The Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies

1 Peter 5 on October 22, 2014:

The disorder introduced into our human nature by Adam’s fall from grace reveals itself especially through seven dominant vices known in the Catholic tradition as the capital sins. These are: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. We call them “capital” sins (from the Latin caput, “head”) because they are the sources or fountainheads of all the sins people commit, whether sins of commission or sins of omission. We call them “deadly” because they cause spiritual death; Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen liked to call them the “seven pallbearers of the soul.”
Spiritual growth is impossible unless we try to dig up the roots of our sins with the help of God’s illuminating and sanctifying grace.

Pride

The first of the seven deadly sins is pride, defined as inordinate self-esteem or self-importance. Pride is the prolific source of countless sins, including presumption, hypocrisy, disobedience to lawful superiors, hardheartedness to subordinates, acrimony, and boastfulness. Some of the ways in which sinful pride manifests itself are: exaggerating one’s own talents, attributing to oneself qualities one lacks, magnifying other people’s defects, putting other people down, ingratitude, and failing to attribute one’s gifts and talents to God.
We know from Sacred Scripture that pride is the bottleneck of all graces (Jas 4:6); that it is self-ruinous (Lk 14:11); that God hates it (Prov 8:13) and punishes it (Prov 16:5); and that it deprives one’s good works of merit in God’s sight because it makes one perform them with a wrong intention (cf. Mt 6:1-2).
Humility, or poverty of spirit, is the opposite of pride. Just as pride is the foundational sin, so humility is the foundational virtue and thus ranks first among the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3). The virtue of humility makes us indifferent to worldly power, prestige and riches, so that we might keep our focus on God, who alone is our supreme joy.
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior in His Passion, undergoing the cruelest torments yet uttering no complaint and showing no resentment (cf. 1 Pt 2:23). Then pray: From the sin of pride deliver me, O Lord.

Avarice

Avarice, also known as covetousness or greed, is defined as the immoderate desire of earthly goods, especially those that belong to others. Of the Ten Commandments, two regulate not only our external actions but even our internal desires. These are the ninth and tenth commandments, both of which forbid avarice (“You shall not covet…”).
Saint Paul calls avarice the “root of all evils” (1 Tim 6:10). Robbery, theft, fraud, parsimony, and callousness toward the poor all stem from avarice. But there are more subtle forms of avarice that may blind us to the sinfulness of our actions. Some people imagine that just because they found some money or personal belongings, the items belong to them (“Finders keepers!”). Unscrupulous contractors put in time not required for the job at hand, or use inferior materials at a higher price. Gambling, playing the stock market, and purchasing goods on credit are not in themselves sinful, but they become sins if a person risks loss so great that he cannot pay his debts and support his dependents. Advertisers convince us that we must have the latest fashions or models, when we could just as well continue to use our serviceable appliances, clothing, cars, smartphones, etc.
Saint Francis de Sales says that everyone claims to abhor avarice. We wax eloquent when we explain how we must have the necessary things to get along in the world. But we never think we have enough, so we always find ourselves wanting more. How often do we include avarice in our examination of conscience or bring it up in confession?
We can enjoy the goods of this world, but we must be on guard not to become unduly attached to them and thus fall into idolatry (cf. Eph 5:5). God alone is our supreme happiness. Of all people, Christians should not be overly concerned with earthly goods, for our heavenly Father has care of us (cf. Mt 6:31-32). Does this mean we should neglect our duties and occupations? Certainly not. It means that, while attending to our affairs, we must not neglect the affairs of the soul. “Seek first [God's] Kingdom and His righteousness,” Our Lord promises, “and all these things shall be yours as well” (Mt 6:33).
Mercy is the virtue that opposes avarice. Peter Kreeft writes in Back to Virtue that avarice is “the centrifugal reach to grab and keep the world’s goods for oneself,” whereas mercy is “the centripetal reach to give, to share the world’s goods with others.” Mercy is the antidote to the greed that poisons the soul.
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our Savior, whose Passion depicts a progressive impoverishment. He is abandoned by most of His disciples, then stripped of all honor and finally of life itself. Then pray: From the sin of avarice deliver me, O Lord.

