MANUAL for
CONQUERING
DEADLY SIN

Fr. Dennis Koliński, SJC,
Canons Regular of St. John Cantius

Compilation by Ryan Grant

Nihil Obstat:

Reverend Matthew Kauth, STD
Censor Deputatus

Imprimatur:

Most Reverend Peter J. Jugis, JCD
Bishop of Charlotte
September 8, 2017
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book is free from doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who grant the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions, or statements expressed.

Copyright © 2017 TAN Books.

Introductory Essay Copyright © 2017 Biretta Books, Chicago. All rights reserved.

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Unless otherwise noted, or in texts quoted from other sources, all Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition). Copyright © 2006 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (DV) are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (1899).

All excerpts from papal homilies, messages, and encyclicals copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Except where otherwise acknowledged, prayers and other texts have been taken from a variety of print and online sources and are believed to be in the public domain.

Compilation of Words from the Treasury of the Church by Ryan Grant.

ISBN: 978-1-5051-0907-8

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com
2017

PRESENTED TO

_____________________________________________

Name

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Date / Occasion

Personal Note

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To St. John Paul the Great, who through his own
life helped us learn how to live truly holy lives

A capital vice is that which has an exceedingly desirable end
so that in his desire for it a man goes on to the commission
of many sins, all of which are said to originate in that vice
as their chief source.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

CONTENTS

How to Use This Manual

Part One: The Seven Deadly Sins and
Their Remedies: An Introductory Essay

Introduction

1.Lust

2.Gluttony

3.Avarice

4.Sloth (Acedia)

5.Anger

6.Envy

7.Pride

8.The Sacramental Life: The Ultimate Remedy

Part Two: Prayers and Words of Wisdom,
Warning, and Encouragement in the
Struggle Against Deadly Sin

9.Lust

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Lust

Glory of Virginity and Chastity

10.Gluttony

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Gluttony

11.Avarice

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Avarice

12.Sloth

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Sloth

13.Anger

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Anger

14.Envy

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Envy

15.Pride

Words From the Treasury of the Church

Remedies for Pride

16.Prayers to Turn to in the Struggle Against Deadly Sin

The First Prayers We Learn

Imitate and Call on Christ

Go to Mary

Prayers to Your Guardian Angel

Prayers for Humility

Prayers for Purity

Additional Prayers to Overcome Particular Faults

Seven Specific Prayers Against the Seven Deadly Sins

Prayers of St. Alphonsus Liguori for Final Perseverance

HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL

in. Anyone sincerely striving to be a more faithful follower of Jesus Christ sooner or later—usually sooner if they are honest with themselves—encounters a problem: that of his or her own sinfulness. Try though the modern world might to convince us that there is no such thing as sin, Christians know differently. If such a person happens to be Catholic and is well-instructed, he will examine his conscience regularly and frequent the sacraments of confession, to be forgiven by Christ through his priest, and Holy Communion, to be spiritually nourished with the Body and Blood of Our Lord. And yet …

And yet we do find ourselves falling into sin again … and again … and again. Very often, we repeat the sins of which we were forgiven as recently as the day before. Despite our good intentions, resolutions, and firm purposes of amendment, we commit the same sins over and over again. It truly was a wise individual who coined the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The purpose of this manual is to help the reader learn more about the famous “seven deadly sins” and how to conquer them. Fr. Dennis Kolinski’s enlightening and edifying essay; the words of wisdom from Scripture, the Magisterium, and the saints; and the prayers with which this volume concludes will all be invaluable helps to those seeking to reduce the hold which habitual sin has on them as well as those simply striving to live holier lives.

Like the other books in TAN’s Manual series, this volume has been produced in a sturdy, compact edition so that you may keep it with you and refer to it often. It is our sincere prayer that the wisdom found within will do great good for souls so that the good intentions which we all have will, with God’s grace, pave a road straight to heaven.

PART ONE

The Seven Deadly Sins
and Their Remedies:
An Introductory Essay

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.[1]

POPE PIUS XII

Sin

ver a half century ago, Pope Pius XII began to prophetically see the modern descent of man into a culture that glorifies sin. Given the increasing normalization of sin in our present age, the role of the seven deadly sins—from which many other sins flow—must, therefore, not be overlooked, as they are the poisonous well, the source of much of our current woe. But before examining those seven in greater detail, we should first pause to consider the very concept of sin itself.

The classic definition of sin given to us by St. Augustine, used later by St. Thomas Aquinas, is “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”[2] Many today claim that the individual does not carry the full guilt for what wrong he may do because we are all somehow victims of the societal conditions that provoke one to sin. The Church, however, has always taught that the direct cause of sin is found in the will of each individual person, recognizing that each of us has responsibility for what we do. And the greater extent to which the will is involved in any choice that we make, the greater the sin.

There are two types of sin that one can commit: mortal sin and venial sin. Mortal sin is deadly in that it destroys the life of sanctifying grace in the soul, thus alienating one from God. It is our worst enemy and is the only thing that can totally separate us from God. Venial sin, on the other hand, is a deviation, but not a total turning away from God. It is akin to a sickness in the soul, but not yet deadly. The person who commits a mortal sin is like the traveler who turns his back on his destination and begins to travel in the opposite direction. The person who commits a venial sin merely departs from the straightest, most direct path toward that destination, which in our case is our hoped-for final home, heaven.

A mortal sin implies the loss of charity and removes one from the state of sanctifying grace. A venial sin is a disorder that does not involve a loss of charity but rather reflects lukewarmness in the person’s soul. Mortal sin is contrary to the law. Venial sin is a deviation from but not a total rejection of the law.

Some sins are mortal by their very nature (e.g., lust), whereas some are generally venial (e.g., gluttony). However, certain sins, venial in nature, can be mortal for a particular individual in a particular circumstance. Similarly, a sin objectively mortal in nature can be venial in particular cases if full and conscious consent is lacking in the act itself (e.g., the person acts out of fear or extreme duress). That said, venial sins are not to be taken lightly as they can be, and often are, a “slippery slope” that makes it easier for one to slide into mortal sin.

Virtues and vices are called moral habits because they reflect a manner of acting that has become habitual for the person. Moral habits are not the same as repetitive actions (e.g., nervous tapping) but are the expressions of a disposition, an element of personal formation that disposes a person to act more readily and with greater enjoyment in one way and not another.

Virtues are good moral habits and assist in good character formation. Vices are bad moral habits and lead to bad character formation. Virtue is a quality in which the soul is inclined to the good, and vice is a quality in which the soul is inclined to evil. A single good act does not make a virtue, nor does a single sinful act make a vice.

In the case of a vice, the habit of sin becomes second nature to the sinner, making it very difficult for him to change and convert to a life of virtue. When a particular sin, often one of the classical seven deadly sins, becomes so much a part of one’s “make-up,” it is called a “habitual sin.”

To avoid the development of vices and to conquer those already developed, you must vigorously practice virtuous acts so that the moral habit of virtue can override any tendency to vice. All of the moral virtues necessary for growth in the spiritual life are derived from the four cardinal virtues, which form the basis for the virtuous life: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. Every deadly sin has a primary opposing virtue that, if consciously cultivated, can help root out a vice that has become lodged in the will.

Today’s world is permeated, probably more so than at any other time in history, with temptations and the attractions of sin. It could be said that in the past you had to go out of your way to be bad, whereas now it seems you must go out of your way to be good. Therefore, in order to cultivate the life of virtue that will enable us to resist the inclination to sin, we must order our lives in such a manner that we live in the presence of God, directing our actions accordingly and trying to always see everything through the eyes of God. Without a life of prayer and sacrifice, this is almost impossible. We must avoid the occasions of sin, examine our conscience daily, and make regular confession a standard practice. We should ignore what the world thinks and meditate regularly on the passing vanities of the world. And, of course, every person who desires to grow in holiness can derive great benefit from devotion to Our Blessed Mother, seeing her not only as a model but also as one who watches over us and never ceases to implore from her Son the graces that we need.

The seven deadly sins and their remedies

God has engraved in the heart of man, his creature, the natural law, that law which we “can’t not know.” And so, despite our fallen nature and propensity to sin, we should not be surprised to find in the Old Testament and in various other ancient cultures the common belief that there are certain sins that lie at the very root of all others. The Catholic concept of the deadly sins first appeared in the fifth-century writings of the ascetic monk St. John Cassian, who enumerated eight of them. A century later, Pope St. Gregory the Great specified the seven deadly sins that the Church has taught ever since.

Capital crimes refer to those offenses in civil law that, because of their seriousness in disrupting civil order, are punishable by death, hence the term capital punishment. However, although we refer to the seven capital sins as the seven deadly sins, not all by their very nature are deadly. St. Thomas Aquinas states that “a capital vice is one that has a very desirable end, so that through desire for that end, a man proceeds to commit many sins, all of which are said to arise from that vice as from a principal vice.”[3] Therefore, it is not always the seriousness of the given sin itself that makes it “capital” but rather the fact that it leads us to other grave sins, which can bring us spiritual death.

The deadly sins influence our desires in two ways: directly and indirectly. They influence us directly when they concern matters that we perceive as being good for us. We see things such as honor, excellence, and praise as good for the soul, but they can very easily lead to the sin of pride. Food and drink are certainly goods for our bodies that we need to sustain our health, but an unchecked appetite for either can lead to the sin of gluttony. Conjugal life, too, is a good in that husband and wife participate rationally in the providence of God by means of procreation and thereby grow in their union of marital life. But when indulged in wantonly or used improperly, the sexual drive can quickly and easily lead one into the sin of lust.

The three sins just mentioned concern matters that are intrinsic to our bodies or our souls, and they bring pleasure. Pride brings spiritual pleasure, whereas lust and gluttony bring carnal pleasure. There is one deadly sin, however, which concerns a good for the person that is extrinsic to his being. The sin of avarice is a disordered desire for exterior goods, possessions and money.

The deadly sins can influence our desires indirectly when we are trying to avoid something that we perceive as evil in our lives. For instance, when spiritual good is seen as an evil because one loves material goods too much, spirituality makes one sad and is seen as an evil to be avoided. One can then fall into the sin of sloth (acedia), which is a spiritual melancholy. Surprisingly, this sin is very often found among religious.

When another person’s good makes us sad because it seems to hinder our own feeling of excellence, we commit the sin of envy. And when some wrong has been done to us and we cannot dismiss it, we try to avenge the evil that was inflicted upon us by attempting to get back at the perpetrator. The sin of anger seeks revenge, blinding the intellect so that we cannot appreciate the good of others.

The deadly sins are not all equally serious; much depends upon the degree of malice involved. From least serious to most serious they rank: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy, and pride. Perhaps surprisingly, carnal sins (lust and gluttony) are of lesser fault than spiritual sins (avarice, sloth, anger, envy, and pride) because sins of the flesh are usually due to the weakness of our fallen human nature for bodily pleasures.

In contrast, spiritual sins (avarice, sloth, anger, envy, and pride), which originate not in the weakness of our flesh but in the intellect and will, are often of greater malice than carnal sins for three reasons. They are a turning away from something good, rather than a turning toward something (albeit in a disordered way) as is the case with carnal sins. They also involve greater fault because they are committed against another person, whereas carnal sins are committed primarily against one’s own body. (Some sexual sins are committed against another, but the element that unites all carnal sins is that they are all committed against one’s own body.) Finally, the motive behind a sin determines the degree of fault. When a spontaneous impulse to sin is strong (as is usually the case with the carnal sins), the culpability for the sin is usually less because there is less conscious deliberation behind it. Thus, carnal sins are considered to involve less fault than spiritual sins because they arise from a stronger spontaneous impulse.

Having discussed the general concept of the seven deadly sins, named them, and highlighted some basic qualities of each, let us now consider each in somewhat greater detail and consider how you can go about combating the deadly sins that weigh you down. You will note as you read that the principle tactic in the struggle against each of them is the cultivation of their opposing virtues, which are:

lust: chastity

gluttony: temperance

avarice: generosity

sloth: diligence

anger: meekness

envy: generosity/kindness

pride: humility

_______________

1Radio Message of His Holiness Pius XII to Participants in the National Catechetical Congress of the United States in Boston, Pontifical Palace in Castel Gandolfo, Saturday, 26 October 1946, (http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/speeches/1946/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19461026_congres-so-catechistico-naz.html—accessed 28 March 2017).

2CCC 1849.

3Summa Theologica (ST), IIa-IIae, 153.4, (http://newadvent.org/summa/3153.htm#article4—accessed 11 March 2017).

1

LUST

Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

CCC 2351

o God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”[4] God created Adam and Eve with male and female organs of reproduction, and he commanded them to use them in the manner that he intended for the propagation of the human race. He also endowed them with a sensual pleasure, just as with the consumption of food and drink, so that men and women would find desirable the loving union of husband and wife that would bring children into the world.

