Tag: Sin

4 min read

Sin

Conscience and Truth

Carl Olson

September 27, 2023 8:00 am September 27, 2023

4 min read

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4 min read

Years ago I read a most revealing article in a national newspaper that carries the descriptive “Catholic” in its masthead but rarely carries much orthodox Catholic teaching below the masthead….

Years ago I read a most revealing article in a national newspaper that carries the descriptive “Catholic” in its masthead but rarely carries much orthodox Catholic teaching below the masthead.

The article, written by a young woman, was titled, “I Am a Prochoice Catholic.” Her main assertion was simple: “I am a prochoice Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be.” She recounted spending “several years” praying, reading and studying what both the “church hierarchy” and “the Catholic church — the faithful” had to say about the “right to abortion.” The result? “In the end,” she proclaimed, “after months of avoiding my conscience as to not stir up any controversy in my life, I finally discerned that I am a prochoice Catholic.”

Three quick, initial observations. First, the language she used, especially regarding the seemingly infallible nature of conscience and the vehicle of discernment, echoes what some have been saying about persons in “irregular unions” — that is, adultery. Second, this appeal to the conscience as the final word on one’s choices and actions has been a key playing card for the past 50 years or so for those who oppose the Church’s clear teaching about abortion, contraception and other evils related to sexuality. Third, I never cease to be amused and annoyed by the glaring internal contradiction that exists in appealing to Church authority in order to dismiss that same authority!

Consider the supposed logic: 1) “I am opposed to the Church’s teaching about abortion”; 2) “I am obligated to oppose that teaching because of my conscience”; 3) “And I must follow my conscience, because the Church says I must!” In other words, such folks find it convenient to follow apparent Church teaching when they desire to deny other, inconvenient teachings of the Church. Yes, it’s moderately clever, quite superficial and entirely misleading.

If we follow the logic used above, we arrive at a singular conclusion: that one’s conscience is supreme — even greater than God, truth, good and evil (though few are willing to put it that way). And, of course, this infallible supremacy of the individual conscience is not just acceptable, but is gospel truth for far too many people, including a great number of Catholics.

Yes, it’s true the Church teaches that man’s conscience holds a special place in his person, describing it as man’s “most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1776). Unfortunately, many people ignore the fine print — or, in this case, the print period. The three essentials to keep in mind here are:

1) The conscience is not man’s creation, but “a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey” (No. 1776). Conscience is not involved in creating truth, but rather in recognizing truth. In other words, conscience is a guide, not a god.

2) Conscience must be formed and informed. “A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful”; it forms judgments that conform “with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator.” It must be educated and formed because humans “are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings” (No. 1783).

This education is a lifelong work involving virtue and humility. But it is worth it because “education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart” (No. 1784).

3) A conscience can be bad, poorly formed and warped by sin. Many factors can contribute to a deeply flawed conscience: “Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct” (No. 1792).

Alas, many people have it upside down, insisting that their conscience provides a unique moral code, rather than seeing how conscience guides one’s judgments about particular situations in light of universal and objective — that is, God-given — truth and goodness.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com). He and his family live in Eugene, Ore.

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9 min read

Sin

Concupiscence: Our Inclination To Sin

Msgr. William J. King

September 26, 2023 5:07 am September 26, 2023

9 min read

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9 min read

The mechanic at the repair shop explained to the frustrated vehicle owner that the wheels of his car were out of alignment. The mechanic asked if the driver had recently…

The mechanic at the repair shop explained to the frustrated vehicle owner that the wheels of his car were out of alignment.

The mechanic asked if the driver had recently driven through a pothole or perhaps had hit a curb. He explained that this could be sufficient to have forced the wheels out of alignment. All the driver knew was that it took a lot of work to drive straight down the highway with the car constantly pulling off center. Without constant attention and constant adjustment of the steering wheel, the car tended to drift off the road. “One big pothole can do that,” the mechanic informed the puzzled driver, “and after that, it’s almost impossible to go straight without constant correction.”

What’s true for an automobile is, in this sense, also true of the human soul.

Theologians have long attempted to explain humanity’s tendency to veer off course: one big sin (that of our first parents in the garden) and it’s almost impossible to go straight without constant correction. Keeping in mind that the New Testament word for sin is hamartia, a Greek word that literally means to miss the mark or to veer off course, we might say that after original sin it’s nearly impossible to stay on the “straight and narrow.”

Theologians call this tendency to sin “concupiscence.” The word concupiscence is defined as a strong desire, a tendency or attraction, usually arising from lust or sensual desires. It is, morally speaking, the tendency to go off course.