Envy

Of the seven deadly sins, envy is the only one that gives us no pleasure at all, not even fleeting satisfaction. Envy is defined as sadness over another’s happiness, blessings or achievements, such that we should want to see the other person deprived of those goods, and we are happy when he has actually lost them. Like all sins, envy proceeds from the foundational sin of pride, which cannot tolerate a superior or a rival. It takes many different forms, including annoyance at hearing another person praised, depreciating the good reputation of others by speaking ill of them, and desiring to eclipse others even by questionable methods.
Envy poisons our whole being. Because Cain was envious of his brother Abel, he “was very angry, and his countenance fell” (Gen 4:5). Because the sons of Jacob envied their brother Joseph, “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Gen 37:4). Because Saul was envious of David, he “eyed David from that day on” (1 Sam 18:9). “Jealousy and anger shorten life, and anxiety brings on old age too soon” (Sir 30:24).
Saint Paul places envy among the works of the flesh and declares that “those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19-21). He bids us “conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in … quarreling and jealousy” (Rom 13:13). In private matters, envy produces angry words (1 Cor 1:11) and harmful deeds (Jas 3:16). In public matters, it breeds war, symbolized in the Apocalypse by the rider on the red horse who was given power “to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword” (Rev 6:4; the sword stands for war). Among Christians, discord born of envy can lead to the sin of schism, or separation from the universal Church, which is what the Apostle feared would happen in the Christian community at Corinth (1 Cor 11:18-19). And envy can make priests and vowed religious resent their celibacy when they see happily married people.
Generosity is the opposite of envy. Whereas envy brings only sorrow and pain, generosity is the seedbed of joy. This should come as no surprise, since we are created in the divine image. We are truly happy insofar as we are conformed to God the Holy Trinity, whose very essence is self-giving love and receptivity. Saint Anselm of Canterbury teaches that our ultimate joy in heaven will be increased by the absence of envy: “If anyone else whom you love as much as yourself possessed the same blessedness, your joy would be doubled because you would rejoice as much for him as for yourself.”
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior before Pontius Pilate, delivered up out of envy by the chief priests (Mk 15:9-10). Then pray: From the sin of envy deliver me, O Lord.

Anger

Fourth on the list of the seven deadly sins is anger, or “wrath” in Old English. What most people mean by “anger” is often not a sin, but simply an emotional response to a perceived injustice, wrongdoing, or annoyance. Such was Our Lord’s anger at the money-changers in the Temple (Mk 11:15-19).
Just as it is wrong to be angry without cause, so it is wrong not to be angry when there is cause. Peter Kreeft illustrates the point in Back to Virtue: “To be angry at the lawyer who got the drug pusher free on a technicality is not sinful, especially when your son is lying in a coffin after an overdose from that pusher.” A more common example of anger that is not sinful but righteous is that of a parent at the misconduct of a child, provided the parent’s response is not excessive. The parent still loves the child but is angry at the child’s bad behavior.
Alas, Original Sin has invaded every corner of our soul. Consequently, anger is often a violent, inordinate desire accompanied by hatred or vengefulness. If anger is unreasonable and therefore too strong for the occasion or the person at whom we are angry, it can be a mortal sin. Whereas righteous anger wills what is good (justice and correction), sinful anger wills evil (“Damn you!”). As a capital sin, anger easily gives rise to many grave sins, including murder: “For the stirring of milk brings forth curds, and the stirring of anger brings forth blood” (Prov 30:33). “Pitch and resin make fires flare up, and insistent quarrels provoke bloodshed” (Sir 28:11). God warned Cain when Cain grew angry because God favored Abel and not him; but instead of heeding God’s advice, Cain nourished his resentment and finally murdered Abel (Gen 4:6-8).
The Epistle of Saint James cautions: “Everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” (Jas 1:19). And Saint Paul exhorts: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil” (Eph 4:26).
Meekness is the virtue that helps us to control anger. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land” (Mt 5:5). The essence of meekness is not weakness, but the combination of strength and gentleness, the ability to use force when necessary and the gentleness to forego it.
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior, the Suffering Servant whose mercy Isaiah prophecies: “A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench” (Isa 42:3). Precisely because Christ loved sinners, He rebuked them (often scathingly!), but was always ready to suffer harm rather than inflict it. Then pray: From the sin of anger deliver me, O Lord.