Because this was part of God’s design, the sexual act—when performed in the manner that God intended—is not, as some people mistakenly think, intrinsically lustful and sinful. Rather, when husband and wife enter into the physical union as an act of love open to new life, it is something good and virtuous. The notion that sex is intrinsically sinful or “dirty” is a perversion of what God intended and is, simply stated, wrong.

When the sexual act is sinful, it is so, not due to its intrinsic nature, but rather due to its misuse. Our passions are naturally drawn toward that which we perceive as a good, and the pleasure of genital stimulation is so real and can be so attractive that our fallen, and thus disordered, human nature can be easily led to seek that gratification in illicit ways such as masturbation. Lust is the sin of inordinate desire for sexual pleasure as an end in itself.

Because the only legitimate and chaste use of sex is its proper use within a marriage between one man and one woman, any use of the sexual faculties is, therefore, wrong when sexual pleasure is sought outside of marriage. That said, the sin of lust can even occur within marriage when the spouses’ physical union is motivated primarily by desire for the carnal delights that it gives or in a manner contrary to God’s intent.

The root of lust is concupiscence, a disordered self-love and tendency to sin that has scarred human nature since the fall of Adam. With regard to lust, this tendency to sin manifests itself through seeing another person as nothing more than an object for sexual gratification. When you do this, you depersonalize the other, saying in effect, “You are good because you make me feel good.” Such an attitude is a selfish expression of utilitarianism, for the sexual drive that God placed within us is meant to be other-centered. Lust is self-centered.

When Jesus said that “every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,”[5] he was telling us that the sin of lust applies not only to external acts (in violation of the sixth commandment “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery”) but also to inordinate internal movements of the passions (in violation of the ninth commandment “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife). In so doing, he recast the sin as being not only one of the flesh but one of the spirit as well.

This is one of the primary reasons that pornography is gravely sinful. Although there is no physically consummated act between the viewer and those viewed, a person tastes the very real fruits of carnal delight through the vicarious cyber-sex. Thus, the man who is faithful to his wife in every way by his physical actions is, in actual fact, committing a species of adultery when viewing pornography.

The Catholic tradition with its centuries of wisdom, both human and revealed, also has a name for the sin you commit when thoughts in the imagination arouse the carnal passions so as to give pleasure: morose delectation. However, not every impure thought is necessarily sinful, because there are times when a thought seems to appear in the mind out of nowhere. Because it is the will that determines the sin, the question is whether the will consents or not. If the sinful thought arising in the mind is not deflected immediately, it then becomes sinful because the will has made a conscious choice to entertain it. If one deliberately conjures up impure thoughts through a conscious act of the will, it is sinful. Additionally, the length of time spent in morose delectation is a determining factor in the gravity of the sin.

Morose delectation can sometimes be a venial sin depending on the motivation. But if the thought is about a sinful action (e.g., fornication), which brings delight, it is a mortal sin, especially if one entertains the possibility of committing the deed should the opportunity arise.

Lust is distinguished from other sins in that whenever there is a direct conscious surrender to it the guilt is always grievous. When it is a fully deliberate voluntary act of the will, lust is always a mortal sin.[6] However, when one has not deliberately or fully consented, then it may be only venial because the will has not been fully engaged. Inordinate movements of sensuality can arise even in people in a state of grace without their being guilty of grave sin, so long as a conscious choice is not made for it. Nonetheless, what can sometimes begin as an act that isn’t deliberate can become mortal if left uncontrolled.

In several of his letters to the pagans of an ancient world bathed in all forms of immorality, St. Paul unequivocally condemned lust and the sins it spawned. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals … will inherit the kingdom of God.”[7] “Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”[8]

One could arguably call our time “the age of lust.” Disordered manifestations of sensuality have always been present throughout history as a result of our fallen human nature; however, for many people today, sexual expression has risen to the top of the list of priorities as an inalienable right. It is now not only a universally acclaimed right to have sex how one wants, when one wants, and with whom one wants. This supposed right of sexual expression has become so exalted that it has even taken precedence over all other rights in a socio-political perspective that is libertarian, or “live and let live,” in its treatment of all matters sexual but totalitarian in its treatment of those who would seek to live according to Judeo-Christian morality.

Oral contraception essentially ushered in the sexual revolution because it allowed one to engage in sexual activity seemingly without the consequences, turning sex into a solely recreational activity completely divorced from childbearing. It was from this moment that promiscuity of every kind rapidly increased, for if the sexual union was not about children and families, any type of sexual union became legitimized. “The age of lust” began in the 1960s, but it has come to full fruit in our time, making it perhaps the deadly sin that has the tightest grasp on people today.

In all times, but especially in a time such as ours, all Catholics must take seriously the Church’s call to chastity according to one’s state in life and employ the remedies she offers to help us do so. If you are struggling with lust, seek out a good confessor and never tire of returning to the sacrament to seek God’s mercy.

Remedies for lust

The primary virtue that helps neutralize the vice of lust is temperance. From this cardinal virtue flow other virtues that help to regulate it: chastity, continence, purity, and modesty.

God endowed food and drink, as well as the sexual union, with a noble function for the preservation of the individual and the race. The virtue of temperance—that moderation which reason imposes on every human act of passion—is one of the most necessary virtues in the spiritual life, for it helps regulate the strong inclination that we have toward the pleasures attached to these natural human functions. The object of such regulation is not to suppress them completely but merely to control them according to right reason and the light of faith, rather than be controlled by them.

The virtue of chastity helps control inordinate desires for sexual pleasure in accordance with one’s state in life. Within the married state, the use and enjoyment of the sexual faculties is not only allowed but can also be virtuous. Yet even married couples must observe chastity; that is, abstain from any acts not in accord with how God intended them to use their sexual faculties. For those who are not married, chastity demands that they abstain entirely from all sexual acts.

Practice of the virtue of temperance applies not only to physical acts (sixth commandment) but also to thoughts (ninth commandment). Because of our disordered human nature, even the most virtuous person can sometimes be subject to strong movements of the passions. This means that we must strengthen our wills in order to resist disordered movements of the passions that can lead to sinful thoughts or actions.

We must be pure in our thoughts and actions in order to resist the temptations that our own human weakness and the world may present to us. Such purity requires practice in the virtue of modesty, which is an integral part of the virtue of temperance. Modesty, in turn, is ordered to chastity; by clothing ourselves in a manner that veils what is most intimate about our bodies, we help to protect others from the potential sin of lust. Modesty also dictates our posture, the way in which we move and carry ourselves, how we look at and behave toward others. It’s necessary to refrain from certain ways of acting, even if we have no sinful intent in doing so, because of the danger that we may provoke lustful desires in others. Admittedly, because of the way men and women are “wired,” it is more often the woman who must practice the above discipline to protect men, but the reverse is also true.

It would be ideal if we could purify our society and culture so that there would once again be a sense of inherent decorum and modesty that would help people preserve chastity. But in the absence of this state of affairs, what can you do? One practical step you can take is to closely monitor what you “consume” in terms of media. You must necessarily refrain from unchaste entertainments on television, in the movie theater, online, and in print materials. Especially dangerous is casual and risky use of the Internet, which can all too easily lead to pornography. Again, in the past it seemed we had to go out of our way to be bad; today, it seems we must go out of our way to be good. The Internet is one area in which you must take drastic steps if need be, including even removing it from your home if necessary.

You must also practice custody of the senses, thoughts, desires, and speech. For as the old saying goes, “the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Therefore, carefully guarding what you choose to see can be extremely helpful in controlling inclinations to lustful thoughts or desires.

One might, however, protest that it is almost impossible to maintain custody of the eyes in this world filled with eroticized images. When once confronted with this dilemma, Servant of God John A. Hardon, SJ, calmly remarked, “There is a difference between seeing and looking.” We see many things but don’t necessarily have to look at them. Looking involves a choice. Thus, you may see many things on the Internet, but you must learn not to look.

Because the flesh is one integrated whole, stimulation in one part of your body will flow over into other parts of the body. Overeating, indulgence in rich scrumptious foods, and consumption of alcohol all have the potential to stimulate you erotically, which can then easily lead to lustful thoughts and inordinate desires. It is well known that even small amounts of alcohol can lower the inhibitions, which then weaken the will when lustful thoughts enter the mind. Developing self-discipline in matters of food and drink has enormous potential in helping control the urges for sensual pleasure in the body. That is why moderation in food and drink, as well as fasting and abstinence, play important roles in the battle against concupiscence. As St. John Cassian wrote: “He then will never be able to check the motions of a burning lust, who cannot restrain the desires of the appetite.”[9]

And of course, in the battle against the inordinate desires of lust, spiritual means such as prayer, the daily examination of conscience, regular confession, and Eucharistic adoration are essential. It is very important to avoid morally suspect places, situations, and persons that may place you in the occasion of sin. And it is wise to never trust yourself, thinking that a well-developed spiritual life or practice of virtue will safeguard you from temptations. We all suffer the wounds of our fallen human nature, and overconfidence may allow the evil one to catch us off guard and trip us when we least expect it.

_______________

4Gn 1:27–28, 31.

5Mt 5:28.

6Joseph Delany, “Lust,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09438a.htm—accessed 21 March 2017).

71 Cor 6:9–10. (The RSV-2CE includes a note that “the immoral” refers literally to fornicators.)

8Col 3:5–6; see also Rom 13:13; Gal 5:19; 1 Thes 4:3–5; and Eph 5:3–5.

9St. John Cassian, Institutes, bk. 5, ch. 11.

2

GLUTTONY

Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion.… Temperance is often praised in the Old Testament: “Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites” (Sir 18:30). In the New Testament it is called “moderation” or “sobriety.”

CCC 1809

he word gluttony originates from the Latin word gluttire, which means “to swallow,” “to gulp down.” It denotes excessive indulgence in food and drink. Eating and drinking are necessary for self-preservation; that is why God has given them a certain sensate pleasure. However, immoderate indulgence, eating and drinking far more than is necessary for your physical needs, is sinful because it constitutes an inordinate delight in the pleasure of these activities, to say nothing of the harm it does to your body, which is a gift from God.

Gluttony can generally only occur when one has sufficient means to afford excess food and drink, not when one is poor and never has enough to eat. It is, therefore, a sin most often found in affluent societies such as ours. Many restaurants serve portions far larger than what most people need to satisfy their hunger. Many people have become so accustomed to constantly eating throughout the day that they rarely know what an empty stomach feels like. And consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol at parties and bars is a widespread social practice. Everyone is encouraged to consume. Gluttony has, in a sense, become a way of life for many people, and they don’t even realize it.

Most people think of gluttony only as excessive eating and drinking, but St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that there are other ways that one can fall into this sin. It can be, as he writes, “Praepropere, laute, nimis, ardenter or studiose.”[10] That is, one can commit the sin of gluttony by eating or drinking too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily; or, as St. Isidore said, “A gluttonous person is excessive in what, when, how, and how much he eats and drinks.”[11] In other words, the glutton is the person who voraciously and intemperately overindulges in the various means by which one can derive pleasure from food and drink.

Thus, you can sin by means of your inordinate love for exceptionally exquisite foods, by means of the over-importance you attach to the quality of food or the vintages of fine alcohols, to the point of being overly fussy about what and how you eat and drink. For instance, there is a story of a Chinese emperor who had such refined taste that he demanded pâté made for him from the tongues of nightingales.[12]

Much like lust, gluttony is a carnal sin, a sin of the flesh, and is not as serious as spiritual sins such as pride and anger.[13] It is generally a venial sin because it is merely overindulgence in something that is a good for the body. Gluttony can, however, under certain conditions, become a mortal sin, as when a person consciously and recklessly indulges in food and drink in a manner that causes serious injury to his health or if this excess so impaired his faculties that he became a serious danger to others (drunk driving) or was not able to fulfill serious obligations (drinking away one’s paycheck so that one’s family didn’t have enough to eat).[14]

Gluttony can also be a mortal sin if one eats and drinks with exceptional relish for the pleasure that it brings, such as when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of pottage,[15] or if one is even willing to abandon virtue for the sake of it.[16] St. Paul describes this in his Letter to the Philippians: “Their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.”[17]

Because it indulges in the pleasures of eating and drinking, gluttony is often the doorway to other sins of the flesh: decadence, dullness of mind, indiscreet speech, excessive babbling, levity of conduct, and frivolity. For instance, we see in Sacred Scripture how too much wine made Noah lose his sense of propriety. “Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent.”[18] The prophet Isaiah also had strong words about the evil effects of too much wine. “These also reel with wine / and stagger with strong drink; / the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, / they are confused with wine, / they stagger with strong drink; / they err in vision, / they stumble in giving judgment. / For all tables are full of vomit, / no place is without filthiness.”[19]

But as we learned in the prior chapter of the connection between the two, lust is often the most serious of the sins to which gluttony gives rise; for that sin of the flesh, lust, as St. Robert Bellarmine tells us, “brings in all of its daughters.”[20] Because our body is one integrated whole, these two sins often go hand in hand, for when one part of our flesh is stimulated by inordinate pleasure, the whole body resonates and then easily seeks other inordinate pleasures of the body. Thus, overeating and drunkenness have a natural tendency to incite lust within our disordered passions. We see this already in the Book of Genesis. Lot was an upright man, but fell grievously when his two daughters, in their desire to become pregnant, plied him with so much wine that he unwittingly committed incest with each of them.[21]

However, even though gluttony is considered a carnal sin, it can also manifest itself spiritually. St. John of the Cross tells us that there can be such a thing as spiritual gluttony. He describes this as “the disposition of those who, in prayer and other acts of religion, are always in search of sensible sweetness; they are those who ‘will feel and taste God, as if he were palpable and accessible to them not only in Communion but in all their other acts of devotion.’ ”[22] Spiritual gluttons think that they have ascended to the heights of spirituality, but St. John tells us that this is, rather, a very great spiritual imperfection that can lead to many evils.

