Therese of Lisieux, one is doing one's duty.

But the virtue demands that we study not only spirituality and prayer, but doctrine and dogma.

Studiosity is connected to the great virtue of temperance, the virtue which strengthens our reason. Temperance prepares us to combat temptation. Studiosity allows us to know the Faith so that we can avoid temptations and prepare for holiness.

Are you studying anything solid with regard to the Faith?

For those caught up with seers and visions, even approved ones, I challenge you to set those books aside and begin to study your Faith.

We are required to do this, and the fact that there is a virtue which helps us do so should be comforting.

Thomas Aquinas makes this distinction between curiosity, which actually is connected to lust and greed, and studying.  Curiosity connects us with the senses, not the intellect. Whereas studying increases our knowledge in order to help us know God and ourselves.

To be constantly distracted by trivia may be an indication that one has fallen into the vice of curiosity.

The second sin to avoid is incredulity.

Three friends of mine, a man and two women, have discussed the prevalence of false visionaries, and, more to the point of this posting, the fact that so many Catholics have fallen for the lies of these seers.

My friends had expressed that they did not even have to study the sites, or read the books. Two just looked at the outside of MDM's book and had a revulsion immediately. One said to me he has a gut reaction to falsehood. I usually read something and compare it to Church Teaching, and it only takes reading a few sentences to realize how heretical this site and other groupings are.

My thoughts this morning center on two aspects of discernment.

As I have studied theology and philosophy and had the good, old Baltimore Catechism while I was growing up, I have a foundation in Catholic Teaching. Therefore, I can spot more easily errors which those who do not have good grounding in catechesis miss.

But, two points, and these are crucial.

One, why is it that most who get involved do not have either the niggling doubt or the strong "This is wrong" reaction of my friends, two who have no college degrees at all?

Where is the gut level revulsion to deceit? Why is it missing?

Two, after being shown the doctrinal errors, why do some people insist on ignoring doctrine, the CDF, or even strong condemnations from bishops all over the world? Why is the hierarchy ignored and why are doctrinal truths set aside? Why is the virtue of obedience set aside?

For those who have been shown point by point, bullet by bullet, the errors, much responsibility and culpability now falls on their conscience. They are no longer "innocent" once errors have been clarified. In other words, those many Catholics who continue in error may go to hell, seriously, for supporting and believing in heresy.

Heresy is a major sin. So is disobedience. So are curiosity and pride.

Again, the sins of those who follow these cults are based on Gnosticism, which includes the unhealthy desire for "inside", "elite", "special" knowledge.

Where is trust in God, in Divine Providence?

Why is that initial reaction, "Eeeiiuu, this is not good" absent?

There is a name for this Big Sin regarding false seers. It is called incredulity. Here is the CCC on this sin.

2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. 

"Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; 

apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; 

schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him." [Code of Canon Law c.751]

And, more helpful definitions

Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctum (1302), 

But this authority, although it is given to man and is exercised by man, is not human, but rather divine, and has been given by the divine Word to Peter himself and to his successors in him, whom the Lord acknowledged an established rock, when he said to Peter himself:Whatsoever you shall bind etc. [Matt. 16:19]. Therefore, whosoever resists this power so ordained by God, resists the order of God [cf. Rom. 13:2] ...  Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.

And, from Pius IX from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Vatican Council I, 1870

We must hold as of the faith, that out of the Apostolic Roman Church there is no salvation; that she is the only ark of safety, and whosoever is not in her perishes in the deluge; we must also, on the other hand, recognize with certainty that those who are invincible in ignorance of the true religion are not guilty for this in the eyes of the Lord. And who would presume to mark out the limits of this ignorance according to the character and diversity of peoples, countries, minds and the rest?

...all the faithful of Christ must believe "that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians; and that to him was handed down in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to feed, rule, and guide the universal Church, just as is also contained in the records of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons.

... the faithful of whatever rite and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by a duty of hierarchical submission and true obedience, not only in things pertaining to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world, so that the Church of Christ, protected not only by the Roman Pontiff, but by the unity of communion as well as of the profession of the same faith is one flock under the one highest shepherd. This is the doctrine of Catholic truth from which no one can deviate and keep his faith and salvation...