Lust

Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Western culture has said that sex has no intrinsic relation to procreation, or even to love and intimacy. Not surprisingly, then, these intervening years have brought permissive abortion, no-fault divorce, legalized prostitution, the mainstreaming of pornography, and the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Behind this devaluation of sex is the deadly sin of lust, which the Catechism of the Catholic Churchdefines as “disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure” (no. 2351).
The Catholic Church has always taught that sexual pleasure is morally permissible only to married people and only when they use it in the way the Creator intends. Regrettably, Christian morality in general and Catholic sexual morality in particular are often seen as arbitrary rules imposed by the Church to keep people from enjoying life’s pleasures. Pope Saint John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body,” based largely on the Book of Genesis, casts traditional sexual morality in a fresh light. George Weigel provides a fine overview of the pope’s approach in The Truth of Catholicism. In sum, the only sex worthy of men and women made in God’s image is sex that expresses complete and irrevocable self-giving, not a use (or abuse) of another for fleeting gratification. The self-giving that defines real love implies openness to the gift of new human life, just as God’s love “burst the boundaries of God’s inner life and poured itself forth in creation.” It is immoral to divorce sex from commitment (as in fornication and adultery) or from procreation (as in contraceptive and homosexual acts).
Sodom’s destruction was divine punishment for sexual vice (Gen 19:24-25). Our bodies are temples of the living God (2 Cor 6:16), and we should control them “in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen” (1 Thes 4:3-5). Impurity should not even be mentioned among Christians, never mind practiced (Eph 5:3-4). Lust enslaves the will, destroys love of prayer, weakens faith, hardens the heart, and fills the conscience with dissatisfaction.
The opposite of lust is chastity, a species of that blessed “purity of heart” (Mt 5:8) and one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23). Sexual feelings, fantasies and desires will ebb and flow as naturally as the appetite for food and drink; these are perfectly natural and human. The chaste person subordinates these to God’s will. Chastity is a life’s task requiring reliance on prayer and, for Christians, the grace of the sacraments. It demands common sense, too. When Jesus said the desire for adultery is itself adultery (Mt 5:28), He was following the Jewish tradition of “building a wall around the Torah (Law),” that is, forbidding a less serious offense so as to avoid a more grievous one.
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior, who loved selflessly even to the point of surrendering His life for sinners (cf. Phil 2:8). Then pray: From the sin of lust deliver me, O Lord.

Gluttony

Eating and drinking are necessary for our self-preservation. To facilitate these two functions, God has attached a certain pleasure to them. The pursuit of this pleasure as an end in itself, however, is the deadly sin of gluttony. Most people identify gluttony with eating or drinking excessively. They are correct, but gluttony takes other forms too: fussiness about the quality or presentation of one’s food; eating too hastily, too hoggishly, too sumptuously, or too often. Father Benedict Ashley, O.P., in Living the Truth in Love, explains that “individual acts of gluttony are not ordinarily seriously harmful and therefore are venial, but habits that seriously harm health (at least in the short range), if not corrected, are mortal.” Of course, in assessing the gravity of any human act, we must remember that subjective factors such as chemical dependency or neurotic compulsion can lessen the degree of guilt.
As one of the seven deadly sins, gluttony paves the way for more grievous offenses. Drunkenness caused Noah’s disgrace (Gen 9:20-27), Lot’s incest (Gen 19:30-38), and the decadence both of the pagan Persians (Est 1:6-10) and of the Jewish priests and prophets (Isa 28:7-8). Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage, a kind of bean stew (Gen 25:29-34). Gluttony was the cause of liturgical abuses within the Christian community at Corinth (1 Cor 11:21). Saint Paul calls gluttons idolaters “whose god is their belly” (Phil 3:19).
Because man is a unity of soul and body, the Church has always insisted that the body must be disciplined as well as the soul. “Scripture’s cure for gluttony is not dieting but fasting,” writes Peter Kreeft in Back to Virtue. “Fasting, in addition to reducing weight, reduces gluttony and, best of all, is a form of prayer. It is recommended to us on the very highest authority, that of our Lord himself.” Saints Augustine, Jerome, and John Cassian are but three of the many Church Fathers and spiritual writers who extolled periodic fasting. Latin-rite Catholics are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and for one hour prior to receiving Holy Communion. Yet even when not fasting, we should remember Saint Josemaría Escrivá’s advice in The Way: “The body must be given a little less than it needs; otherwise, it will turn traitor.” How much more progress we could make in the spiritual life if only we accompanied our prayers with sacrifice! “The day you leave the table without having made some small mortification,” the saint warns us, “you will have eaten like a pagan.” (Talk about food for thought!)
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior, forty days and forty nights in the desert, faint with hunger from fasting. When tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread, He rejoins, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:3-4). Then pray: From the sin of gluttony deliver me, O Lord.