Remedies for gluttony

The virtue that helps neutralize the vice of gluttony is temperance, for to be gluttonous is to overindulge, whereas to be temperate is to have self-control over your bodily appetites and to practice moderation in their satisfaction. The opposite of indulgence is frugality.

After Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the desert fasting and praying, the devil came and tempted him. One of his temptations was to convince Jesus that he should turn the stones into bread because after such long fasting he would be hungry. But Jesus told him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”[23] The gluttonous man thinks that he needs to satisfy his excessive desires for food and drink, but this is not the way that God intended us to act.

The cure for gluttony is moderation and self-restraint in all matters regarding food and drink. This is done by practicing self-denial through abstinence and fasting. This is something quite unpopular in today’s self-indulgent culture, which is obsessed with disciplining oneself in this area principally for purposes of vanity and self-esteem, but uninterested in doing so as a spiritual practice. However, if you do not tame the body by consciously denying yourself those things that bring you pleasure, those pleasures will eventually begin to control you and your habits. We are creatures of both body and soul; thus, it is necessary to discipline the body so that inordinate desires of the flesh such as gluttony won’t overcome the soul.

Fasting and abstinence are practices that help greatly in combating gluttony. The Church recommends fasting as a spiritual practice, especially during Lent, but it is something that you also should practice at other times. Telling yourself that you don’t need dessert or that extra bottle of beer will help keep your desire for food and drink in check. And because both gluttony and lust are sins of the one body, developing self-discipline in matters of food will also help you control the urges for sexual pleasure.

“One has to give the body a little less than it’s due. Otherwise it turns traitor”[24] because “the day you leave the table without having done some small mortification you have eaten like a pagan.”[25]

_______________

10Joseph Delany, “Gluttony.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06590a.htm—accessed 16 March 2017).

11ST, IIa-IIae, 148.4. (From St. Isidore’s De summon bono.)

12Related by Fr. Brian Mullady, OP, in his moral theology class at Holy Apostles Seminary.

13ST, IIa-IIae, 148.3.

14Delany, “Gluttony.”

15See Gn 25:29–34.

16Delany, “Gluttony.” ST, IIa-IIae, 148.2.

17Phil 3:19.

18Gn 9:20–21.

19Is 28:7–8.

20St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctrina Christiana, 231.

21See Gn 19:30–38.

22St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul, I, vi.

23Mt 4:4.

24Josemaría Escríva, The Way, ch. 6, no. 196, (http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way.htm—accessed 16 March 2017).

25Escríva, The Way, ch. 32, no. 681.

3

AVARICE

The tenth commandment … forbids coveting the goods of another, as the root of theft, robbery, and fraud, which the seventh commandment forbids.… Avarice, like fornication, originates in the idolatry prohibited by the first three prescriptions of the Law. The tenth commandment concerns the intentions of the heart.…
The tenth commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power.

CCC 2534, 52

ne of the multitude said to him, ‘Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ ”[26] Avarice comes from the Latin word avaritia and is sometimes called greed or covetousness, the inordinate love of riches. Yes, you need money and material goods to live in this world, but when they become the focus of your life, you become blinded to the fact that money and possessions are not an end themselves, but merely a means to an end, the means by which you can live a healthy and sustainable life. The avaricious person forgets that which the Baltimore Catechism stated so succinctly: “God made you to know, love, and serve Him in this life and be happy with Him in heaven.” Such a person believes he was made to acquire and hoard money and possessions in this life and gives little, if any, thought to heaven … or hell, for that matter.

Although avarice is a sin that primarily concerns physical goods that can benefit you in this life by assuring comfort and physical well-being, it is not, however, a sin of the flesh. Rather, avarice is a spiritual sin, for the desire that it instills in you is not so much for the things themselves as for the personal satisfaction that you get by having them. A person delights in the mere thought that he is rich and is in constant dread of losing even the smallest part of his possessions.

Avarice, no matter how much money you have, very easily, perhaps necessarily, leads to sins of omission. God commands us to practice charity. But the avaricious man, because he thinks that his very existence depends upon his wealth, will part with even a small portion only with great difficulty. Charity can be left to other people. And the more covetous the man, the more he seeks to acquire. “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain.”[27]

St. Robert Bellarmine, one of the great doctors of the Church, defined avarice in the following way:

Avarice is a disordered passion for riches and it consists in three things. The first is when a man desires someone else’s goods and is not content with his own things. The second is when one desires to have more than what is necessary, nor does he wish, as he is obliged, to bestow what is superfluous upon the poor. The third is when someone possesses excessive goods that he loves, even if they are not superfluous such as when someone is not prepared to lose his goods in a case when it is necessary for the honor of God. For that reason, St. Paul says that avarice is idolatry, because the greedy man puts his goods before God and is more content to lose God than his goods. [28]

These words from the great saint should strike terror in the hearts of the avaricious. Examine yourself according to his words. Do you put your goods before God, and, in your heart of hearts, would you be more content to lose God than your goods?

As it is a capital sin, avarice naturally leads to other sins. In his First Letter to Timothy, St. Paul wrote that “the love of money is the root of all evils”[29] because it leads to many other sins. Among them can be listed perjury, dissatisfaction, restlessness, violence, and hard-heartedness.[30] Avarice can lead to fraud and deceit if the acquisition of money or goods is accomplished dishonestly, as well as when the desire is for the goods of others. And covetousness is “a desire not only for money, but also for knowledge and high places, when prominence is immoderately sought after.”[31]

Covetousness can sometimes make itself appear virtuous. For instance, under the pretext of saving up money and acquiring goods to supposedly provide for one’s future or the future of one’s family, a person may actually be doing so out of greed just to have more.

Most often the simple desire to acquire, possess, or take pleasure in riches is not a mortal sin and therefore not as grave as lust or some forms of pride. However, this vice can give birth to a covetous spirit, which is capable of leading to grave sin.[32] For instance, you may desire wealth to such a degree that you will do anything to possess it, sometimes even murder. Sometimes the means by which you acquire riches causes suffering for others. This, too, can be a grave sin.[33]

The sin of avarice easily leads to exaggerated frugality, stinginess, an extreme unwillingness to spend money or use resources even when necessary (inordinate thrift, parsimony), excessive greed (rapacity), theft, callousness toward the poor, as well as excessive and obsessive gambling (when it becomes a way of life rather than a form of occasional leisure activity).

The popular saying “the more a person has the more he wants” describes the avaricious person. This vice is, unfortunately, a symptom of our affluent society, a society that has more money and possessions than most people in most parts of the world have had throughout history. We live in a society so prosperous that people considered poor according to national standards routinely possess things—such as televisions, air conditioners, smart phones, and cars—which in many other parts of the world would be classified as luxury items. Yet there is still a desire to have more.

When we think of the greedy person, we usually think of someone like King Midas, who desired riches so much that he asked the god Dionysius to grant him his wish that everything he touched turn to gold. But avarice can find its way into our souls in much more subtle ways.

Consider what has become of the simple act of buying those things one needs to live. Today, encouraged by enticing advertisements, shopping is no longer just a way to acquire things that we really need, but instead has become a common form of leisure activity. For some in our prosperous society, it has even become a way of life. What does one do on the weekend? Go to the mall to search for all the good deals and newest items, and at the end of a long day bring home bags full of things that, often enough, aren’t really needed. Closets and drawers are filled to the brim with clothes, but people still have to buy more.

And now, in this age of smart phones and an endless variety of electronic gadgets for every need that one can think of and not think of, people feel that they must constantly purchase the newest, the most up-to-date, and the most fashionable model, even though the one that they now have is completely adequate for their needs. It is a greed for the latest fashion and the newest state-of-the-art—just to have it. And sometimes it’s just so that other people can see that you have it.

You may not have a real need for this or that new gadget or new dress, but it is easy to construct a need to justify its purchase. People buy gifts for themselves and justify it by saying, “I deserve it.” Simply put, if it is an inordinate desire to possess just because you want to have it with no real need, it is a manifestation of avarice.

St. John of the Cross tells us that there is even a spiritual avarice that sometimes afflicts beginners in the spiritual life. Like misers, such people crave spiritual experiences and consolations, spiritual guides and advice. They can never have enough rosaries, images, and crucifixes to decorate their rooms. They are so consumed with their desires for physical and emotional spiritual goods that they can’t see that true devotion comes rather from the heart and not in possessing things.[34]

Remedies for avarice

The virtues that help neutralize the vice of avarice are generosity and liberality, which are both motivated by charity. The avaricious person wants to have everything for himself. Once entrenched, avarice is very hard to root out. Such a person thinks that he is in control because he goes to great pains to hold on to what he has, as well as acquire more. In reality, however, he has become a slave to his possessions. That is why the rich young man in the Gospel was so sad when Jesus told him to sell everything he had. He had many possessions, and, as the saying goes, his possessions “had” him.[35]

In order to combat and eventually conquer avarice, you must cultivate a spirit of detachment from your worldly goods by consciously practicing generosity. Yes, you need money and certain possessions to live, but you must always remember that they are merely a means to an end, not the end in itself. Riches and possessions may seem to bring happiness, but that is an illusion or, more accurately, a delusion. It is a good practice to remember that you won’t take them with you when you die; in fact, you could lose everything you have in an instant from some natural catastrophe.

But practically speaking, how can we practice generosity? A sure way to do so is to cultivate the virtue of mercy, for mercy thinks of others rather than oneself and wants to give so as to help others. It reflects a willingness to give freely, just as God in his infinite mercy desires to abundantly give us his forgiveness even when we think that we don’t deserve it.

If you would combat avarice, then GIVE. Practice altruism, benevolence, charitableness, largesse, and magnanimity. Extend hospitality to relatives and friends. Cultivate an unselfish spirit and think of yourself only as a pilgrim passing through this world, which is only a fleeting reality. You need not be poor in reality, but you must think of yourself as poor and live as if all that you possess are gifts from God, gifts that do not actually belong to you. It isn’t poverty itself that is a virtue, but the love of poverty, the love of giving from your wealth, however great or small it may be, in order to make others happy.

Those who are generous are blessed, “for they share their bread with the poor.”[36]

_______________

26Lk 12:13–15.

27Eccl 5:10.

28St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctrina Christiana.

291 Tm 6:10.

30ST, IIa-IIae, 118.8.

31Pope St. Gregory the Great.

32ST, IIa-IIae, 118.

33Joseph Delany, “Avarice,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02148b.htm—accessed 14 March 2017).

34St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, bk. 1, ch. 3, 1.

35See Mt 19:16–22; Mk 10:17–22; Lk 18:18–23.

36See Prv 22:9.

4

SLOTH
(ACEDIA)

One can sin against God’s love in various ways: … acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness.…
The spiritual writers understand by [acedia] a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart.

CCC 2094, 2733

he name of the extremely slow animal, the sloth, originates from the Old English word slow with the ending “th” added to it. Consequently, most people think of the sin of sloth as describing someone slow and physically lazy, sitting around the whole day and accomplishing little—in contemporary parlance, a “couch potato.” This sin, however, is more rightly known by its Latin name, acedia, which originates from the Greek akedia, meaning “listlessness.”