By the way, I have several postings from the past on the levels of infallibility in the Church. Just follow the tags.

An irony exists concerning the sin of incredulity. We all saw first-hand this sin of not believing in the Teaching Magisterium of the Church among some cardinals at the Synod.
However, many laity, precisely, have fallen into the same sin in the way they are criticizing or judging the Synod events.
To follow a false seer, because of the incredulity of some of the hierarchy, is to fall into the exact same deceitful mind-set.
Those demons of the air in charge of the sins connected to incredulity, heresy and apostasy, seem to be working overtime.
One sin can lead to another without prudence.

Obedience is the greatest virtue one needs to stay away from the sin of incredulity.

Obedience follows humility.

Thankfully, I learned this and passed this on to my son, who expressed the other day that the primary virtue needed now is obedience, not the seeking of false security. I asked him how he had learned this, (although he had expressed it at age twelve, by telling me then, when I corrected him and said he had to be obedient to me, "Mum, I know I have to be obedient. Obedience underlines all the virtues.") On Monday, he noted that he had learned this by being the son of a strict single mum. Parents, take heed of the great importance of asking your children to obey you.

Virtue formation starts earlier and if we miss out of that, we must catch up.

That is our duty as adult Catholics, to learn the Faith and live it. 

We all have discernment with the gift of knowledge given to us in Confirmation. Some choose freely to go against this gift.
All one needs to do is to study the teachings of the Church and learn how to think like a Catholic and not like a protestant.

If one is confused, pray.

Doctrine informs the spiritual life. Without a grounding in doctrine, one will fall prey to false seers.
Ignore most private revelations. People are losing their Catholic Faith through these seers, which is the entire reason they are speaking-satan's ploy.




Some of the following heresies in this lost list of attacks on Catholic Teaching, are held by the supposed holy seers. I taught an "Isms" class way back in 2002 and the students learned to spot these heresies, all of them, in today's culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies

And, again from the CCC:

678 Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgment of the Last Day in his preaching.582 Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light.583 Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God's grace as nothing be condemned.584 Our attitude to our neighbor will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love.585 On the Last Day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."586
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate's cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas' betrayal - so bitter to Jesus, Peter's denial and the disciples' flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

The third great sin to avoid is cynicism.

Increasingly, I have come across many people who make comments like, "Everyone lies". Or, "All politicians are liars." Or, "You cannot trust anyone."

In one day, I heard two people say this. One is a practicing Catholic and the other is a lapsed Catholic.

Cynicism is a sin. It is a lack of faith in the human soul to be good. Cynicism is based on unrealistic expectations of others, or society in general. Some cynics are depressed people, who are looking for a utopia on earth.

One of the cynics with whom I was talking is disillusioned with all people. He is the fallen away Catholic. He hates his job, complains about his bosses, and distrusts all politicians from all parties. He mistrusts finanacial gurus and generally thinks all men and women are deceitful.

This type of mindset borders on psychological illness and betrays a need to want perfection in the world. Some cynics are atheists, and want man to be perfect as they have rejected a perfect God.

I tend to think that cynicism is cloaked pride. Also, it could be projection. If a person is a compulsive liar, this person will not trust others.

The only cure for cynicism is faith in God and the sacrament of Confession. Confession keeps us humble.

The other person I met who is steeped in cynicism is old and jaded. Hope is gone in this person regarding human beings having the capacity to change and grow. Again, this type of cynicism could be pride, or hurt. Old betrayals need to be forgiven and forgotten.

Cynicism is like a cancer which eats away the soul, the mind, the heart.

Only the sacraments and the community of the Church, linked to the grace of God and Truth can save someone from sinking into cynicism.

Matthew 18 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition 

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

One of the most common sins which is not being defined as sin by too many who should know better is the sin of cynicism.

Cynicism is more than just distrust or doubt. It is a firm conviction that most people are evil and that one is doomed to suffering.

Now, some seculars think that this approach is the same as that of a Christian. We think many situations reveal evil and we also see the redemptive aspect of suffering.