Sloth

The last of the seven deadly sins is sloth, which Saint Thomas Aquinas defines as disgust for virtue, a languor of the soul which deprives it of the power to do good. “Pride may be the root of all evil,” observes R. R. Reno, “but in our day, the trunk, branches, and leaves of evil are characterized by a belief that moral responsibility, spiritual effort, and religious discipline are empty burdens, ineffective and archaic demands that cannot lead us forward, inaccessible ideals that, even if we believe in them, are beyond our capacity.” This is sloth.
Medieval writers often speak of sloth as a waning of confidence in the importance and power of prayer. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of a sterility and dryness of his soul that makes the sweet honey of psalm-chanting seem tasteless. Dante, on the fourth ledge of Purgatory, describes the slothful as suffering from a “slow love” that cannot uplift, leaving the soul stagnant under the heavy burden of sin. The ancient monastic spiritual writers, recalling Psalm 91:6, nicknamed sloth the “noonday devil” who tempts monks to sadness and despair. In the heat of midday, as the monk tires and begins to wonder whether his commitment to prayer and solitude was a mistake, the demon whispers, “Did God really intend for human beings to reach for the heavens? Does God really care whether you pray or not?”
To us moderns, the whispering voice says, “God is everywhere. Couldn’t you just as well worship on the golf course as in a church?” Or, “God accepts you just as you are. Why change?” In our sloth, we avoid any spiritual discipline, Christian or otherwise. Missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, laxity in prayer, disregard for the Church’s laws of fast and abstinence, a tendency to follow the lines of least resistance — these are all manifestations of sloth.
An indolent soul is barren in good works (Prov 24:30-34) and easily falls prey to the devil, “for idleness teaches much evil” (Sir 33:27). As motionless water soon becomes stagnant, so the Christian who lives idly will soon become corrupt. Remember Our Lord’s emphatic warning about the slothful servant and foolish virgins (Mt 25:1-30), and His promise to spew the lukewarm out of His mouth (Rev 3:16).
Hungering for righteousness, or likeness to God, is the beatitude that remedies sloth (Mt 5:6). God alone satisfies the deepest desires of the human heart. Sensuality, technology, money, and power are just a few of the false gods that leave us ultimately empty. Seek the true God and you will find Him (Mt 7:7-8), and in finding Him you will have the joy that overcomes sloth.
“Learn of me,” Jesus tells us, “because I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Imagine our divine Savior on His way to Calvary. Three times He falls under the weight of the heavy load; yet instead of giving up, He gets up with renewed resolve to fulfill His mission. Then pray: From the sin of sloth deliver me, O Lord.

The Sword of the Saint, Unsheathed

From http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1113-gardiner

Book of Gomorrah: An Eleventh-Century Treatise Against Clerical Homosexual Practices.  By St. Peter Damian. Translated and edited by Pierre Payer. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 108 pages. $38.95.


By the time he published the Book of Gomorrah around A.D. 1049, St. Peter Damian had been preaching for some time against homosexuality. He told Pope St. Leo IX, to whom he directed this work, that he needed his support against those who despised him for this preaching. While others in authority remained silent, he lamented, homosexuality kept spreading: “Vice against nature creeps in like a cancer and even touches the order of consecrated men.”

That homosexuality was indeed a problem at that time may be inferred from the fact that the vice was addressed at the Council of Rheims (A.D. 1049) in the canon de sodomitico vitio. Also, Damian received, in reply to his treatise, what he had requested from Leo IX, “a decretal writing as to which of those guilty of these vices ought to be deposed irrevocably from ecclesiastical orders; and to whom, truly taking the view of discretion, this office can be mercifully granted.”

In the Book of Gomorrah Damian says he has preached against this sin “with a whole fountain of tears” because the sinner he addresses sheds none at all: “O miserable soul, I weep for you with so many lamentations because I do not see you weeping. I prostrate myself on the ground for you because I see you maliciously standing up after such a grave fall, even to the point of trying for the pinnacle of an ecclesiastical order.” Damian weeps from “fraternal compassion” because he sees a “noble soul made in the image and likeness of God and joined with the most precious blood of Christ” cast down from a great height of dignity and glory. Any Christian who commits sodomy, he explains, surpasses in sin the men of Sodom, for he “defies the very commands of evangelical grace.”

Damian reports that he has endured persecution for preaching against this sin, and he begs the Pope to use his sacred authority to quiet “the complaint of perverse men” who reason that “a statement brought forward by one person…is rejected by others as prejudice.” At one point he addresses the dissenters as men “who are angry with me and who hate to listen to this writer.” He tells the Pope that some of them “accuse me of being a traitor and an informer on the crime of a brother,” while others think it “valid to attack me who am on the attack” and to “accuse me of presumptuous prattle.” They also denounce him for not being “afraid of picking on Christians.”

No surprise, Damian observes, that he is not believed and that his “admonition is rejected,” since God’s own command is “taken lightly by the puffed-up heart of the reprobate.” His opponents even ignore the scriptural verses that condemn homosexuality because “the rashness of the complainers [does not] give in to divine testimony.” Still, he hopes that when the Pope speaks out, “the sick Church” will rise once again to her “rightful vigor.”

In his reply, Leo IX gives Damian his full support and warns those who would dare to criticize or question his papal decree concerning sodomy that they will be putting themselves in danger of being deposed from their rank. He agrees with Damian that severity against this sin is needed, that he who does not attack it encourages it, and that silence about it is rightly thought to incur guilt.