Acedia is a spiritual laziness or lethargy that manifests itself in apathy toward and weariness of spiritual things. It is a sluggishness of mind, a kind of oppressive sorrow in the face of doing something good, which weighs so heavily on a person that he chooses to do nothing.[37] Acedia expresses itself as listlessness, carelessness, apathy, melancholy, and a reluctance to attend to one’s duty. And because it is a spiritual rather than physical listlessness, acedia can sometimes manifest itself as busyness or activism, while at the same time the person internally suffers under a gloomy combination of weariness, sadness, and purposelessness.

One could call acedia a laziness of the soul that keeps it from doing the good. St. Thomas Aquinas calls it “sadness in the face of some spiritual good which one has to achieve.”[38] This sadness originates in the person’s perception that the practice of virtue is difficult and unpleasant, so he recoils from the task. He grows spiritually lethargic at the thought that God’s ways are so demanding and even painful. The journey along the path of personal holiness inspires not joy, as it should, but antipathy and repugnance for that which seems far too arduous.

Cistercian Michael Casey writes, “The acediac is a person without commitment, who lives in a world characterized by mobility, passive entertainment, self-indulgence, and the effective denial of any external claim.… Sometimes [acedia] is identified with sloth or idleness, but that is only the external face of an attitude marked by chronic withdrawal from reality into the more comfortable zone of uncommitted and free-floating fantasy. The temptation to acedia is an invitation to abandon involvement and leave the pangs of creativity to others.”[39]

Monastic writers often referred to acedia as the “noonday devil,” that time in the heat of midday when the devil tempts monks to lethargy, sadness, and despair, trying to convince them that it would be better if they left their cells and ceased their spiritual exercises because they are too oppressive and demanding. If the monks did not turn to prayer and spiritual exercises with even greater power of will, they would experience a weakening confidence in the very importance of prayer.

You may experience the “noonday devil” as the demon who whispers in your ear that it’s not necessary to go to church on Sunday because God is everywhere, and you can pray to him wherever you are. The result is that you then begin to avoid spiritual discipline, become lax in the practice of prayer, and ignore spiritual practices—such as mortifications and spiritual reading—that you need to maintain your spiritual vigor. Bogged down in this spiritual laziness, you mistakenly think, “God accepts me and loves me as I am, so I don’t have to try to become better.” A classic half-truth. God does love you, but you must strive to be holy. Regrettably, you discover that standing water soon becomes stagnant and putrid. As your spiritual life begins to decay, your soul begins to exude the odor of those sins that it falls into with greater frequency.

In its essence, acedia is a sin directly opposed to charity, a sin against the joy of love, because charity rejoices in the good. The slothful soul sees only sadness in what is good, both spiritual good in general and the ultimate spiritual good, God and his goodness. Sloth is a sin against the first and the greatest of the commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”[40] Let us not deceive ourselves with the “I’m okay, you’re okay” mantra of the modern world. None of us are “okay” without God.

That said, Holy Mother Church is always very careful and precise in distinguishing between the objective nature of the act or omission of an act and the degree of culpability of her children. When one is so distressed by the thought of what he must do to maintain his friendship with God, acedia can certainly constitute a mortal sin, but lacking a strong deliberate act of the will, it does not normally have the malice of mortal sin.[41] Although sloth by its very nature is contrary to charity, it is mortal only if it is fully and deliberately accepted by the will or if one deliberately defies some serious obligation because of it.[42]

In the Book of Sirach, we read: “Idleness teaches much evil.”[43] Thus, acedia has been called the mother of all vices, especially sins of the flesh through which the lethargic soul finds comfort and respite from this torpor. St. Thomas Aquinas states that acedia is not a specific vice but rather a circumstance of all vices.[44]

The sins that sprout forth from sloth are contempt for commands, despair in doing good, rancor against those that try to avoid sin and live a good life,[45] cowardice, the tendency to despair of salvation, hostility toward spiritual things, sluggishness, and a wandering mind.[46]

“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.”[47] That sentence captures the modern attitude, the modern slothful attitude toward things of the spirit as well as any you will come across. Read it again and consider if you have ever been tempted by such a belief.

As Reno so perfectly described, sloth is a sin characteristic of our over-stimulated, fast-paced modern culture, in which people often have become uninterested in or even have an aversion to spiritual matters because they aren’t as exciting or entertaining as so many of the other activities in which they take part. We have gotten so used to being entertained that many have forgotten that living one’s faith takes effort. Probably most Catholics who have fallen away from the faith have not done so because they consciously rejected its teachings. Rather, in their passivity, they slowly, almost imperceptibly, drift away until one day they find themselves outside of the Church; their loss of faith, even if they would not call it such, is due to the spiritual laziness in their souls, which found the things of the world more interesting than those of heaven.

Remedies for sloth

The virtue that helps neutralize the vice of acedia is diligence, which flows from the primary virtue of prudence. Diligence and persistence in spiritual matters keep one from becoming spiritually lazy like the foolish virgins in the parable who, unlike the five wise virgins, didn’t keep their spiritual lamps trimmed and lit.[48]

St. Paul told us, “Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer”[49] because if on the last day you are merely lukewarm, and “neither cold nor hot, [the Lord will] spit you out of [his] mouth.”[50]

We can stay spiritually “hot” in our spiritual life through good spiritual discipline. Just like anything in life, if you do not have good discipline, you become dissipated and do not perform well. Among other things, this means that you must be faithful to the demands of your daily life.

In order to serve the Lord with enthusiasm and maintain the spiritual fervor necessary for a healthy spiritual life, you must constantly renew your love for God, which is an act of the will. Recovering this enthusiasm and the spirit of faith requires a generosity toward God, as well as toward your fellow man. You must take the focus off yourself—in fact, self-absorption is a prime cause of lethargy—and begin to focus on others and what you can do for them.

To pull yourself out of a state of acedia, you must remove any activities contrary to the will of God and spend less time on those that distract you from spiritual matters. God and the life of your soul must be given priority. Yes, we all have duties, and recreation and time spent with friends are good things. But if your spiritual life is not in order, everything will soon fall apart. Examine yourself and the amount of time you give to each of your activities; very often you will find that you do, in fact, have plenty of time to pray, attend Mass, and go to confession.

Nor is it just a question of time. Sports, concerts, parties, movies, and omnipresent music bombard people with so much sensory stimuli that not only does it become difficult to concentrate on spiritual matters but it can even lead to a distinct distaste for matters of the soul. This means that you must impose sacrifices on yourself especially in those areas that keep you from focusing on your spiritual life. A Catholic life is a sacramental life, and you must not let the incessant noise of the modern world keep you from God and his grace.

The lethargy of acedia may have such a dominance over your will that you will have to force yourself to undertake spiritual practices, and it will take a supreme effort on your part. But it’s essential. Take a walk, marvel at God’s beauty of creation, and while you’re at it, grab a rosary to pray as you walk. You may have to consciously force yourself out of despondency, but it must be done. Eventually, a certain peace and joy at a renewed union with God will begin to grow in the soul.

Also, don’t forget to ask the Lord, his Blessed Mother, and the saints for their help. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”[51]

_______________

37ST, IIa-IIae, 35.1.

38Joseph Delany, “Sloth,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 14 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14057c.htm—accessed 17 March 2017).

39Carissa Smith, “Acedia: the Forgotten Sin,” Patheos Online, 8 October 2008, (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christand-popculture/2008/10/acedia-the-forgotten-sin/—accessed 17 March 2017).

40Mk 12:30.

41Delany, “Sloth.”

42ST, IIa-IIae, 35.3.

43Sir 33:27.

44Delany, “Sloth.”

45St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctrina Christiana, 233.

46St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Theologia Moralis, bk. 2, pp. 100–101.

47R. R. Reno, “Fighting the Noonday Devil,” First Things, August 2003, (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/08/fighting-the-noonday-devil—accessed 31 March 2017).

48See Mt 25:1–13.

49Rom 12:11–12.

50See Rv 3:16.

51Mt 7:7–8.

5

ANGER

Our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral. Anger is a desire for revenge. “To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit,” but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution “to correct vices and maintain justice.”[52] If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin.

CCC 2302

nger, sometimes called wrath, is an emotional response to an injustice. It is one of the passions (i.e., emotions) that God placed within the soul, which, in and of themselves, are neither intrinsically good nor evil. Hence, anger can be just (i.e., not sinful); however, a violent and inordinate display of anger with a desire for vengeance becomes sinful. Righteous anger wills just correction and what is good, whereas sinful anger wills what is evil. Thus, anger can influence your reason in the right direction or in the wrong direction.

Whether anger is justified or sinful depends upon the type of reaction it provokes in the soul and the intensity of the passion. When it is in conformity with balanced reason, anger is not sinful but rather praiseworthy and justifiable.[53] For instance, Jesus expressed outrage in perfect conformity with right reason when he drove the merchants and the money changers out of the Temple.[54] Just anger is never inordinate, because it does not cause a man to lose control of himself in either word or deed. St. Paul admonishes us to be angry but not to sin; not to let the sun set on our anger, nor leave room for the devil.[55]

In fact, it would be wrong not to be angry when one should be, but the anger must remain within the bounds of reason and proportional to the crime or misdeed committed. For instance, if someone rapes your daughter, it would be disordered not to feel anger, even rage, as long as it does not develop into uncontrollable wrath with a desire for revenge; similarly, when a child misbehaves, it is reasonable for a parent to be angry and impose an appropriate punishment to help teach the child that he did wrong. In both cases, you would be right to be angry, but the anger involved should be different in both degree and kind. As Christians we are called not to be vengeful even in the most extreme cases.

It may even be said that a person incapable of anger lacks a properly formed moral compass; righteous anger in the face of an injustice committed is perfectly reasonable. If such a person were unable to resent evil through a proper expression of anger, he would be lacking in the motivation that would move him to seek to legitimately correct that injustice.[56] If you fail to act on your righteous anger in an appropriate and proportional way on the occasions that demand it, you could be guilty of a sin against justice or charity.[57]

On the other hand, it is wrong to be angry without a just cause, and anger, even when justified, becomes sinful when you seek vengeance or when you wish to punish someone in a manner greater than he deserves, or even if it arises from an improper motive.[58] For example, anger toward someone who has wounded your self-esteem may very likely be motivated only by pride. Thus, we see how one deadly sin begets another.

Anger over a small matter or when full deliberation is lacking is often a venial sin. When confronted with some serious issue, you can sometimes have a violent spontaneous movement of anger that, because it was evoked without full deliberation of the intellect and full consent of the will, was merely the natural emotional reaction to a stimulus. If you quickly compose yourself and refrain from any desires for vengeance, such expressions of anger are usually only venial sins or sometimes not even sinful at all.

Unjustified or inordinate anger is sinful even when nobody else knows that we are angry. As Catholics, we know how important the interior life is, and we recognize the truth of the old saying “the thought is father to the deed.” And so you must keep a check on your interior anger as well, whether you give expression to it outwardly or not. If you yield to anger with full consent of the will in a manner that violates the principles of justice and charity toward one’s neighbor, it would be a mortal sin,[59] especially if you were to entertain thoughts of serious harm or murder, even inwardly.

The gravity of sins that arise from anger varies. If one is indignant and angry because of being treated unworthily, it is generally a venial sin, unless it proceeds from a just judgment of reason, in which case it is no sin at all. But if the anger develops into deliberate hatred and contempt for the one who committed the injustice, then it can be mortally sinful. When a person shouts in rage, it is usually a venial sin unless he does something that makes it more serious. Anger that is rooted in blasphemy is a mortal sin. Insulting treatment of another with the intent to dishonor him is a mortal sin of its very nature.[60]

From the poisoned well of anger come many evils: physical assault, violence, thoughts of revenge, indignation, contention, acrimony, animosity, antagonism, enmity, fury, impatience, rage, quarreling, temper, cursing, insults, and even blasphemy and offensive words against God. In the extreme, anger can even lead to murder of those closest to you, as in the case of Cain and Abel.[61]

In modern-day culture, anger manifests itself in many ways. We live a life far more privileged than most people who have ever lived. We possess material goods and comforts that people in past ages would not have even dreamed of. We live longer and are healthier. All our basic needs, and much more, have been met. Yet it seems as if we have become an increasingly angry people, often lashing out over trivial things at the least provocation.

We live in an age filled with anger that is different in many respects from that of past ages. We face challenges and occasions of sin in dealing with anger that people in times past did not have to deal with such as e-mail, social media, and the comment sections of websites, which provide a volatile medium for a revolting lack of civility and unfettered rage that so typifies much of postmodern society. The anonymity of social media allows people to express themselves angrily, free of any consequences for what they write.

Another contemporary manifestation of unreasonable anger is road rage, an emotional epidemic in which people say things on the road that they would not say in other circumstances.