Concupiscence is understood as an effect of original sin that remains after baptism. The waters of baptism cleanse us of original sin itself, but concupiscence remains as a lingering effect. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death … as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence” (No. 1264, emphasis in original).

To use another analogy, medical research cautions that a severe sunburn early in life will render a person more susceptible to dangerous skin cancer throughout life. That early sunburn may heal fairly quickly, but its effects last through life, increasing vulnerability to cancer. Precautions must be taken to shield the skin from the damaging effects of the sun’s radiation, since there is a greater susceptibility to skin damage after that major sunburn.

Original Sin

Original sin — passed down through the generations of humanity — brought to our first parents the alienation from paradise, and with it all the effects of mortality: pain, illness, suffering, aging, death and decay.

Original sin caused a rupture, or break, in the harmony between body and soul that was part of God’s creation of man. In the original innocence of our first parents, there was perfect harmony: harmony with God, harmony with the surrounding world, harmony with one’s self. The decision to break away from God’s will also broke the original harmony in creation, and there has been tension ever since.

The first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis reveal the growth of tension and discord: starting with the perfect harmony of the garden, through the first sin, then the sin of brother against brother, and it ends with the tower of Babel — a point in human history where no two persons could understand each other.

In the original innocence of our human nature, there was perfect harmony between body and soul. Since death entered the world as a consequence of sin, the separation of the soul from the body at death is a consequence of original sin. We profess our belief in the resurrection of the body, at which time soul and body will be restored to the perfect harmony that existed before original sin. Concupiscence is a symptom of the disharmony between soul and body, since the body and its appetites, or desires, wants to pull us a certain way, and the soul wants to cling to the higher things of God and grace.

In heaven, the harmony between body and soul will be restored, as will the harmony with God and the world around us. Sin will be no more.

The Sacrament of Baptism washes away original sin, yet there remain the effects of original sin. One of them is an innate tendency to be vulnerable to temptation, to be inclined to sin, to be predisposed to desires that do no honor to the grace of God.

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) taught that concupiscence “comes from sin and induces to sin.” Yet, concupiscence is not itself sin. Concupiscence makes us vulnerable to sin, but susceptibility to temptation is not sin. How we act in response to the temptation determines the rightness or wrongness — the sin. With constant attention, or more accurately with the acceptance of God’s constant outpouring of grace, the human person can be unaffected by this tendency to drift off course.

A driver who is attentive to the path ahead can constantly adjust for a misalignment in the car’s front end, keeping the car moving toward the goal of the driver. Indeed, the Council of Trent noted that concupiscence “cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ” (Catechism, No. 1264). It is prevenient grace that precedes our thoughts and actions, waiting for us when we are tempted by concupiscence to go off course. By availing ourselves of that grace, we are enabled by God to resist the tendency to sin and instead to stay on the morally proper course.

How Do We Respond?

The story is told of the priest who asked a man in the confessional, “My son, do you entertain evil thoughts?” The penitent quickly responded, “Oh no, Father, they entertain me!” It is concupiscence that makes our minds more vulnerable to thoughts that incline us to sin and to sinful actions, but neither concupiscence nor those thoughts are sinful in themselves. The morality is determined by what we do in response: to beg God’s grace to turn away from thoughts of sin is meritorious, but to offer no resistance and give in to immoral or disordered acts is the very definition of sin itself. Concupiscence corrupts the will to the point that we are tempted to conclude that something less than God will ultimately satisfy.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught clearly that concupiscence is a consequence of original sin. Once human beings made the decision to be unbound from the will of God, the harmony within human nature also became unbound.

Desires and appetites were no longer in harmony with the intellect or reason, and the two — desire and reason — fought against one another.

St. Paul understood this, and described it in his Letter to the Romans: “I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (7:23). As a result, St. Paul could write, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Rom 7:19). Even Jesus observed concupiscence in action when He said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41; see also Mk 14:38).

The prophets of the Old Testament understood this interior tension. Jeremiah asked the piercing question, “More tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). Jeremiah understood human nature and spoke often of the stubbornness of their evil hearts (see 3:17 and many other passages), “evil thoughts” (4:14, RSV), and humanity’s “stubborn and rebellious heart” (5:23, RSV).

The psalms of David offer lament for sins committed as well as penetrating insight into the lived dichotomy between weakness and grace, the lusts of the flesh and the longing for holiness. “Sin directs the heart of the wicked man; his eyes are closed to the fear of God” (Ps 36:2). In a plaintive cry for God’s mercy, the psalmist acknowledges the dueling desires within him, and acknowledges, “I have been mortally afflicted since youth” (Ps 88:16).