But, the Christian knows that suffering has been overcome because of Christ on the Cross.

And, the Christian knows that people choose evil but do not have to do so. No one is "doomed" to evil. All humans have been given sufficient grace for salvation.
We all have free will and we all can choose good.

A cynic lacks a sense of humanity, what humans are called to be naturally and supernaturally.

A cynic may be someone who is disillusioned or jaded. A cynic has lost faith in God to move humans to become human. The cynic only sees the negative and not the entire picture, that men and women are created in God's image and likeness and that we have lost the likeness, which is grace.

Cynics believe that to see men and women as capable of goodness and virtue amounts to naivete. Hope can be natural, but it can also be supernatural, when it is based on the virtue of faith in God and His grace.

The cynic does not believe that we are called to become like little children...that we are called to trust in God.

The cynic does not believe that a person can become a saint, or become perfect.

Perhaps, the cynic does not really believe in Redemption, in Christ's sacrifice to free us from sin and death.

Sadly, the true cynic cannot see God working in the lives of individuals or society. Indeed, this is sad.

Some commentators have sent notes which reveal the sin of cynicism. I do not publish these, as sin has no part in rational discussions and sometimes cynicism reveals an underlying state of depression, which should not be publicized.

I pray that young people do not fall into cynicism. I pray that they see this as a sin against the First Commandment, a serious slight against God and Divine Providence.

The fourth sin afflicting those in times of trial would be that of despair. 

Let me use Thomas Aquinas on despair. 

Sometimes, it is the voice of reason which snaps someone out of despair. St. Peter had the grace of repentance.

Aquinas is clear that despair is a serious sin. Below is another snippet from the Summa.

There is a pattern, a paradigm of action and thought which leads to despair.

Mortal sin, rationalization of those sins, and finally a turning away of the theological virtues given in baptism. I suggest to those who are evangelizing or talking with people in despair, that the fact that this sin is directly against God and His goodness would be a good topic of conversation. Those who have despaired need to find the real God, not the God of their imaginations. And, they need to know that God has forgiven them.

To reject over and over the forgiveness of God, won by Jesus on the Cross, is the sin of despair.
 

Here is the great Dominican on this sin.

Whether despair is the greatest of sins?

  Objection 1: It would seem that despair is not the greatest of sins. For there can be despair without unbelief, as stated above (Article [2]). But unbelief is the greatest of sins because it overthrows the foundation of the spiritual edifice. Therefore despair is not the greatest of sins.
  Objection 2: Further, a greater evil is opposed to a greater good, as the Philosopher states (Ethic. viii, 10). But charity is greater than hope, according to 1 Cor. 13:13. Therefore hatred of God is a greater sin than despair.
  Objection 3: Further, in the sin of despair there is nothing but inordinate aversion from God: whereas in other sins there is not only inordinate aversion from God, but also an inordinate conversion. Therefore the sin of despair is not more but less grave than other sins.
  On the contrary, An incurable sin seems to be most grievous, according to Jer. 30:12: "Thy bruise is incurable, thy wound is very grievous." Now the sin of despair is incurable, according to Jer. 15:18: "My wound is desperate so as to refuse to be healed." [*Vulg.: 'Why is my wound,' etc.] Therefore despair is a most grievous sin.
  I answer that, Those sins which are contrary to the theological virtues are in themselves more grievous than others: because, since the theological virtues have God for their object, the sins which are opposed to them imply aversion from God directly and principally. Now every mortal sin takes its principal malice and gravity from the fact of its turning away from God, for if it were possible to turn to a mutable good, even inordinately, without turning away from God, it would not be a mortal sin. Consequently a sin which, first and of its very nature, includes aversion from God, is most grievous among mortal sins.
   Now unbelief, despair and hatred of God are opposed to the theological virtues: and among them, if we compare hatred of God and unbelief to despair, we shall find that, in themselves, that is, in respect of their proper species, they are more grievous. For unbelief is due to a man not believing God's own truth; while the hatred of God arises from man's will being opposed to God's goodness itself; whereas despair consists in a man ceasing to hope for a share of God's goodness. Hence it is clear that unbelief and hatred of God are against God as He is in Himself, while despair is against Him, according as His good is partaken of by us. Wherefore strictly speaking it is more grievous sin to disbelieve God's truth, or to hate God, than not to hope to receive glory from Him.
   If, however, despair be compared to the other two sins from our point of view, then despair is more dangerous, since hope withdraws us from evils and induces us to seek for good things, so that when hope is given up, men rush headlong into sin, and are drawn away from good works. Wherefore a gloss on Prov. 24:10, "If thou lose hope being weary in the day of distress, thy strength shall be diminished," says: "Nothing is more hateful than despair, for the man that has it loses his constancy both in the every day toils of this life, and, what is worse, in the battle of faith." And Isidore says (De Sum. Bono ii, 14): "To commit a crime is to kill the soul, but to despair is to fall into hell."