It is plain to see that we live in a wrathful age when anger is thought the appropriate response to every frustration. This is dangerous, for it is also one in which the distinction between righteous and sinful anger is no longer grasped as it was in the past. Much of this confusion can be traced to the self-centeredness that so pervades our culture, coupled with the pervading influence of television and movies, in which anger is often the norm.

Remedies for anger

The primary virtue that helps neutralize the vice of anger is meekness, which moderates anger in accord with right reason.

Many people think that meekness is the same as weakness, timidity, or cowardice, but it is not. Jesus once said, “I am gentle and lowly in heart,”[62] yet we don’t at all get the impression from the Gospels that he was a wimp. Rather, the Catholic understanding of meekness is strength with gentleness, as seen in the account of Jesus driving the merchants and money-changers from the Temple. Filled with righteous (i.e., not sinful) anger, his meekness moderated his anger.

Meekness, as one of the forms of the virtue of temperance, doesn’t necessarily eliminate anger but rather controls it so that you can express yourself, when angry, according to the dictates of right reason. In other words, meekness tempers anger.

You must always be vigilant lest you be overtaken by a sudden burst of emotion that would cause you to violate justice and charity. That’s why the virtue of meekness should, in turn, be generously supplemented by the virtue of patience. Anger often results in a quick-tempered reaction that not infrequently tries to satisfy itself through some kind of vengeance. The virtue of patience aids the virtue of meekness by enabling you to calmly and patiently resolve the conflict that evoked the anger. As St. James wrote, “Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.”[63]

When you are in the state of grace, you are endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Among them, the gift of fear of the Lord is especially helpful in cultivating the moral virtues. It serves as a brake on the passions when they are in danger of exceeding the limits of right reason. You must cultivate the virtues of meekness and patience and strive to remain in the state of grace through good living and the sacrament of confession so as to keep alive in your soul a healthy fear of the Lord; this meek and patient disposition, or virtuous habit of being, coupled with that fear of God’s punishment lest you sin, will help you tremendously in your effort to conquer the deadly sin of wrath.

St. Augustine once warned that “anger habitually cherished against any one becomes hatred,” and “we must watch lest hatred of any one gain a hold upon the heart.”[64] The danger for many people, who are hurt in some way by another, is that they will harbor anger against that person, sometimes for a very long time. And because they tend to brood over their wounds and wallow in that anger, they find it very difficult to forgive the other person. This is very dangerous for one’s spiritual life because it puts up an obstacle to grace and spiritual growth.

Meekness and patience will give you the ability to forgive and show mercy even when you have suffered injustice. The key to this is to constantly tell yourself that “what happened, happened” and cannot be changed. Therefore, it is necessary to leave it in the past, close that chapter of your life, and move on. Jesus said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”[65] And whenever the thought of that injustice comes to mind, you must flee from it as the devil would from holy water because you know exactly where it’s going to take you: back to anger and self-pity, and quite likely, into sin.

When you refuse to forgive, it’s because you want to hurt the other person. What most people don’t seem to recognize, however, is that one’s lack of forgiveness does absolutely nothing to the other person. The only one it hurts is the one refusing to forgive. That’s why forgiveness and the putting away of anger are essential for self-healing. Continually returning to the emotion of anger may bring a certain inner satisfaction, but it is really only tearing open the wound over and over again. A wise saying tells us that harboring resentment against another is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Do we not ask Christ to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us? Move on and forgive, lest you put your own eternal salvation at risk because of your obsession with the wrong someone committed against you.

Just as other people will make you angry, you will make others angry at times. They may be right or they may be wrong to be angry with you; regardless, when that happens, you must refuse to respond to anger with anger. If you were wrong, apologize, even if the other person is aggressive in expressing their anger with you. If you did nothing wrong, there is nothing to apologize for, but you should still seek to bring peace to the situation.

Above all, strive for inner tranquility and always cultivate good will toward others. Although as mentioned earlier, you can certainly sin through anger even if it is not openly expressed, nonetheless, in trying to conquer sinful anger, you must refrain from expressing it outwardly, silently push it to the side, and strive to act with charity to the person that caused your anger. The outward expression of anger often creates a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape. Fight the battle on the inside, and you will make great progress on the outside. But you must win the battle in both places.

A great help in conquering sinful anger is to not take yourself so seriously. Try to root out the inordinate love of self that springs from pride. In extreme cases, if you are habitually angry, there may be deeper issues that you will need to address with regular, more formal spiritual direction (over and above frequent confession) or professional help, because if you don’t get to the source of your anger, it will be very difficult to control it, to say nothing of conquering it. For most people, however, regular confession of your sins of anger will go a long way toward helping you overcome it.

And, of course, try whatever strategies you like, no spiritual battle is winnable without recourse to prayer. The struggle against wrath is no exception. Prayer is essential to any attempt to deal with your anger, for as Ephrem the Syrian once wrote, “Virtues are formed by prayer” and “prayer suppresses anger.”[66]

_______________

52St. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-III, 158, 1 ad 3.

53Joseph Delany, “Anger,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01489a.htm—accessed 18 March 2017).

54See Mt 21:12–13; Mk 11:15–19; Lk 19:45–48; Jn 2:14–17.

55See Eph 4:26–27.

56ST, IIa-IIae, 158.8.

57Delany, “Anger.”

58Ibid.

59Ibid.

60St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Theologia Moralis, bk. 2, pp. 98–99.

61See Gn 4:5.

62See Mt 11:29.

63Jas 1:19–20.

64Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble, “5 Ways to reject unhealthy anger this Lent,” 28 February 2017, (http://aleteia.org/2017/02/28/5-ways-to-reject-unhealthy-anger-this-lent—accessed 27 March 2017).

65Lk 9:62.

66Noble, “5 Ways.”

6

ENVY

Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin.…
Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility.

CCC 2539, 40

ut through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.”[67] Theologians have speculated for centuries as to the object of Satan’s envy, but such was its evil that it brought about the fall of mankind. Envy entered the hearts of men from the very beginning of human history. When God found Abel’s sacrifice pleasing but not Cain’s—both of them children of our first parents—Cain became so angry that he killed his brother. [68]

Sacred Scripture is rife with stories of envy and what it does to men. When Jacob’s sons saw that their father loved his youngest son, Joseph, best of all of them, they began to hate Joseph for it and plotted to kill him until Reuben convinced them that they should not shed their younger brother’s blood.[69] Once, when David and King Saul returned from a successful battle and the women sang that David had killed more Philistines than Saul, the king seethed with envious anger and tried to kill David.[70] As forebears of the Messiah, the envy directed at Abel, Joseph, and David foreshadowed that which the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees held toward Jesus, envy so poisonous that it incited them to plot his death.

Envy is the sorrow that one feels at the thought of another’s good. The envious man is sad because he perceives his neighbor’s good as something that lessens his own excellence or reputation. Sad because of another’s happiness, blessings, possessions, or achievements, the envious man not only wants to acquire them himself but also wants to see the other deprived of them. He sees the other as his rival, and if the other does happen to lose that which he covets, the envious man is happy over his misfortune.

Envy is the only one of the deadly sins that does not give the sinner any pleasure. He is unhappy that someone has something he would like to have and wants that person to be unhappy too. “The envious man tortures himself without cause morbidly holding as he does, the success of another to constitute an evil for himself.”[71] It is a spiritual disorder that causes you to grieve when you should rejoice at the good fortune bestowed upon your neighbor. It is, therefore, a form of malice opposed to the virtue of charity.

Envy proceeds from the pride that cannot tolerate a superior or rival and is the kind of sin that is generally mortal in nature because it goes against the charity that Jesus commanded that we show to others: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”[72] St. Paul counted it among those sins that exclude one from heaven.[73] But St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that, like all sin, envy is mortal only when it concerns serious matter and when it is committed with full knowledge and full consent.[74] If one’s envy is over a small and trifling matter, it is often only a venial sin. Envy is most evil when one grumbles about another’s spiritual good, in which case it can be considered a sin against the Holy Spirit.[75]

Most people use the words envy and jealousy interchangeably, but they do not always denote the same thing. The difference lies in the motive behind your feelings. Envy, as a spiritual sadness at the good fortune of others—and the concomitant desire that they be deprived of it—is unequivocally sinful. You may be jealous of something that someone else has because you would like to have the same for yourself, but in doing so you do not wish ill to the other person or do not want to deprive him of it. You simply would like to also have what he has. In this case, you don’t begrudge the other for the good that he enjoys. You are just unhappy that you, yourself, don’t also possess it.

It would also not be envy if, for instance, you feel sorrow at the news of another’s promotion or rise to wealth because either he does not deserve this good fortune or there is a well-founded reason that he might use it to injure you or others. Such is merely a rational judgment based upon the facts known to you.[76] But you must be careful here; we humans are exceptionally good at deceiving ourselves and often ascribe noble motives to ourselves when really there is a small-minded baseness to them. God knows the truth.

Like all the deadly sins, envy begets other sins and vices, “for where envying and contention is, there is … every evil work.”[77] Most notably, envy can lead to hatred, detraction, rejoicing over the misfortunes of another, feelings of ill will, malice, prejudice, resentment, rivalry, covetousness, begrudging, spite, and whispering. And, of course, the envious man may very easily fall into the sin of greed.

Remedies for envy

In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul tells us, “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.”[78] He says that envy is not a Christian trait.

The primary virtue that helps to neutralize the vice of envy is generosity, which flows from the virtues of kindness and charity toward others. For envy, which is based in self-centered love, is diametrically opposed to the love that we are obligated to show others. The sorrow that you feel at the thought of another’s good (i.e., envy) is not just a desire to also possess the good that he has, but to deprive him of it because he has it and you don’t. Envy will bring you sadness, whereas generosity will bring you joy.

When you are envious, you are focused solely on what the other person has without reflecting upon and being grateful for all that you, yourself, possess. And with envy, the old adage “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” prevails. You must remember that although another’s gifts may look exceptionally attractive from your own perspective, not all is necessarily bright and rosy in his life. Perhaps he has some great talents, but that doesn’t mean that he is gifted in every facet of life. It also may be the case that all looks attractive on the outside but that he has problems in his life that you don’t have to deal with. And although riches and possessions may seem to bring happiness, there are many people who have much in the way of the things of this world but who are not really happy.

In trying to conquer envy, you must look at all the gifts that God has bestowed upon you. They may not be the same goods that the one you envy has or even those which you would prefer, but they are gifts nonetheless, just as precious and unique. Also, try to remember that the other person may have gifts that you envy, but he, in turn, probably doesn’t have gifts that God has given you, gifts given specifically for your own sanctification.

Therefore, in combating envy, it is essential that you practice the virtue of gratitude for your blessings, because when you do that, it is so much easier to not dwell on what others have. Gratitude is a virtue under the primary virtue of justice by which we are obligated to render to each what is his due. In that light, you must constantly tell yourself that what your neighbor has is his, and he has a right to it. You are not his arbiter to decide what he should and should not have. You should not be like the person in the crowd who demanded of Jesus that he tell his brother to divide the family inheritance with him.[79]

And, of course, you must constantly remind yourself that although material possessions and money look attractive in the here and now, you can’t take them with you when you die.

To counteract the tendency to envy, therefore, practice hospitality toward others, unselfishness, liberality, nobleness, humility, and almsgiving.

_______________

67Ws 2:24.

68See Gn 4:5.

69See Gn 37:4.

70See 1 Sm 18:6–25.

71Joseph Delany, “Jealousy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08326b.htm—accessed 17 March 2017).

72Jn 13:34.

73See Gal 5:19–21.

74ST, IIa-IIae, 36.3.

75Delany, “Jealousy.”

76Ibid.

77Jas. 3:16 (DV).

78Rom 13:13.

79See Lk 12:13.

7

PRIDE

One can sin against God’s love in various ways: … hatred of God comes from pride.

CCC 2094

acred Scripture speaks of pride as one of the two primary roots of sin. Various Catholic theologians and writers have seen it as one of the greatest sins, for it gives birth to many other evil impulses. St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope St. Gregory the Great called pride “the queen of all vices.”[80]

Pride is an inordinate love of one’s own inflated sense of superiority, a love of one’s own worth, an exaggerated assessment of one’s talents, or attribution to oneself of talents that one doesn’t have. It is a self-exultation that makes you think you are better than others, and, in so doing, you belittle others. It is an inordinate desire for self-esteem, which flows from a sense of self-importance and self-sufficiency. St. Robert Bellarmine tells us, “Pride is a sin because a man reckons that he is more than he really is, thus, he wishes to be put ahead of others and cannot suffer one to be higher than him or equal to him.”[81]

Deep down the essence of the sin of pride is a turning away from God to yourself, thus making yourself into a little god. It often manifests itself in a refusal to submit to others. As such, it puts you in league with Satan, for pride was the sin that banished him from God’s presence and plunged him into hell. Lucifer, whose name means “light bearer,” should have been satisfied that he was the greatest and most beautiful of all creatures that God had created, but it wasn’t enough for him; he yearned to sit on God’s throne himself and have all of creation worship him. Thus, we can readily see why all sins of pride are a sharing in Satan’s primal sin.