Staying on Course

From the earliest reflection on life lived in relationship to God — the Book of Genesis — to the present day, the tension between good and evil is well-known. Whether presented as a life or death struggle in the psalms, or a comedic conversation with an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, it is innately understood that we all experience concupiscence on a daily basis.

Have you noticed that the temptation to eat meat seems to be the strongest on a Friday in Lent?

That’s concupiscence at work, the body at war against the soul, each pulling in a different direction. Whether we entertain evil thoughts or they entertain us, that’s also concupiscence at work: the desires of the flesh are not in harmony with the desires of the soul.

While we cannot vanquish concupiscence in this life, we can open our lives to the grace of God that provides the strength to resist the weakness of our fallen nature.

Despite the choice of our first parents to “throw off the yoke of God’s will,” as St. Thomas Aquinas described it, we can today choose to take upon ourselves a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light (see Mt 11:30). The grace of God that goes before us and anticipates our weakness — prevenient grace — is ours if we but open ourselves to it when concupiscence tempts us off course.

Modern highways help drivers stay on course with painted lines and with a rumble strip when they veer out of the lane. In the moral life, prevenient grace and our free will to do what is right perform for us the same function, and if we veer off course, the rumble of conscience will gently prod us back.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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6 min read

Sin

What Does It Mean To Be Truly Free?

Msgr. Michael Heintz

September 20, 2023 7:00 am September 20, 2023

6 min read

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6 min read

We are all born into captivity. And we don’t even know it. We are not nearly as “free” as we like to think we are. Each of us is born…

We are all born into captivity. And we don’t even know it. We are not nearly as “free” as we like to think we are. Each of us is born enslaved to ourselves and thus have become complicit in the rebellion of the fallen angels against their Creator and ours. It’s a subtle and insidious enslavement; none of us rolls out of bed in the morning consciously thinking, “I am the center of the universe,” and yet almost all of our desires, choices and actions are governed by this diabolical assertion. And the assertion, like all things diabolical, is a lie.

Far from being always so obvious to us, original sin is very much like a virus that affects our entire operating system, lurking behind the screen of our life and manifesting itself in our serial sins as well as greater offenses — it distorts the way we see ourselves, the world and God. As postmodern persons, we are remarkably self-conscious and yet bereft of genuine self-awareness. We don’t really see ourselves because we are, ourselves, “in the way.” The “ego,” what Thomas Merton called the “false self” — the “me” that is at the center of this lie — occludes our vision so that we don’t see even ourselves as we should. Our vision of others also is skewed, and so we end up looking at others either as objects in the way of the exercise of our will (competitors) or as instruments we can use to achieve our own ends. In some ways, the art of Christian living is learning to stay out of the way.

Far too often we imagine that God’s grace works something like this: our unruly desires and passions lead us into any number of sins, in thought, word, action and omission. God’s grace enters in and acts as a governor, limiting our choices — clamping down, as it were, on that freedom and thus keeping us on the “straight and narrow.” However, rather than imagining grace as a kind of power that limits us by external constraint, perhaps we might re-conceive divine grace more helpfully.

In baptism, we were plunged into the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus Christ and configured to Him. We share, by His gift, in His risen life, the life of the world to come, the new life made possible by His own paschal victory and now extended to us by the sacraments. Perhaps rather than seeing grace as an external constraint, we might rather view it as it really is: the fruit of the new life given to us in Christ. To be “in Christ” (one of St. Paul’s favorite expressions) is to share in His new life — His victory and triumph over sin. Grace, far from acting as a kind of inhibitor, actually liberates us and makes us free, genuinely free. When Gabriel greeted Our Lady with the strange Greek epithet kecharitomene, usually rendered “full of grace,” he was observing her unique status among all the daughters of Eve (as well as among all the sons of Adam): Mary is most graced. And yet we must not read that to mean that she was somehow less free. Mary is actually the freest human person who ever lived, and that is precisely because she is most graced. Grace does not inhibit or create curbs for freedom, it liberates it.

Filial Love

The saints are those who have entered into this genuine freedom in Christ. They are not constrained or cramped by grace. Quite the contrary, they are men and women who have moved from servile to filial love — their relationship with the Lord is not one dominated by rules and regulations, but rather is informed by the New Law, the law of love. It is this love that is the motivating factor of moral action in their lives. It would never dawn on them to think, “What’s the minimum I need to do not to be damned?” Rather, they are moved and drawn by love, a love for Christ that first comes from Him — a divine love, the agape of the Gospels — and this is what forms their life. The “operating system” in the life of the saints is no longer sin, but it is this love and the grace and freedom it brings.