One of the great weaknesses of modern catechesis in the past thirty years has been the emphasis on emotional religious experience or faith based on experience of some emotional event. This has led to many people chasing after new age religions and false private revelations.

Despair is, therefore, seen as a result of depression or melancholia, rather than a deadly sin. It is part of the appetites in so far as it starts in feeling, but as Catholics, we are called to overcome our feelings with grace and  hope.

In other words, one's judgement is tainted by passion or habit of sin and, therefore, one cannot make a good judgment regarding God and His Mercy

Here is Aquinas on this point.

 I answer that, Unbelief pertains to the intellect, but despair, to the appetite: and the intellect is about universals, while the appetite is moved in connection with particulars, since the appetitive movement is from the soul towards things, which, in themselves, are particular. Now it may happen that a man, while having a right opinion in the universal, is not rightly disposed as to his appetitive movement, his estimate being corrupted in a particular matter, because, in order to pass from the universal opinion to the appetite for a particular thing, it is necessary to have a particular estimate (De Anima iii, 2), just as it is impossible to infer a particular conclusion from an universal proposition, except through the holding of a particular proposition. Hence it is that a man, while having right faith, in the universal, fails in an appetitive movement, in regard to some particular, his particular estimate being corrupted by a habit or a passion, just as the fornicator, by choosing fornication as a good for himself at this particular moment, has a corrupt estimate in a particular matter, although he retains the true universal estimate according to faith, viz. that fornication is a mortal sin. In the same way, a man while retaining in the universal, the true estimate of faith, viz. that there is in the Church the power of forgiving sins, may suffer a movement of despair, to wit, that for him, being in such a state, there is no hope of pardon, his estimate being corrupted in a particular matter. In this way there can be despair, just as there can be other mortal sins, without belief.

  Reply to Objection 1: The effect is done away, not only when the first cause is removed, but also when the secondary cause is removed. Hence the movement of hope can be done away, not only by the removal of the universal estimate of faith, which is, so to say, the first cause of the certainty of hope, but also by the removal of the particular estimate, which is the secondary cause, as it were.
  Reply to Objection 2: If anyone were to judge, in universal, that God's mercy is not infinite, he would be an unbeliever. But he who despairs judges not thus, but that, for him in that state, on account of some particular disposition, there is no hope of the Divine mercy.
   The same answer applies to the Third Objection, since the Novatians denied, in universal, that there is remission of sins in the Church.

The fifth sin to avoid is that of presumption. 

To me, this is much more common than the sin of despair. Most people think, if there is a heaven, they will go there. Not so. None of us can be sure of our salvation, not because of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, but because of our free will.

One of the interesting conversations I have had of late has been with a young person who is concerned with her peers who are not at all pursuing a spiritual life.

Of course, the reasons for the deadening of the sensitivity of the spiritual life are myriad. But, I asked her to think about pre-Christian Rome. We know from history and from the Act of the Apostles, as well as the Epistles, that the apostles went to the Gentiles after the Gospel was refused by the Jewish people.

Those Gentiles were pagans of various sorts. There were the Cynics, the Skeptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics and so on. Some of these believed in gods and some did not. Some believed in an afterlife, and some did not. Some believed in the virtues, and some merely in the pursuit of pleasure.