Pope St. Gregory the Great lists four types of pride: (a) thinking that you are the source of your own excellence; (b) thinking that your gifts come from God but are a result of your efforts; (c) presuming a self-importance that is unwarranted; (d) despising other people while at the same time claiming that your gifts belong to you alone.[82]

Some sins result primarily from weakness (e.g., lust) or disordered desires for things that in themselves are good (e.g., food). But pride resides in the will of the individual: “I think that I am better than others.” It plays a role in other sins, directly or indirectly, because you judge yourself worthy of this or that disordered desire or pleasure. (Note that the desire itself could be legitimate and so not “disordered” in and of itself, but the extent of your desire for it could be excessive and, thus, disordered.) And because pride is a sin of the will, it is at its root a sin of malice. Such sins are not committed out of weakness of the passions, which clouds your judgment, but from the will to do it because you want to.

Although some sins of pride can be grave, St. Thomas tells us that most are venial because one does not have full awareness of what one is doing or because of lack of full consent of the will.[83] But “it is a mortal sin by its nature if it is consummated, and carried out, i.e. if someone so desires to be preeminent, that he refuses to be subject to God, superiors and their laws.”[84] Although the essence of pride always implies a turning away from the Creator to the creature, all sins of pride do not necessarily involve a conscious rejection of God.

“And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For ‘pride is the beginning of sin.’ And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation?”[85] Among the sins that pride spawns are vainglory, ambition, boastfulness, hypocrisy, disobedience to one’s superiors, callousness toward subordinates, rancor toward others, vanity, and arrogance.

Spiritual pride is an especially lethal sin into which certain outwardly religious, even pious, individuals can easily fall. Such a person—because he spends much time in prayer, visits adorations chapels, or does much spiritual reading—considers himself to be holier than he is in reality and is very anxious to publicize his gifts of grace, his spiritual consolations, and mystical experiences.

People who go to great lengths to let others know of their holiness are often guilty of spiritual pride. More than once, Jesus pointed this out in the hypocrisy of those Pharisees who went out of their way to show their piety. He said of them, “They do all their deeds to be seen by” others.[86] And to his disciples he said, “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”[87]

All that is not to say that external gestures of devotion have no place. The Catholic Church knows very well that we are body and soul, and the external actions and movements of Catholics at prayer are positive goods. What you must watch for is your motivation. Do not let any vain thoughts about doing these good and holy things for show enter your mind. Do them for God.

Pride manifests itself in many ways in our present day. All the characteristic displays of pride that have been with us for centuries are still around, but we also see expressions of this sin unique to our post-modern world.

Because of the affection, praise, and material goods that were showered upon the post-World-War-II generation, the baby boomers quickly became the “Me generation.” Although they were raised in a culture that had a strong moral compass, this generation gradually developed a self-centeredness—“me and my needs”—that was to shape the coming generations, each one becoming a little more self-centered than the previous. The disordered pride that this “progression” engendered eventually began to manifest itself in the cult of self-esteem that informs the way so many people today think. The resulting sense of entitlement has created a society-approved pride that places the individual and his needs over the common good. It has created an era characterized by a false and excessive sense of self-sufficiency and autonomy, the mistaken notion that we can craft reality as we see fit, and the dangerous delusion that we have no one to answer to for our actions, let alone God.

Remedies for pride

How does one set about conquering the sin of pride? As with all our spiritual struggles, we first look to Christ. Because Jesus tells us that “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted,”[88] we can see that humility is the virtue that is most essential in neutralizing the vice of pride.

As a moral virtue in the will, humility helps regulate pride as a sin of the will by helping you recognize your proper place in life. It moderates what you think of yourself, enabling you to restrain the inordinate desire for your own excellence. It restrains you from thinking that you can achieve more than you are capable of and gives you a true understanding of your smallness and misery before God.

The virtue of temperance helps you to moderate inordinate desires. The virtue of humility, derived from temperance, moderates the desire for your own greatness. Humility is not the greatest of all the virtues, but it is the most essential, for without it other virtues are difficult to cultivate. Humility also removes the obstacles to the reception of grace because “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”[89]

The proud have an inordinate sense of their self-worth. The humble, on the other hand, are modest and selfless. Pride leads to other sins. True humility clears a path for holiness.

Perhaps you shun humility because you think that it means self-effacement and humiliation. But it is really based on nothing more than self-knowledge, seeing yourself as you truly are without overvaluing or undervaluing yourself. If you are truly humble, you will neither exaggerate your good qualities nor deny the gifts that you have received from God. Rather, you will see them all in their proper perspective. It is not thinking less of yourself but merely thinking about yourself less often.

Humility is based on truth and justice; truth because self-knowledge—that is, knowing the truth about yourself—leads to the recognition that whatever good you have was received from God, while justice demands that you give all honor and glory to God,[90] “from whom all good things come,” rather than to yourself. Thus, the truly humble know that they are subject to God.

What other virtues should you cultivate, along with Christian humility, to combat pride? Docility, unpretentiousness, meekness, obedience, and reserve.

Because the primary fault of proud people is that they think far too much of themselves, in combating this most pernicious of sins, you must constantly practice self-detachment. In the spiritual life, detachment from worldly goods and pleasures is important, but even more so is detachment from the opinion you have of yourself, from your will, and from your ideas.

In considering your true self before God, it helps enormously to daily call to mind your sins and faults, rather than dwelling on those of others. This practice will make it easier for you to see that you have no reason to consider yourself superior to others. Start to do a nightly examination of conscience in which you review your day, acknowledge your sins of commission and omission—the evil that you have done and the good you’ve left undone—and make an act of contrition to God. Such a practice will most assuredly help you become less proud.

Yes, humility is essential to counteract the sin of pride, but danger lies on the flip side of the coin as well. You must be careful not to develop false humility, which is very dangerous for the soul because it is only a disguise for pride and self-love. The falsely humble person tries to show others how humble he is. But true humility is not an act. The person who is truly humble doesn’t consciously debase himself before others to make it appear that he realizes everyone else is superior to him. The truly humble person knows who he is and of what he is capable without broadcasting it to everyone, while the falsely humble man actually has a high opinion of himself.

In the end, perhaps the best remedy for pride is to remind yourself that it was Satan’s sin. Thus, when you live the life of virtue, you are a child of God, but when you live in pride, you are nothing but a child of Satan, imitating him in his disordered sense of superiority.

But let us end on a more optimistic note as is appropriate for a manual on conquering deadly sin. With Christ, you can win the battle as his saints did. So let us turn to one of the great friends of God, St. John Climacus, who wrote that “humility is the only virtue that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.” If an authentic humility could make angels out of demons as the saint asserts, imagine what it can do for you.

_______________

80Joseph Delany, “Pride,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 12 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911), (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12405a.htm—accessed 13 March 2017); ST, IIa-IIae, 162.8.

81St. Robert Bellarmine, Timeless Catechism.

82ST, IIa-IIae, 162.4.

83ST, IIa-IIae, 162.5.

84St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Theologia Moralis, bk. 2, p. 79.

85St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God, bk. XIV, ch. 13.

86Mt 23:5.

87Mt 6:5–6.

88Mt 23:12; see also Lk 14:11.

89Jas 4:6.

90See 1 Tm 1:17.

8

THE SACRAMENTAL LIFE:
THE ULTIMATE REMEDY

s mentioned earlier, the Catholic life is a sacramental life, one rooted in those visible means, instituted by Christ, that convey his grace to fallen man. Ultimately, living that life of grace, and returning to it when you stumble, is the proven path on the way to overcoming sin and spending eternity with God in heaven. Stay close to the Church, frequent the sacraments, confess your sins, do penance, think of others more than yourself, cultivate the virtues and shun the vices and you will be well on your way to conquering deadly sin.

PART TWO

Prayers and Words
of Wisdom, Warning,
and Encouragement
in the Struggle
Against Deadly Sin

9

LUST

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of lust

ust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

CCC 2351

_______

Even as temperance chiefly and properly applies to pleasures of touch, yet consequently and by a kind of likeness is referred to other matters, so too, lust applies chiefly to venereal pleasures, which more than anything else work the greatest havoc in a man’s mind, yet secondarily it applies to any other matters pertaining to excess. Hence a gloss on Galatians 5:19 says “lust is any kind of excess.” … The more necessary a thing is, the more it behooves one to observe the order of reason in its regard; wherefore the more sinful it becomes if the order of reason be forsaken. Now the use of venereal acts is most necessary for the common good, namely the preservation of the human race. That is why there is the greatest necessity for observing the order of reason in this matter: so that if anything be done in this connection against the dictate of reason’s ordering, it will be a sin. Now lust consists essentially in exceeding the order and mode of reason in the matter of venereal acts. Wherefore without any doubt lust is a sin.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Lust is an inordinate desire of unlawful pleasures. It is a vice most widely spread in the world; one that is most violent in its attacks, most insatiable in its cravings. Hence St. Augustine says that the severest warfare which a Christian has to maintain is that in defense of chastity, for such combats are frequent, and victories rare.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Pope Gregory taught there are three degrees in an evil desire of this sort: 1) Suggestion; 2) Delight; 3) Consent. Suggestion is when the devil puts a foul thought in the soul, to which he applies himself to the certain beginning of the sudden desire; if one resists this sudden suggestion, so that no delight arises then the man does not sin and instead increases his merit with God. But if he should add carnal delight to the suggestion, but still he would not consent to it with reason or the will, then the man would have committed venial sin. Lastly, if he were to join the consent of reason and the will with thought and delight, to the extent that the man notices what he thinks and desires it, and it adheres in him by voluntary desire of this sort, then he commits a mortal sin.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

How much is too much?

A thing is said to be a mortal works/sin in two ways. First, by reason of its species, and in this way a kiss, caress, or touch does not, of its very nature, imply a mortal sin, for it is possible to do such things without lustful pleasure, either as being the custom of one’s country, or on account of some obligation or reasonable cause. Secondly, a thing is said to be a mortal sin by reason of its cause: thus, he who gives an alms, in order to lead someone into heresy, sins mortally on account of his corrupt intention. Now it has been stated above … that it is a mortal sin not only to consent to the act, but also to the delectation of a mortal sin. Wherefore since fornication is a mortal sin, and much more so the other kinds of lust, it follows that in such like sins not only consent to the act but also consent to the pleasure is a mortal sin. Consequently, when these kisses and caresses are done for this delectation, it follows that they are mortal sins, and only in this way are they said to be lustful. Therefore, in so far as they are lustful, they are mortal sins.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

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All lack of modesty in seeing, hearing, speaking, smelling, or touching, is impurity, especially when the heart takes pleasure therein.… No unlawful pleasures are compatible with chastity.

Remember that there are things which blemish perfect purity, without being in themselves downright acts of impurity. Anything which tends to lessen its intense sensitiveness, or to cast the slightest shadow over it, is of this nature; and all evil thoughts or foolish acts of levity or heedlessness are as steps towards the most direct breaches of the law of chastity.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

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The Sixth Commandment forbids all other shameful works which prepare the way for adultery and fornication, such as wantonness of sight, lustful kisses and like things; thus we read in the Gospel that the Lord taught while He was explaining this commandment: “He who looks at a women to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” This is why if anyone wishes to flee these sins in earnest, it is necessary that he painstakingly guard his senses and especially, his eyes, through which death enters the soul as if through a window.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Custody of the eyes

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

MT 5:28

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Turn away thy face from a woman dressed up, and gaze not about upon another’s beauty. For many have perished by the beauty of a woman, and hereby lust is enkindled as a fire.… Many by admiring the beauty of another man’s wife, have become reprobate, for her conversation burneth as fire.

ECCLUS. 9:8–9; 11 (DV)

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But if you indifferently admit the thought of lust, it strikes root in you by its suggestions, and enthralls your mind, and drags you down into a pit of evils. But perhaps you say, I am a believer, and lust does not gain the ascendant over me, even if I think upon it frequently. Do you not know that a root breaks even a rock by long persistence?

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM

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Let us enlighten our eyes, that we may look straight on, and not bear in ourselves any harlot as an idol through curious and busy sight; for even though we might not worship lust, yet our soul would be defiled.