Holy Trinity. Shutterstock

In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, St. John Paul II recognizes that the relation of truth and freedom has been constant in the Church’s teaching: “Only the freedom which submits to the Truth leads the human person to his true good. The good of the person is to be in the Truth and to do the Truth” (No. 86). This flows from Jesus’ own words: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).

In a culture that exalts in independence and autonomy, and in which the uninhibited exercise of freedom is the golden ring for which all unreflectively strive, the Gospel invites us to discover freedom precisely in relationship: We are most free when we live in relation with God in Christ. The Christian faith holds that the Holy Trinity — God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit — is the fullness of what it means “to be,” and thus “to be” in the fullest sense is “to be” precisely “in relation.” For us who by grace are offered a created share in that Uncreated Life (what Tradition would call deification or divinization), true freedom is discovered only as life in Christ, the supreme grace, by whose Spirit we have been liberated from the grip of sin and death, and through whom we have a unique and privileged access to the Father — to live as truly free sons and daughters in the Eternal Son made man.

Msgr. Michael Heintz, Ph.D., a priest of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, is academic dean at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

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4 min read

Sin

Do You Take Sin Seriously?

Father Francis Baker

August 30, 2023 9:08 am August 30, 2023

4 min read

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4 min read

Sin is for the most part a leap in the dark. A man knows he is doing a dangerous thing, but he does not realize the full danger. He does…

Sin is for the most part a leap in the dark. A man knows he is doing a dangerous thing, but he does not realize the full danger. He does not take in the full scope of his action, nor its complete consequences.

St. Paul speaks of “the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:13). The expression describes very well the source of that disappointment and unhappiness which often overtake the transgressor when he finds himself involved in difficulties from which it is all but impossible to extricate himself, and sorrows that he never anticipated.

Do you think that young people who develop habits of sin that undermine their health know all they are bringing on themselves: the weakness of body, the feebleness of mind, the early decay, the shame, the remorse, the impotence of will, the tyranny of passion, the broken vows and resolutions, the hopelessness, the fear — perhaps the premature disease and death? No, all this was not in their thoughts at first. These are the bitter lessons that [youths have] learned in the school of sin.

When the thieving businessman yielded to the glittering temptation, and made himself rich for a while with dishonest riches, did he then see before him the deeper poverty that was to follow? Did he envision the loss of all that makes a man’s heart glow and his life happy? Did he see the lies he must tell, the subterfuges he must resort to, the horrible detection of his crime, the loss of situation, the public trial, the imprisonment?

No. Of course, these possibilities were all daily in his thoughts, for they were part of the risk he knew he was running. But so little did he bring them home to himself, and the suffering he was to endure, that when they came it seemed almost hard, as if a wholly unlooked for calamity had overtaken him.

Wherever we look we find the same thing. Men imagine sin to be a lesser evil than it really is. It is so easy to commit it, it is so soon done, the temptation so strong, that it does not seem as if such very bad consequences would come of it. So it is done, and the bitter consequences come.

God’s Estimation of Sin

Before you allow yourselves to act on this estimate of sin, so prevalent in the world, ask yourself how it accords with God’s estimate of sin. That is the true standard. God is Truth. He sees things as they are, and everything is just what He considers it to be.

What, then, is God’s estimate of sin? Look at the Cross, and you will have the answer. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5).

He suffered death because we deserved it. He was accursed because we had made ourselves liable to the curse of God. Hell had its hour of triumph over Him because we had made ourselves its children.

Here we have a revelation of the evil of sin. Since Christ died for sin, the cross of Christ is the measure of sin. “Consider the remedy,” says St. Bernard of Clairveaux, “and you will learn, my soul, the greatness of your danger. See how serious were your wounds, for which, in the plan of divine wisdom, it was necessary that the lamb Christ should be wounded. If your sins had not been unto death, and unto eternal death, never would the Son of God have died for them.”

Can anything show more than this what a mysterious evil sin is, that it is an offense against God, an assault upon His throne, an attack upon His life, an evil all but infinite? All the other expressions of the evil of sin — the cries of misery that it has wrung from its victims, the warnings that natural reason has uttered against it, the tender lamentations with which the saints have bewailed it, the penalties with which God has threatened to visit it — all pale before the announcement that God sent His Son into the world to die for it (see Jn 3:16).

Father Francis A. Baker (1820-1865) was a preacher of the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle. This excerpt comes from “The Cross, the Measure of Sin,” published in his collected sermons in 1896.