How is it that so many Gentiles became Christians when today we see a huge growth in neo-paganism, especially Epicureanism, and few converting?

In 2013, some statistics state that in this world, there are 300 million pagans.

These would not include heathens, the term for those who believe in false religions. Remember, there are only two revealed religions, Judaism and Christianity. All the others are man-made.

But, before Christianity, men and women are humans had a sense of good and evil. The natural law philosophy, which underlies much of our Catholic teaching, is that by the fact that each person has a soul, there is embedded in human a moral sense.

I have discussed with many people of late the question of invincible ignorance. I maintain that in this day and age in the West, at least, there is no such thing in modern society as complete moral ignorance  Here is the Catechism on natural moral law. 

I. THE NATURAL MORAL LAW

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:

The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.⁵

1955 The "divine and natural" law⁶ shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one's equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called "natural," not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:

Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.⁷ The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.⁸

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.⁹

1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.
1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;¹⁰ it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:

Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.¹¹

1959 The natural law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.
1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."¹² The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.

Now, notice that the wise authors concede that grace and revelation are needed today in the growing darkness of the world.

But, God gives grace to all people. There is no one in this world to whom God has not given grace. His free gift to all for the enlightenment of the intellect, the soul, and the heart is available to all.

So, is the current level of evil owing to the lack of missionaries to help bring people to the fullness of truth? Is the current trend of denying the afterlife and emphazing pleasure deadening will power?

We cannot deny will power. We cannot deny that God loves all and wants all to be saved. We cannot deny that at least in the West, invincible ignorance would be rare.

Which leads me to the question of how people can fall into subhuman behavior and call it normal?

One of the reasons is presumption. In Dante's Inferno, the heretics, which pagans fall under, denying the truth of the Catholic Church, of Christ, are in Circle 6 in Canto 10. Here is one-Epicurus, with a summary from here.

Epicurus Epicurus was a Greek philosopher (341-270 B.C.E) who espoused the doctrine that pleasure--defined in terms of serenity, the absence of pain and passion--is the highest human good. By identifying the heretics as followers of Epicurus (Inf. 10.13-14), Dante condemns the Epicurean view that the soul--like the body--is mortal.

The glorious teaching of the Catholic Church shows us that we all have the gift of reason. The CCC is, again, a good place to start. As humans, we have free will and reason, two of the ways in which we have been created in the image and likeness of God.

II. WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD

31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.
32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.⁷

And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?⁸

One of the huge problems is the lack of reflection among the young. When do they stop their stampede towards pleasure in order to think about life, God, the universe...as it were......

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",⁹ can have its origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone calls God".¹⁰
35 Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

Section 33 is important for this discussion. All humans have reason and therefore a sense of goodness and a conscience. Reason separates us from the other animals which only have instincts. 

One of the gravest false teachings of the day is the denial of reason. Reasonable people can come to know God and be open to more knowledge which God has given us in revelation. Christ spoke and prayed using His Reason, the great gift to all humans.

Reason and revelation form our faith. Here is the CCC again.

III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH

36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."¹¹ Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God".¹²
37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone:

Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.¹³

38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God's revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also "about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error". ¹⁴

IV. HOW CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT GOD?

39 In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.
40 Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.
41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures - their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures" perfections as our starting point, "for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator".¹⁵
42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God--"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"--with our human representations.¹⁶ Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
43 Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude";¹⁷ and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him."<sup>18

I am convinced that young people choose and as the text highlighted above states, persuade themselves against reason to accept evil.</sup>

That children do not use reason at the age of adolescence is the fault of the parents and teachers, in this age of relativism. But, still, God gives grace to all and invites all to come to Him.

Do we need revelation? Yes,and we need missionaries. But, reason can lead one to be open to the Gospel message.

To deny reason and free will is heresy. Remember, Christ descended into hell, as stated in our creed, and released those who waited for His Redemption. Adam and Eve are the first who come to mind and we honor them as saints. 

Those in Judaism who accepted God's Law and revelation were also among those freed from hell. We call these men and women saints-Judith, Esther, Ruth, Joshua, Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, the prophets, the Maccabees, etc. 