In this remarkable treatise, Damian condemns priests in authority who have been too indulgent with these sinners. As a result of their laxity, priests who have “fallen into this wickedness with eight or even ten other equally sordid men” have remained in their ranks. And so the sin has come “to be committed freely” without its practitioners fearing the loss of their priestly faculties. Damian calls this negligence rather than love because it allows a wound to spread in a neighbor’s heart, a wound “from which, I have no doubt, he dies cruelly.” Therefore, Damian himself will not “neglect to cure” that wound with the “surgery of words,” for if he remains silent, he too will deserve punishment. Rather than “fear the hatred of the depraved or the tongues of detractors,” Damian fears God, who warns him through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, “If you see your brother doing evil and you do not correct him, I will require his blood from your hand” (3:20). Damian will not be silenced, no matter how many tell him to put the sword of his tongue in the sheath of silence: “Who am I to see such a harmful outrage growing up among the sacred orders and, as a murderer of another’s soul, preserve the stricture of silence, and to dare to await the reckoning of divine severity? Do I not begin to be responsible for a guilt whose author I never was?”

Citing St. Paul’s condemnation not only of those who commit sodomy but also of those who “approve” it in others (Rom. 1:32), Damian observes that his adversaries’ silence can be interpreted as consent: Anyone who would “censure me when I dispute against mortal vice,” he says, should consider that Damian is trying to “promote fraternal salvation, lest while he persecute the reprover he might seem to favor the delinquent.” Although maligned and threatened for accusing his brothers, Damian refuses to be intimidated: “I would rather be cast innocent into the cistern with Joseph, who accused his brothers to his father for a terrible crime, than to be punished by the vengeance of divine fury with Eli, who saw the evils of his sons and was silent.” He even summons others to join him in his all-out battle to reform the clergy: “Whoever sees himself as a soldier of Christ should fervently gird himself to confound this vice, and not hesitate to wipe it out with all his strength. He should pierce it with the sharpest verbal arrows wherever it is found and try to slay it.” He will thus free the captive from “bonds by which he is held in slavery.”

Although it is “clearer than light” that homosexuals should not serve as priests, Damian says, some might plead “imminent necessity” and argue that there is “no one to perform a sacred function in a church.” In reply, he says that making shepherds of such “carnal men” will “result in the destitution of a whole people.” Their “burning ambition” to be priests is sure to “ensnare the people of God” in their own ruin. Although they may seem useful for their learning, they will lead the flock astray: “If the right order of ecclesiastical discipline is confused in a learned man, it is a wonder it is kept by the ignorant.” By the example of their presumption, these sinners lead the simple onto the “path of error” on which they walk with the “swollen foot of pride.”

What fruitfulness can be expected from men engulfed by “thick, dark blindness”? They have lost their “interior eyes” and cannot see the gravity of what they have done. Like the men of Sodom who tried to break into Lot’s house and seize the angels whom they mistook for young men, these carnal men “try to break in violently on the angels” by approaching God “through the offices of sacred orders.” Damian warns them: Take care lest you “provoke more sharply by your very prayers the one you offend openly by acting evilly.”

At one point in his treatise, Damian refers to the ancient Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314), which dealt with homosexuality in two canons. In canon 16 the Church Fathers declared that laymen who had committed sodomy before the age of 20 were not to receive communion for 20 years; and those who had committed it after the age of 20, for 30 years. Damian comments that if laymen in the early Church had to wait decades before receiving communion again, how can a priest who commits the same sin in his own day “be judged worthy not only to receive but even to offer and to consecrate the sacred mysteries themselves?”

In canon 17 of the same Council, the Fathers ordered those who had committed this sin to pray among the “demoniacs.” Damian comments: “When a male rushes to a male to commit impurity, this is not the natural impulse of the flesh, but only the goad of diabolical impulse. This is why the holy fathers carefully established that sodomists pray together with the deranged since they did not doubt that the sodomists were possessed.” Lamenting that this sin “evicts the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart,” the saint warns that it also “gnaws the conscience as though with worms” and “sears the flesh as though with fire.”

Even so, like a good pastor, Damian encourages these sinners to hope in God’s mercy through repentance. He rallies them to take a bold stand “against the importunate madness of lust. If the flame of lust burns to the bones, the memory of perpetual fire should extinguish it immediately.” He urges them not to let the “present satisfaction of one organ” cause them to be cast body and soul into everlasting fire. Calling them his brothers, he summons them to conversion: “If you were unable to spend time with Abraham far from the Sodomites, it is permitted to migrate with Lot, urged on by the destructive burning which is near at hand.”

The Book of Gomorrah demonstrates that it was no easier a thousand years ago than it is today to speak out against this vice and to bring active homosexuals to repentance, to an acknowledgement of the natural law, and to the practice of purity. In his little treatise, St. Peter Damian warns us against keeping silence in the face of such a growing evil and thus becoming complicit. He offers us a needed model of how to speak out fearlessly against the corruptions of our age.

