It is January: Resolve to Sin No More

Sin is subtle. Sin is sneaky. Sometimes you can be so blinded to it you think you are pretty well-off sinwise. In that case I have some bad news for you: everyone sins. If you think you don't, you suffer from Pride. Seriously.

Satan is the subtlest of beasts. If he can't make you sin outright, he will attempt to steer you away from the greater good. Sin is anything that takes you away from God's will for you. It can be an obvious sin against the 10 Commandments, such as murder, or it can be a subtler form of the same sin like deciding to drink that extra glass of wine that tips you over the edge of drunkenness. You haven't murdered yourself, but you have damaged a few brain cells and made yourself incapable of safely driving or making good decisions until the effects wear off, which isn't good.

Sin is a matter of degree. It can be an inward inclination or an exterior action. It can be as serious as murder or as subtle allowing yourself to hate. I have already discussed the nature of sin, so instead of going any further along the road of debating the nature of sin, I'm instead attempting to arm you for battle against it. Since this is the month for making resolutions this is a good time to discuss your personal battle against yourself, the battle against sin.

Just like the 10 Commandments can be used to diagnose sinfulness, so too can the Church's 2,000 year understanding of the nature of sin. The Church has helpfully categorized the sins that completely corrupt our relationship with God as the following: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth. These are defined below:

Click on the sin for a more in-depth review.

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

(from the website: The Seven Deadly Sins)

To battle these sins, one must cultivate the opposite virtue. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a virtue is merely a habit of doing good (CCC 1803). As such you can develop and strengthen your virtue with practice, so there is hope for even the most habituated of sinners!

The 7 Capital Sins and their Contrary Virtues

Capital Sin	Definition	Contrary Virtue
Pride	Unrestrained appreciation of our own worth	Humility
Greed	Immoderate desire for earthly goods	Liberality
Lust	Hankering for impure pleasures	Chastity
Anger	Inordinate desire for revenge	Meekness
Gluttony	Unrestrained use of food and drink	Temperance
Envy	Sorrow over another's good fortune	Brotherly Love
Sloth	Laxity in keeping the Faith and the practice of virtue	Diligence

source: http://www.fisheaters.com/lists.html#9 

Humility battles pride, kindness envy, abstinence gluttony, chastity lust, patience anger, liberality greed, and diligence sloth. Here is a brief definition of each of these Virtues.

Humility is the honest recognition of our total dependence on God, a recognition of our strengths and weaknesses, and a recognition that both are meant for His service. Our strengths are given us in order to do His work in service to the Body of Christ and our weaknesses are to remind us to rely on Him alone while doing it.

Liberality could be called generosity. It is habit of using our resources, our time and our talents in the service of God.

Chastity is the control of one's senses so that the sexual drive does not control us but rather we it. It brings our desires for sexual union under the control of the intellect so that we are not enslaved and limited by so powerful an urge.

Meekness is the habit of placing others' needs above one's own. It is the habit borne of patience.

Temperance is the practice of keeping a good from going bad. It is the act of staying in control of the senses so that one is not overwhelmed or dehumanized by life's pleasures. The daily practice of Temperance reminds us that we are not to be enslaved by anything, even a good thing like pleasure.

Brotherly Love is the happiness we feel or the happiness we choose to dwell upon in the face of another's blessings. It is the joy we feel when our coworker receives a promotion and it is purposefully turning away from the twinges of jealousy our feelings may concurrently generate.

Diligence is the decision to fulfill the responsibilities our state in life demands of us. It is changing a dirty diaper for a parent, praying the Liturgy of the Hours for the Religious, and studying hard for the student.

If you have no idea what your habitual or primary sin is, your spiritual director or regular confessor can guide you. If he can not, I might suggest finding a new confessor in the New Year. Make a study of 7 Deadly Sins and the Virtues you will need to develop to combat them. Remember that prayer is the first step in any spiritual battle. Ask God for Virtues and ask Him for insight into your character. Pray always, my friends, and tend your garden. He wants you to grow in holiness. Ask and you shall receive.

Meanwhile as my gift to you, here is a lovely prayer you can begin with: It is a part of my personal New Year's Resolution. Enjoy...

Litany of Humility Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved... From the desire of being extolled ... From the desire of being honored ... From the desire of being praised ... From the desire of being preferred to others... From the desire of being consulted ... From the desire of being approved ... From the fear of being humiliated ... From the fear of being despised... From the fear of suffering rebukes ... From the fear of being calumniated ... From the fear of being forgotten ... From the fear of being ridiculed ... From the fear of being wronged ... From the fear of being suspected ... That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I ... That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ... That others may be chosen and I set aside ... That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... That others may be preferred to me in everything... That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/humility.htm#ixzz2GqwlPJay

Sin!