They believed in the promise without the fullness of revelation. These were the righteous, being made so by faith. They believed in the revelation given to them. And, through the use of reason. 

Revelation and Reason--both God's gifts to us....

I want to stress that this sin of presumption involves not only pride, but the denial of free will, reason, and revelation. Presumption also denies natural law.

I have been recommending the reading of Suarez, an overlooked writer on both moral and spiritual theology. Of course, I have remarked on this blog and elsewhere, that Pelagianism and Neo-Pelagianism are two of the most common heresies found today

Here is one of his quotations from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Suarez ("De spe", disp. 2a, sect. 3, n. 2) enumerates five ways in which one may be guilty of presumption, as follows:

..by hoping to obtain by one's natural powers, unaided, what is definitely supernatural, viz. eternal bliss or the recovery of God's friendship after grievous sin (this would involve a Pelagian frame of mind);
a person might look to have his sins forgiven without adequate penance (this, likewise, if it were based on a seriously entertained conviction, would seem to carry with it the taint of heresy);
a man might expect some special assistance from Almighty God for the perpetration of crime (this would be blasphemous as well as presumptuous);

one might aspire to certain extraordinary supernatural excellencies, but without any conformity to the determinations of God's providence. Thus one might aspire to equal in blessedness the Mother of God;
finally, there is the transgression of those who, whilst they continue to lead a life of sin, are as confident of a happy issue as if they had not lost their baptismal innocence.

Now, the denial of both Original Sin and Hell add to the problem of presumption. If one believes in universal salvation, one would be presumptuous. If one thinks one can get to heaven without grace, the sacraments, conformity to the teachings of the Catholic Church and so on, one is presumptuous.
..
Again, the softening of the conscience by repeated sin and by the closing of the mind, heart and soul to God causes presumption.

I suggest that this sin is one of the most common among our youth today, who have been raised without any consequences and no moral framworks with which to judge situations. However, as humans, they all have reason, free will, can find out about revelation, and they have natural law written on their hearts.

To excuse sin and to tolerate sin are two sins of parents and teachers.

But, societies, such as pagan Rome, have converted to Christ and His Church.

The challenge is twofold on our part-missionizing in a culture of false ecumenism and relativism. And, praying constantly.....

I want to focus on a chapter from Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange The Three Ages of the Interior Life. In Chapter 22, the great Dominican writes of "The Predominant Fault".The holy priest lists most of the obvious sins, but I want to highlight one, but in a different manner.

We know that Pride is most likely the worst of all sins and the primal sin. Garrigou-Lagrange writes extensively on pride, but also explains the defects that come from pride. These are presumption, ambition, and vainglory.

"Presumption is the desire and in ordinate hope of doing what is above one's power. The presumptuous man believes himself capable of studying and solving the most difficult questions; he settle the most abstruse problems with rash haste". 

One of the characteristics of the presumptuous man is not to have a spiritual director. Another sign is the skipping of the long steps of perfection in one's mind and thinking that one is a holy mystic or on a higher level, instead of"building his interior life on humility, renunciation, fidelity to the duty of the present moment even in little thing..."

The author equates these tendencies with egoism, a very common sin. "He is full of self; a great void must be created in him in order that his soul may some day be filled with God and able to give Him to others."

Garrigou-Lagrange paints a picture of humans in 2012. Presumption leads to ambition. The desire to dominate and want power over others follows. Ambition opens to door, he explains, to intrigue and plotting.

Another result of pride is vainglory. The priest notes that boasting, hypocrisy, disobedience, stubbornness, contention, and defensiveness reveal this aspect of pride.

He goes on to write that "pride is the great enemy of perfection because it is the source of numerous sins and deprives us of many graces and merits." 

Pride leads to hell.

But, the great Dominican does not leave us here, but gives us remedies.

First, one must meditate on the fact that "of ourselves we are not, that we have been created out of nothing by the gratuitous love of God, who continues freely to preserve us in existence; otherwise we would return to nothingness." 

If we do have grace, he continues, it is only because Christ redeemed us through His Passion and Cross.