St. Peter Damian, pray for us!

When Attending Mass Becomes an Occasion of Sin

Renew America  August 20, 2011:

'This post consists of excerpts from a letter I wrote to the pastor of a Catholic parish about a certain incident that occurred at his church. I have omitted all references as to the church's location. The church is semi-circular in design, and we were sitting in the last pew near the center isle, which afforded us a clear view of almost the entire congregation. I started my letter with a compliment as to how nice the newly-remodeled church looked. I then ask the pastor to please consider the following hypothetical situation.
'A priest enters the confessional for the usual Saturday morning or afternoon confession time. During this time a young man enters the confessional. 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.' From the sound of the voice on the other side of the screen, the priest surmises that the person is a teenager or young adult. The confession continues: 'It was a week since my last confession. I'm guilty of many lustful thoughts, and I looked at some very immodestly dressed women more times than I should have.'
'The priest asks, 'Were these impure thoughts related to these women you looked at'?
''Yes,' replies the young man.
'The priest: 'Why did you continue to look at them? Why didn't you go someplace else, away from them?'
''I couldn't,' said the young man. 'They were in front of me and I was kind of hemmed in by the crowd.'
'The priest: 'Why were you in such a place to begin with? Do you remember that we are to avoid places that may be an occasion of sin?'
'The young man answers, "Yes, Father, I know that, but I had to be there.'
'The priest, somewhat puzzled, then asks: 'Why did you have to be there, and where were you: at the beach; at a sporting event?'
''No, Father,' said the young man, 'I was at your noon Mass last Sunday, and two scantily-dressed girls were sitting in the pew right in front of me, along with their parents. I couldn't move because my parents were on either side of me.'
'While I said that the above story was hypothetical, in reality it is not. The Mass in question took place this past July at a prominent Catholic parish in a town my wife and I were visiting. It was the main Mass of the day and the church was quite full.
'The young man in the confessional could have been any one of the many young men in the church. The two 'scantily clad' girls were real and were sitting about six pews in front of us with their parents.
'From the area where we were sitting, we observed, in addition to the two girls mentioned above, approximately a dozen very immodestly dressed women, with the majority of these being young girls in their teens and early twenties. Bare backs and shoulders, low-cut tops, strapless sun suits, short shorts, mini-skirts and tight-fitting tops were plainly visible.
'Two years ago, at a parish in northern Virginia, we experienced an almost identical incident at Sunday Mass. We were sitting in our pew when a home-schooling family came in and took a place several pews ahead of us. They had two sons around age 10 and three younger daughters. A few minutes later, two young girls, of about the same age and manner of dress as the two described above, came in and sat in the pew directly in front of this family. However, in this case, the parents quickly recognized the spiritual danger these two improperly dressed girls posed for their children, and they immediately got up and moved to another part of the church.
'It is a sad state of affairs when going to Sunday Mass becomes an occasion of sin. I could go on with more such examples, but I think what I have said is sufficient. What we find more lamentable is the fact that, in many cases, such young girls are in the company of their parents. What does this tell us? Simply this: When it comes to modesty in dress, most parents don't have a clue as to what is right.
'Coincidentally, several days later, as I was about half-way through the composition of my letter to the pastor, my wife saw a notice in the bulletin about appropriate dress in church. The notice was good, especially the part about adults giving good example for young children. It did, however, have two shortcomings which are common to such notices. Many times a bulletin notice can be overlooked, and secondly, the notice called for wearing 'appropriate attire.'
'The problem, as I pointed out above, is that most Catholics have a very poor understanding of what 'appropriate attire' means. When it comes to knowing what is or isn't modest, they have no idea. This is because the Church has been silent on this subject for over 40 years.
'At the beginning of summer there should be a strong sermon on this issue with a clear explanation as to what constitutes 'appropriate attire.' This should be followed up with at least a verbal reminder given once a month from the pulpit. Putting an occasional notice in the bulletin just doesn't do it. It should also be emphasized that the standards for modesty apply to everyday dress, not just in church on Sunday. Mention should also be made about the way many parents dress their little girls in skimpy outfits, thus accustoming them to immodesty at a very early age.
'In regard to this particular topic, I feel I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the disgraceful display of immodesty exhibited by brides and their bridal parties at most Catholic weddings today. At a wedding we recently attended, the comment was made that the bride and bridal party looked more like the Playboy Review than an occasion of Holy Matrimony.
'Let me close with the following thought. Someone once asked the mother of St. Maria Goretti how she was able to raise such a [holy] child. She replied, 'By teaching her the virtue of modesty.' How many Maria Goretti's are parishes and Catholic schools producing today?'