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3 min read

Scripture

What Was Cain’s Sin?

Msgr. Charles E. Pope

August 26, 2023 8:00 am August 26, 2023

3 min read

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3 min read

While there is no obvious explanation given for the rejection of Cain’s offering in Genesis, there are differences in the details of the two offerings that provide some clues: First,…

While there is no obvious explanation given for the rejection of Cain’s offering in Genesis, there are differences in the details of the two offerings that provide some clues: First, Abel gives of the firstlings (first fruits) of his flock. There is no mention that Cain gave of the first fruits of his crop.

In biblical legislation, God commanded that the tithe be given. But it was not any tenth that was to be given, rather it was the first tenth that was to be given (see Ex 23:16,19; 34:26; Lv 23:10 to name just a few). Thus Cain erred by not presenting first fruits, and God did not regard his offering. We are not to give God leftovers.

A second, though less certain, problem may be that Cain offered a cereal offering, not a blood offering. Scripture attests that it was necessary to shed the blood of animals for the remission of sin. Hebrews 9:22 says, “According to the law almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” This is confirmed all throughout the Old Testament wherein God specifies the sacrifice of certain animals for Temple worship. This theory is not without a problem, however, since cereal offerings and other offerings from the harvest are elsewhere commanded and acceptable to God (see Lv 2:14 for just one example).

Whatever the full reason, the Book of Hebrews attests: “By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain’s. Through this he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts” (11:4).

Cain’s reaction to God’s response goes further to indicate a third area of concern, not for Cain’s offering, but for his disposition. As we shall see later in 1 John 3:12, Cain’s offering was not just lacking, it was evil. And this indicates not a merely external problem with Cain’s offering but an internal disposition of sin that renders his offering displeasing to God. And thus one can offer a technically perfect sacrifice to God, but if we offer it in unrepented and serious sin, God is displeased and we can even bring condemnation on ourselves (see 1 Cor 11:29).

Here, too, the Genesis text hints at the “heart problem” Cain brought to the moment. Scripture says: “Cain was very angry and dejected [that God did not regard his sacrifice]. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door; its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it’ ” (Gn 4:5-7).

The image of sin that lies in wait at the door is a powerful one. In permitting his anger and envy to grow toward his brother, Cain is moving toward darkness and sin. He must learn to master his anger and all his passions.

Sadly, Cain gives way to sin and murders his brother. Thus the First Letter of John tersely notes: “Cain … belonged to the evil one and slaughtered his brother. Why did he slaughter him? Because his own works were evil, and those of his brother righteous” (3:12).

Rev. Msgr. Charles E. Pope is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

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2 min read

Sin

Gluttony

Father Francis Hoffman

August 23, 2023 4:08 am August 23, 2023

2 min read

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2 min read

How does gluttony work? You just get bigger and bigger and bigger! Gluttony is the vice that leads us to eat and drink more than we need and more than…

How does gluttony work? You just get bigger and bigger and bigger! Gluttony is the vice that leads us to eat and drink more than we need and more than we ought. It is a very easy vice to fall into if we are not mortified and become accustomed to satisfying our cravings.

The sense of taste is just one sense that needs to be mortified. If we give our body all that it wants, it takes over and suffocates our soul, easily leading toward that downward path of sin and degradation. Instead of living as children of God, we wind up living like animals.

Pleasure is not wrong. But always in moderation. Remember what St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy” (13:12-13).

Yes, you can sin — more or less deliberately — if you eat too much during the holidays. But you can also sin against charity if you do not eat your mother-in-law’s pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Rather, pace yourself, and then express your appreciation for the hard work and care that others have spent to make life pleasant for you at Christmastime.

I think the only time gluttony becomes a mortal sin is if you eat so much you become ill, or if you wear down your health over time, or you drink so much that you cannot find your way back home. St. Thomas Aquinas points out in the Summa Theologica that “drunkenness by it’s nature is a mortal sin” (Q. 150, Article 2), but the sin admits for parvity of matter, which means if you are a little tipsy, that is not a mortal sin, but if you cannot stand up and are out of control, then that’s a mortal sin.

But pay attention here! If you are only concerned about avoiding mortal sin, you are skating on thin ice! We need to avoid even deliberate venial sin, because venial sin easily accepted inevitably leads to mortal sin. So we have to keep the battle far from the walls of the main fortress.

Rev. Francis Hoffman, J.C.D., Executive Director of Relevant Radio. Follow him on his Facebook page “Father Rocky.”

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