Here's something I've been noticing in my long road of conversion: only Catholics seem to really sin.

We have sinning down to a science. It's categorized very scientifically by its relationship to your soul, the effects  your sin has on the world, the consequences attributed to sin, all kinds of ways and means of classifying sin. And so it should be scientific: The Catholic Church invented our science system. (Oh yeah? Yeah...)

Over the years of talking to various groups, none of them seems to have a handle on the various forms of missing the mark. With the exception of the conversations with the Jewish folks I've known. They know from human frailty.

This is by no means a lofty or even an accurate list, but I'd sure like to discuss this with anyone who's interested. Human weakness intrigues me. Probably because of my daily (hourly, breath by breath) struggles with mine. I got the same old, same old sins I've struggled with each and every day I decided I didn't want to be a slave to my every whim.

My Observations

Protestant versions of the human struggle to improve:

• Variation One Sin is general. We are all "sinners" in the general sense, but me specifically and right now specifically? No, I've been saved. I don't sin.
• Variation Two Sin is general. We are all "sinners" in the general sense, and pretty nasty, too, but Jesus throws a cloak over me and I'm good enough. My sins don't matter. I've been redeemed.

NeoPagan versions of the human struggle to improve:

• Variation One Sin is a Christian thing. If you mean actions counter to self-improvement and enlightenment, I'm well on my way. I cycle back to old issues, but I'm always on a new place on the spiral. Onward and upward.
• Variation Two I'm beyond sin. Other people might think they sin, but that's just because they aren't far enough along the path (like I am). 

Atheistic/Humanistic versions of the human struggle to improve:

• Variation One Sin is a waste of time. We all are basically working toward survival of the genes and whatever gets us evolving is fine. Do what you want. If your genes survive, fine, if not you're out of the pool.
• Variation Two Sin is what society agrees it is. It's different for everyone and every culture. If you don't like it here, change it or leave it. 

I may have missed something in my journeys through these various groups. (Admittedly, I wasn't an Atheist ever, merely a bad and poorly catechized Humanist.) Other than the touches of arrogance here and there, the main problem I saw was that people were all considered to be bad from their starting point--or neutral at best. Or that children were somehow revered as "pure human" and "perfected" until society screwed with them. These views all ran counter to my intuitive understanding of human nature. The more I found out how the Catholic Church views people and our nature, the more I realized they'd been what I'd been looking for all along.

So, instead of just giving you my opinion, I'll just restate in my own words a brief (there's 2,000 years of this stuff, folks) description of what the Church has to say about people.

• We're created good. Yeah, hold a baby. You can tell that one right away.
• But we have a tendency to screw up. Sure, check in on that baby as soon as she can start making any kind of behavioral decisions and you've got "naughty" on the radar.
• We're all sinners and we're all in this TOGETHER. We can screw up, be sorry, try again, and still be in the same building? You can be forgiven for stuff and then move on? Together? That was a revelation for someone who grew up in a world where as soon as sin entered into the picture, someone got fired, you changed churches, or there was a church-ectomy and part of the congregation split off to be a better church than the rest of you. Let me tell you what a revelation that was coming into the church in the years after the fallout from the Priest scandals was in full force. (I came in Easter 2003)
• We have to struggle or we're a slave. Someone gave me a simple definition of sin. It's when you love yourself more than God. I get that completely. When I don't get my butt off the computer chair and immediately go admire that 5 year old's Play Dough flower because, by golly, I have a blog people read, I'm not serving my family. I'm serving my pride. It ain't pretty. God blessed me to be a married woman in a family and that is how I best serve Him. It's so easy to get tangled up in that pride, I'm telling you. Like any sin, you indulge it once and you've got the burden of a little practice to overcome the next time. Indulge in it frequently and you are building up so much momentum, you're becoming habituated. After it's a habit, you are pretty much stuck in a groove and a slave to that impulse because you're bound to react the same way every time that impulse hits.

Well, that barely skirts the topic, but I'm done writing for now. It's late and all. Besides all that Blogger just ate my really cool ending. I'm too tired and lazy to recreate it just now. You'll have to trust me that I managed to pull it all together in this neat little package for you. I'm really cool that way, you know.

And no that doesn't count as Pride. It's sarcasm.

....and just maybe Sloth.

(Dang it!)