Guide to Help with Examination of Conscience for Confession

For a more complete guide, go to http://www.communityofhopeinc.org/Catholic%20Beliefs/Examination.html

First Commandment
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.

I denied, or doubted my faith
_____ Times a week, or month.
I murmured against God
_____ Times a week, or month.
I despaired of His mercy
_____ Times a week, or month.
I missed my daily prayers
_____ Times a week, or month.
I went to places of false worship
_____ Times a week, or month.
I talked against the Church, priests, or faith
_____ Times a week, or month.
I went to fortune tellers
_____ Times a week, or month.
I was dealing with the occult-i.e. Ouija Board
_____ Times a week, or month
I was guilty of superstitious practices
_____ Times a week, or month.
I was guilty of excessive materialism
_____ Times a week, or month.
I was guilty of malice (deliberate choice of evil)
_____ Times a week, or month
I read books contrary to faith
_____ Times a week, or month.

In counting your sins, if you cannot give the exact number, average, tell as nearly as you can, about how often you have committed each.

Second Commandment
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

I swore by name of God (Blasphemy)
_____ Times a week, or month.
I swore by name of Jesus (Blasphemy)
_____ Times a week, or month.
I cursed others by saying: God damn you
_____ Times a week, or month.
I cursed my children and wife
_____ Times a week, or month.
I cursed in the hearing of the young
_____ Times a week, or month.
I perjured myself by swearing falsely in court
_____ Times a week, or month.
I took rash and unnecessary oaths
_____ Times a week, or month.
I provoked others to curse
_____ Times a week, or month.
I did not prevent cursing when I could and should
_____ Times a week, or month.
I spoke against saints, holy things and pious practices.
_____ Times a week, or month.


Third Commandment
Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.

I missed Mass on Sunday & Holydays through my fault
_____ Times a week, or month.
I spent a great part of these days in sinful occupations
_____ Times a week, or month.
I was late for Mass by my own fault
_____ Times a week, or month.
I kept my wife, children or employees from Mass
_____ Times a week, or month.
I assisted at Mass with willful distractions
_____ Times a week, or month.
I engaged in servile works on Sunday and
Holydays without necessity
_____ Times a week, or month.

Fourth Commandment
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.

1. Duty of Children

I disobeyed my parents/teachers/leaders in important matters
_____ Times a day, or week.
I caused them to be angry: I grieved them
_____ Times a day, or week.
I used insulting language to them
_____ Times a day, or week.
I kept or wasted my wages I should have given to them
_____ Times
I did not support them
_____ Times
I incited my brothers and sisters against them
_____ Times
I neglected to write them, or send them help
_____ Months _____ years
I neglected them in sickness, in death
_____ Months _____ years

2. Duties of Husbands and Fathers

I grieved, abused, struck my wife
_____ Times
I accused her wrongfully
_____ Times
I neglected to provide for my family
_____ Times
I gave my children bad example
_____ Times
I failed to correct their faults
_____ Times
I neglected to instruct them in religion
_____ Times
I interfered with their religious vocation
_____ Times

3. Duties of Wives and Mothers

I disobeyed my husband
_____ Times.
I caused my children to disobey and dishonor him
_____ Times.
I talked of his faults to my children or neighbors
_____ Times.
I neglected to correct my children
_____ Times.
I gave them bad example
_____ Times.
I did not instruct them in their religion
_____ Times.
I interfered with their religious vocation
_____ Times.

Under this commandment masters and mistresses, employers and employees should examine themselves on their respective duties.

Fifth Commandment
Thou shalt not kill.

I was angry
_____ Times.
I caused others to become angry
_____ Times.
I was quarreling or fighting
_____ Times.
I desired the death of others
_____ Times.
I cherished hatred to others
_____ Times.
I've used or approved of artificial birth control
_____ Times.
I refused to speak or to be reconciled to others
_____ Times.
I caused the death of another by negligence
_____ Times.
I brought dishonor to family, school, community, or the Church
_____ Times.
I have been guilty of detraction (telling an unkind truth about another)
_____ Times.
I led others to commit sin, by word or example
_____ Times.
I Used illegal drugs
_____ Times.

For physicians, parents, others, - caused, counseled, consented to abortion. Abortion is a case reserved by the Holy See to Bishops.

Sixth Commandment and Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

Here the penitent must seriously consider past thoughts, words, and actions against these commandments. If one had the misfortune to break them, one must tell whether one is single or married; whether thoughts, words, desires, or acts referred to single or married persons or relatives.

I had premarital sex, including oral sex, intercourse, impure touching of another
_____ Persons_____ Times.
I took pleasure in impure thoughts
_____ Times a day.
I had impure desires
_____ Times a day
I spoke immodestly in the hearing of
_____ Persons_____ Times a day.
I boasted of sins of impurity
_____ Times a day_____ a week.
I sang or listened to immodest songs
_____ Times a day_____ a week.
I read immodest books, papers, or writings
_____ Times.
I was guilty of immodest looks
_____ Times a week
I kept, showed, looked at immodest pictures/pornographic material
_____ Times a week.
I went to immodest places of amusement
_____ Times a week.
I was guilty of immodest acts
(See note above, and tell what these acts were)
_____ Times.
I committed homosexuals actions
_____ Persons_____ Times.
I committed immodest acts alone
_____ Times.
I was guilty of the sin of Onanism (masturbation, withdrawal method)
_____ Times.

In the Book of Genesis Onan was commanded by his father to impregnate the widow of his slain brother and to raise the offspring of the union. In order to avoid raising descendants for his late brother, however, Onan engaged in coitus interruptus.

There are hidden sins known only to God and the sinner. These he must also tell, and the number of times.

Seventh Commandment and Tenth Commandment
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.

I stole goods to the amount of
$ _____, _____ Times.
I destroyed property, defrauded insurance companies
$ _____, _____ Times.
I took from my employers
$ _____, _____ Times.
I stole $____ worth, but restored, though able to return all, only
$______ Worth
I wasted time for which I was paid work, value of
$ _____, _____ Times.
I injured others in their employment or goods
$ _____, _____ Times.
I neglected to pay my bills, just debts, amounting to
$ _____, _____ Times.
I defrauded in weights and measures
$ _____, _____ Times.
I defrauded those employed by me
$ _____, _____ Times.
I unjustly deferred the payment of their wages
$ _____, _____ Times.
I desired to possess unjustly my neighbor’s goods
_____ Times.

Eighth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

I told lies
_____ Times.
I seriously injured my neighbor’s character, by
publishing his secret faults
_____ Times.
I carried stories and caused trouble
_____ Times.
I told a deliberate lie to the injury of my neighbor
_____ Times.
I spoke without necessity of the known faults of others
_____ Times.
I've broken promises deliberately
_____ Times.
I am guilty of calumny-telling lies about one another
_____ Times.
I failed to defend my neighbor’s character
_____ Times.
I encouraged detraction or calumny, or
listened to it with complacency
_____ Times.
I failed to make reparation for sins of tongue
_____ Times.

Commandments of the Church

I neglected my yearly confession and Easter Communion
_____ Times.
I attempted marriage contrary to the law of the Church
_____ Times.
I neglected, when able, to support the Church
_____ Times.
I ate meat on days of abstinence, without permission or necessity.
_____ Times.
I caused others to eat meat on days of abstinence
_____ Times.
I broke the fasts of the Church
_____ Times.
I caused others to break the fasts of the Church
_____ Times.

The Seven Deadly Sins

I was guilty of gluttony
_____ Times.
I was drunk
_____ Times.
I caused others to be drunk
_____ Times.
I gave liquor to those drunk
_____ Times.
I was slothful in religious exercises
_____ Times.
I was lazy and idle
_____ Times.
I was envious
_____ Times.
I was yearning for impure pleasures
_____ Times.
I have had an immoderate desire for earthly goods
_____ Times.
I have had an inordinate desire for revenge
_____ Times.
I was proud
_____ Times.

The Four Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance

Willful murder (including abortion)
_____ Times.
The sin of Sodom. (unnatural sex)
_____ Times.
Oppression of the poor.
_____ Times.
Defrauding laborers of their wages.
_____ Times.

The Six Sins against the Holy Ghost

Presumption of God's mercy-sinning and saying God must forgive me
_____ Times.
Despair-to believe that God will refuse to forgive you
_____ Times.
To attack as false or questioning the known truth.
_____ Times.
Envy at another's spiritual good
_____ Times.
Obstinacy in sin-refusing to stop known sinful behavior
_____ Times.
Final impenitence-refusing to accept God's mercy at moment of death (of course, it would be too late to confess this)
_____ Times.

Nine Ways of being Accessory to Another's Sin

By counsel-talking one into sin
_____ Times.
By command-telling one to sin
_____ Times.
By consent- agreeing with the sin
_____ Times.
By provocation- to pressure one into sin
_____ Times.
By praise or flattery- congratulating the sin committed by others
_____ Times.
By concealment- covering up the sin for another
_____ Times.
By partaking- approving sin by assisting in it
_____ Times.
By silence-by not speaking up against the sin
_____ Times.
By defense of the ill done- rationalizing the sin done or will be done
_____ Times.

Also, don't forget to always confess all Venial sins that you might have committed-i.e., ingratitude, reckless driving, selfishness, rudeness etc.