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN

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For God has respect to the very thought, since Lot’s wife, who had merely voluntarily turned towards worldly wickedness, He left a senseless mass, rendering her a pillar of salt, and fixed her so that she advanced no further, not as a stupid and useless image, but to season and salt him who has the power of spiritual perception.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

Therefore, He says, commit no adultery with your eyes, and you will commit none with your mind. For one may indeed behold in another way, such as are the looks of the chaste; wherefore he did not altogether prohibit our seeing, but that seeing which is accompanied with desire. And if He had not meant this, He would have said simply, He who looks on a woman. But now He said not thus, but, He who looks to lust, he who looks to please his sight.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

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Accordingly, He says, He that looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her: that is, he who makes it his business to be curious about bright forms, and to hunt for elegant features, and to feast his soul with the sight, and to fasten his eyes on fair countenances. For He came to set free from all evil deeds not the body only, but the soul too before the body. Thus, because in the heart we receive the grace of the Spirit, He cleanses it out first.

And how, one may say, is it possible to be freed from desire? I answer, first, if we were willing, even this might be deadened, and remain inactive.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Be exceedingly quick in turning aside from the slightest thing leading to impurity, for it is an evil which approaches stealthily, and in which the very smallest beginnings are apt to grow rapidly. It is always easier to fly from such evils than to cure them.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

Illusory delight

I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end: I walked sorrowful all the day long. For my loins are filled with illusions; and there is no health in my flesh.

PS. 37:7–8 (DV)

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You know the commandments: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.”

MK 10:19

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Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body.

1 COR 6:18

The broad road is crowded, the narrow way of salvation nearly empty. And thus is perfectly fulfilled that assurance of the Truth, by which we learn that “narrow and steep is the way that leads to life;” and whilst the breadth of the way that leads to death is crowded with a large company, the steps are few of those that tread the path of safety. And wherefore is the left road more thronged than the right, save that the multitude is prone to worldly joys and carnal goods? And although that which it desires is short-lived and uncertain, yet men endure toil more willingly for the lust of pleasure than for love of virtue.

POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT

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For as the exhalations which arise from the earth, and from marshes, gather into mists and cloudy masses; so the vapors of fleshly lusts bring on the soul an evil condition, scattering about the idols of pleasure before the soul. Accordingly, they spread darkness over the light of intelligence, the spirit attracting the exhalations that arise from lust, and thickening the masses of the passions by persistency in pleasures.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

Therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when no object is specified, the word lust usually suggests to the mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation. And this lust not only takes possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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This treacherous vice begins in pleasure, but ends in an abyss of bitterness and remorse. There is nothing into which man is more easily drawn, but nothing from which he is with more difficulty freed. Hence the Wise Man compares an impure woman to a deep ditch, a narrow pit, to show how easily souls fall into this vice, but with what difficulty they are extricated. Man is first allured by its flattering aspect, but when he has assumed the sinful yoke, and particularly when he has cast aside all shame, it requires almost a miracle of grace to deliver him from his degrading bondage. For this reason it is justly compared to a fisherman’s net, which the fish easily enter, but from which they rarely escape. Learn, too, how many sins spring from this one vice; for during this long captivity of the soul how often is God offended by thoughts, words, and desires, if not by actions?

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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Verily it is a great misery to love the body so much, and notwithstanding procure so great hurt to it by fleshly lust.

ST. JOHN FISHER

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Consider, further, that the more you indulge in these infamous gratifications, the more insatiable will be your desire for them, the less they will satisfy you. It is the nature of these pleasures to excite the appetite rather than appease it. If you consider how fleeting is the pleasure and how enduring its punishment, you will not for a moment’s enjoyment sacrifice the unspeakable treasure of a good conscience in this life and the eternal happiness of Heaven in the next. St. Gregory, therefore, has truly said that the pleasure is momentary, but the suffering is eternal. (Moral. 9,44).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The daughters of lust

The sins proceeding from it are blindness of the mind, rashness, and weakness, as well as adultery, fornication, obscene words and every other sort of uncleanliness.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

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The evils which it brings in its train are no less numerous than the sins it occasions. It robs man of his reputation—his most important possession, for there is no vice more degrading or more shameful. It rapidly undermines the strength, exhausts the energy, and withers the beauty of its victim, bringing upon him the most foul and loathsome diseases. It robs youth of its freshness, and hurries it into a premature and dishonorable old age. It penetrates even to the sanctuary of the soul, darkening the understanding, obscuring the memory, and weakening the will. It turns man from every noble and honorable work, burying him so deeply in the mire of his impurities that he can neither think nor speak of anything but what is vile.

Nor are the ravages of this vice confined only to man himself. They extend to all his possessions. There is no revenue so great that the exactions and follies of impurity will not exhaust; for it is closely allied to gluttony, and these two vices combine to ruin their victim. Men given to impurity are generally addicted to intemperance, and squander their substance in rich apparel and sumptuous living. Moreover, their impure idols are insatiable in their demands for costly jewels, rich adornments, rare perfumes, which gifts they love much better than they love the donors, their unfortunate victims. The example of the prodigal son, exhausting his inheritance in these pleasures, shows how terrible is such a passion.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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The daughters of lust are eight, four on the side of the intellect, and four on the side of the will.

1) Blindness of the mind, since anyone that is very addicted to this foulness cannot think about heavenly things.

2) Ruin, whereby one acts from the same cause without counsel.

3) Inconsideration, when in the manner he sins, he acts inconsiderately, unbecoming of state or person.

4) Inconstancy, when someone, due to the same effect, loses desire for pious resolutions.

5) Love of self, for such a man, on account of his desires makes himself the end of his actions, and not God.

6) Hatred of God, for wanton men usually shudder at divine things, nay more even at God himself, as the avenger of sinners.

7) Fixed upon the present age; for love of carnal pleasures so affects the soul that one would be prepared to renounce eternal beatitude on the spot, if he might be permitted to enjoy present delights.

8) Horror of the world to come, when immersed in pleasures he would inordinately fear death and refusing to think about it, is eager to propagate his life by illicit means, etc.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

The shameful state of those caught by lust

And the old men saw her going in every day, and walking: and they were inflamed with lust towards her: And they perverted their own mind and turned away their eyes that they might not look unto heaven, nor remember just judgments.

DAN. 13:8–9 (DV)

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And he shall make no account of the God of his fathers: and he shall follow the lust of women, and he shall not regard any gods: for he shall rise up against all things.

DAN. 11:37 (DV)

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Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding.

OSEE 4:11 (DV)

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her
eyelashes;

for a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread,
but an adulteress stalks a man’s very life.

Can a man carry fire in his bosom
and his clothes not be burned?

Or can one walk upon hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?

So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go
unpunished.

PRV 6:25–29

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For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.

TOB. 6:17 (DV)

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[Be ashamed] of looking at a woman who is a
harlot,
and of rejecting the appeal of a kinsman;

of taking away some one’s portion or gift,
and of gazing at another man’s wife;

of meddling with his maidservant—
and do not approach her bed.

SIR 41:20–22

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To Carthage I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I loved not as yet I loved to love; and with a hidden want, I abhorred myself that I wanted not. I searched about for something to love, in love with loving, and hating security, and a way not beset with snares. For within me I had a dearth of that inward food, Thyself, my God, though that dearth caused me no hunger; but I remained without all desire for incorruptible food, not because I was already filled thereby, but the more empty I was the more I loathed it. For this reason my soul was far from well, and, full of ulcers, it miserably cast itself forth, craving to be excited by contact with objects of sense. Yet, had these no soul, they would not surely inspire love. To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its lustre with the hell of lustfulness; and yet, foul and dishonorable as I was, I craved, through an excess of vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane. I fell precipitately, then, into the love in which I longed to be ensnared. My God, my mercy, with how much bitterness didst Thou, out of Thy infinite goodness, besprinkle for me that sweetness! For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was joyfully bound with troublesome ties, that I might be scourged with the burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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Lust served became a custom, and custom not resisted became a necessity.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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Some, mad after women, have set up on high an image of a naked woman, and called it Aphrodite, and worshipped their own lust in a visible form.

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM

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When a taste for sinful pleasures, takes possession of a heart, it thinks of nothing but how to gratify its inordinate desires.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

The devil fills idle souls with bad thoughts, so that they may be thinking of evil if they do not actually commit it.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Final ruin of the lustful

To a man that is a fornicator all bread is sweet, he will not be weary of sinning unto the end.

ECCLUS. 23:24 (DV)

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The fault is not so great when a man hath stolen: for he stealeth to fill his hungry soul: And if he be taken he shall restore sevenfold, and shall give up all the substance of his house. But he that is an adulterer, for the folly of his heart shall destroy his own soul.

PROV. 6:30–32 (DV)

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For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

ROM 1:26–27

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Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

2 PT 2:9–10

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Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolator), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

EPH 5:5–10

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

COL 3:5

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Let us, then not trust in our purposes; if we trust in them, we shall be lost.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

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O God! How many souls does this sin drag down to Hell!

ST. JOHN VIANNEY

Distraction in prayer

Another origin of these rebellions is the devil. To bring disquietude and disturbance on a soul when it is praying, or trying to pray, he endeavors to excite impure feelings in the sensory part. And if people pay any attention to these, the devil does them great harm.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

REMEDIES FOR LUST

Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.

Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity.

CCC 2521–22

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Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint. Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism and avoids entertainment inclined to voyeurism and illusion.

So called moral permissiveness rests on an erroneous conception of human freedom; the necessary precondition for the development of true freedom is to let oneself be educated in the moral law.

CCC 2525–26

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For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication; That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour: Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God.

1 THESS. 4:3–5 (DV)

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It was right that He should be tempted, that He should suffer with me, to the end that I might know how to conquer when tempted, how to escape when hard pressed. He overcame by force of continence, of faith; He trampled upon ambition, fled from intemperance, bade wantonness be far from Him.

This medicine Peter beheld, and left His nets, that is to say, the instruments and security of gain, renouncing the lust of the flesh as a leaky ship, that receives the bilge, as it were, of multitudinous passions. Truly a mighty remedy, that not only removed the scar of an old wound, but even cut the root and source of passion. O Faith, richer than all treasure-houses; O excellent remedy, healing our wounds and sins.

ST. AMBROSE

For a Christian man’s crown is not only that which is received in the time of persecution: peace also has its crowns, wherewith the victors, from a varied and manifold engagement, are crowned, when their adversary is prostrated and subdued. To have overcome lust is the palm of continence.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

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Chastity, or cleanness of heart, holds a glorious and distinguished place among the virtues, because she alone enables man to see God; hence Truth Itself said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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Such soldiers the Apostolic trumpet enkindles for battle with that sound, Therefore let not … sin reign in your mortal body to obey its lusts; nor yield your members weapons of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as living in place of dead, and your members weapons of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not rule over you. For you are not under the law, but under Grace. And in another place, Therefore, says he, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you shall live after the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you shall mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. This therefore is the business in hand, so long as this our mortal life under Grace lasts, that sin, that is the lust of sin … reign not in this our mortal body.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of nature, but succeeds to them as the result of learning, though it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices—not those that are outside of us, but within; not other men’s, but our own—a war which is waged especially by that virtue which we call temperance, and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents them from winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is no vice in us, when, as the apostle says, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit;” for to this vice there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, “The spirit lusteth against the flesh.” “For these two,” he says, “are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you would.” But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme good, unless that the flesh should cease to lust against the spirit, and that there be no vice in us against which the spirit may lust? And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it, let us by God’s help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the flesh that lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy that while we are still engaged in this … war, we have already found the happiness which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he has no conflict at all to maintain against his vices?

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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Gold is not taken from the earth in the lump, but is purified by smelting; then, when made pure, it is called gold, the earth being purified. For “Ask, and it shall be given you,” it is said to those who are able of themselves to choose what is best.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

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For God’s greatest gift is self-restraint. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” as having judged thee worthy according to the true election. Thus, then, while we attempt piously to advance, we shall have put on us the mild yoke of the Lord from faith to faith, one charioteer driving each of us onward to salvation, that the … fruit of beatitude may be won.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

Admit not the seed, since it will rend your faith asunder: tear out the evil by the root before it blossom, lest from being careless at the beginning thou have afterwards to seek for axes and fire. When your eyes begin to be diseased, get them cured in good time, lest you become blind, and then have to seek the physician.

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM

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For by prayer we seek to propitiate God, by fasting we extinguish the lusts of the flesh, by alms we redeem our sins: and at the same time God’s image is throughout renewed in us, if we are always ready to praise Him, unfailingly intent on our purification and unceasingly active in cherishing our neighbour.

POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT

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It often happens that one who was tepid and indifferent before his fall becomes, through repentance, a strong and fervent soldier of Christ.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

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When the enemy saw himself to be too weak for Antony’s determination, and that he rather was conquered by the other’s firmness, overthrown by his great faith and falling through his constant prayers, then at length putting his trust in the weapons which are ‘in the navel of his belly’ and boasting in them—for they are his first snare for the young—he attacked the young man, disturbing him by night and harassing him by day, so that even the onlookers saw the struggle which was going on between them. The one would suggest foul thoughts and the other counter them with prayers: the one fire him with lust, the other, as one who seemed to blush, fortify his body with faith, prayers, and fasting. And the devil, unhappy spirit, one night even took upon him the shape of a woman and imitated all her acts simply to beguile Antony. But he, his mind filled with Christ and the nobility inspired by Him, and considering the spirituality of the soul, quenched the coal of the other’s deceit.

ST. ATHANASIUS
(FROM HIS LIFE OF ST. ANTONY)

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If you wish to prevent all evil thoughts, let your eyes be modestly reserved, and make a league with them never to look upon anything which is not permitted you to desire.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA

Living in the flesh and despising its allurements is more angelic than human.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

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We must, then, struggle against it from the beginning by repelling every bad thought, for by such fuel is the flame of impurity fed. As wood nourishes fire, so our thoughts nourish our desires; and, consequently, if the former be good, charity will burn in our breast—but if they are bad, the fire of lust will certainly be kindled.

In the second place, we must carefully guard our senses, particularly the eyes, that they may not rest upon anything capable of exciting sinful desires. A man may inflict a deep wound upon his soul by inconsiderately turning his eyes upon a dangerous object. Prudently guard your eyes in your intercourse with the other sex, for such glances weaken virtue.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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The remedy for lust is to engage oneself in fasting and prayer as well as to avoid bad company, for these are the means discovered to preserve chastity and apart from these neither to trust too much to one’s self nor to his own virtue and sanctity, but to stay very far away from dangers and to guard his senses, by considering the great strength of Samson, the great holiness of David and the great wisdom of Solomon and yet how they were deceived by this vice and incurred a great blindness of the mind, and especially Solomon, who conducted the worship of idols with his concubines.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

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In all temptations, but particularly in temptations against purity, remember the presence of your guardian angel and of the devil, your accuser, for they both witness all your actions, and will render an account of them to Him who sees and judges all things. If you follow this counsel, how can you, before your accuser, your defender, and your Judge, commit a base sin, for which you would blush before the lowest of men? Remember also the terrible tribunal of God’s judgment and the eternal flames of Hell; for as a greater pain makes us insensible to a less, so the thought of the inexhaustible fire of Hell will render us insensible to the fire of concupiscence.

In addition to all this, be very guarded in your intercourse with women, and beware of continuing alone with one for any length of time; for, according to St. Chrysostom, the enemy attacks men and women more vigorously when he finds them alone. He is bolder when there are no witnesses present to thwart his artifices. Avoid the society of women who are not above suspicion, for their words inflame the heart, their glances wound the soul, and everything about them is a snare to those who visit them with imprudent familiarity. Be mindful of the example of the elders (Cf. Dan. 13), and let not old age render you less prudent. Do not trust to your own strength; and let not a habit of virtue inspire you with presumptuous confidence. Let there be no improper interchange of presents, visits, or letters, for these are so many snares which entangle us and reawaken dangerous affections. If you experience any friendship for a virtuous woman let your intercourse be marked by grave respect, and avoid seeing her too often or conversing too familiarly with her.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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Human bodies are like glasses, which cannot come into collision without risk of breaking; or to fruits, which, however fresh and ripe, are damaged by pressure. Never permit any one to take any manner of foolish liberty with you, since, although there may be no evil intention, the perfectness of purity is injured thereby.

Purity has its source in the heart, but it is in the body that its material results take shape, and therefore it may be forfeited both by the exterior senses and by the thoughts and desires of the heart.

Avoid the society of persons who are wanting in purity, especially if they are bold, as indeed impure people always are. If a foul animal licks the sweet almond tree its fruit becomes bitter; and so a corrupt pestilential man can scarcely hold communication with others, whether men or women, without damaging their perfect purity—their very glance is venomous, and their breath blighting like the basilisk.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

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Let us recommend ourselves to Jesus Christ, and to the Most Holy Mary. We ought to do this particularly as often as we are tempted against chastity; for this is the most terrible of all temptations, and is the one by which the devil gains most victories. We have not strength to preserve chastity; this strength must come from God, “And,” said Solomon, “as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent except God gave it, … I went to the Lord, and besought him.” In such temptations, then, we must instantly have recourse to Jesus Christ, and to his holy Mother, frequently invoking the most holy names of Jesus and Mary. He who does this, will conquer; he who neglects it, will be lost.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

When an evil thought is presented to the mind, we must immediately endeavour to turn our thoughts to God, or to something which is indifferent. But the best rule is, instantly to invoke the names of Jesus and Mary, and to continue to invoke them until the temptation ceases.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

GLORY OF VIRGINITY AND CHASTITY

There the glorious company of the apostles—there the host of the rejoicing prophets—there the innumerable multitude of martyrs, crowned for the victory of their struggle and passion—there the triumphant virgins, who subdued the lust of the flesh and of the body by the strength of their continency—who, keeping the Lord’s precepts, have transferred their earthly patrimonies to the heavenly treasuries.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

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Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.” And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride—“they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, “that God may be all in all.”

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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Virginity is the virtue which, amid the corruption of this mortal life, best represents the perfection of immortal glory. It brings before us the happy condition of the celestial City, where there is no marrying, and gives us a foretaste of eternal joy.

ST. JEROME

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Consider also the nobility and the value of virginal purity, which this vice destroys. Virgins begin here below to live as angels, for the beauty of these glorious spirits is reflected in the splendor of their chastity.

Hence virginity is specially rewarded in Heaven. St. John tells us that virgins follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. (Cf. Apoc. 14:4). They have risen above their fellow men in their imitation of Christ. They will therefore be more closely united to Him for all eternity, and will find in the spotless purity of their bodies a source of ineffable joy.

Virginity not only renders man like unto Christ, but makes him the temple of the Holy Spirit. For this Divine Lover of purity abhors whatever is defiled, and delights to dwell in chaste souls. The Son of God, who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, so loved purity that He wrought His greatest miracle to preserve the purity of His Virgin Mother. If you have suffered the loss of this beautiful virtue, learn from the temptations which wrought the evil to guard against a second fall.

If you have not preserved the gift of chastity in the perfection in which God gave it to you, endeavor to restore the beauty of the Creator’s work by giving yourself to His service with a zeal and fervor born of deep gratitude for forgiven sin, and with an ardent desire to repair the past.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Most chaste white dove of Rome! Through all thy life on earth

No other spouse than Christ thy heart desired to find.

He chose thy favored soul, e’en from thy hour of birth,

And made it rich in grace and virtues all combined.

And yet a mortal came, on fire with youth and pride;

He saw how sweet thou wert, thou white celestial flower!

And then, to gain thy love—to win thee for his bride—

He strove with all his strength, from that momentous hour.

Soon bridal feasts he spread, his palace decked with glory,

Bade minstrels play their best and songs ring loudly there,

While still thy virginal heart sang soft thy Saviour’s story,

Whose echo rose to heaven like incense sweet and rare.

How couldst thou sing, so far from Heaven, thy fatherland

When seeing near thy side, that mortal bold and frail?

Did not thy heart crave, then, in heaven’s high courts to stand,

And dwell forever safe, with Christ beyond the veil?

But no! thy harp I hear vibrate like seraph’s singing

Harp of thy love, whose sound so softly smote the ear;

These words, to Christ thy Lord, in thy sweet chant were ringing:

“Now keep my young heart pure, O Jesus, Spouse most dear.”

Abandonment how true! O wondrous melody!

By that celestial chant thy love now stands revealed—

The love that knows no fear, but sleeps in ecstasy

Upon the Saviour’s Heart, from every ill concealed.

In wide blue skies appeared the radiant white star

That came, to lighten up, with meek and timid glow,

The luminous night that shows, unveiled to us afar,

That virginal love, in heaven, which virgin spouses know.…

“Of chaste virginity, you see the emblem here,

In these white lilies sweet,—fair gift from Christ the Lamb;

The pure white crown He gives, in glory you shall wear;

And you for aye shall chant the new song to His name.

Your union, spotless, chaste, shall win great souls to God—Souls that no other spouse than Christ shall seek on earth.”

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

10

GLUTTONY

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of gluttony

o not have an insatiable appetite for
any luxury,
and do not give yourself up to food;

for overeating brings sickness,
and gluttony leads to nausea.

Many have died of gluttony,
but he who is careful to avoid it prolongs
his life.

SIR 37:29–31

_______

Because his greed knew no rest,
he will not save anything in which he
delights.

JB 20:20

Gluttony consists properly in an immoderate pleasure in eating and drinking.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire. Now desire is said to be inordinate through leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists: and a thing is said to be a sin through being contrary to virtue. Wherefore it is evident that gluttony is a sin.… The vice of gluttony properly consists in inordinate concupiscence. Now the order of reason in regulating the concupiscence may be considered from two points of view. First, with regard to things directed to the end, inasmuch as they may be incommensurate and consequently disproportionate to the end; secondly, with regard to the end itself, inasmuch as concupiscence turns man away from his due end. Accordingly, if the inordinate concupiscence in gluttony be found to turn man away from the last end, gluttony will be a mortal sin. This is the case when he adheres to the pleasure of gluttony as his end, for the sake of which he contemns God, being ready to disobey God’s commandments, in order to obtain those pleasures. On the other hand, if the inordinate concupiscence in the vice of gluttony be found to affect only such things as are directed to the end, for instance when a man has too great a desire for the pleasures of the palate, yet would not for their sake do anything contrary to God’s law, it is a venial sin.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Gluttony is an inordinate love of eating and drinking. Our Savior warns us against this vice, saying, “Take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life.” (Lk. 21:34).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Gluttony is a disordered appetite for food and drink. Such disorder consists in the eating of more sumptuous food than is suitable, or when someone seeks precious food in excess or eats forbidden foods … or when someone does not observe the appointed hour for eating on a day of fast, or at length, when someone eats greedily and gluttonously.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Gluttony is a disordered appetite for food and drink, and it is opposed to abstinence, and is committed in five ways:

1) If one eats before it is time

2) If one desires food that is too exquisite

3) If he eats more than is just

4) If he eats voraciously

5) If food is exquisitely prepared.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Gluttony destroys self-restraint
and enables other sins

Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

PHIL 3:19

_______

He then will never be able to check the motions of a burning lust, who cannot restrain the desires of the appetite.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

Drunkenness particularly brings about ruin

Drunkenness is the ruiner of reason, the waster of our body’s strength, it is premature old age and in a little while, it is death.

ST. BASIL THE GREAT

There is one sin at which we especially take aim—the worship of the false god Bacchus. Some say it is a modern vice, but no, it dates back to the Deluge. Bacchus was worshipped in the Egypt of the Ptolemies, and in ancient Greece and Rome—nations, mind you, now extinct or fallen under Turkish sway. The Roman Senate once forbade this worship—an eloquent contrast to Christian governments that foster it and license it. It is safe to say, in fact, that Bacchus gets more votaries from Christians than from pagans. They point to us with scorn. Every Christian drunkard delivers to the Gentiles once again the Son of man to be mocked and scourged and spit upon. Ah! When we think how often and how many celebrate the feast of Bacchus—a double feast of the first class, with a vigil and an octave—have we not good cause to fear the history of Jerusalem’s destruction will repeat itself? The drunkard is guiltier than the Saviour’s crucifiers, for they were irresponsible fanatics, but he deliberately blinds his reason face to face with sin—“a double crime,” says Aristotle, “deserving double punishment,” a crime once under ban of excommunication in the Church. Drunkenness is such a folly that, unlike most sins, its very motive is irrational. Every sense will crave its proper object, but that object in excess destroys the sense. The eye craves light, but not the direct rays of the sun; the ear craves sound, but not the shock of an explosion; and an overindulged taste forfeits its power of enjoyment.… A certain fish discovered by Aristotle has its heart in its stomach, and is called the sea-donkey. The drunkard shares the characteristics of that lowly animal; his heart is where his treasure is: he is lazy, stupid, lustful, and open only to one argument—a club. He lacks the higher qualities of the brute—a healthy appetite for water and the power of judging when he has enough.… Our adversary, the devil, knows no rest and it behooves us, lest we be surprised, to be sober and to watch.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Drunkenness is a very great sin. This is easily understood, for no matter how we look at it, this sin is even a disgrace among men, even in the eyes of the heathen, and Christians should be more afraid of this vice than of death. The Holy Spirit speaks of it in an awe-inspiring manner. He tells us: “Woe unto you who drink wine immoderately, and who become drunk, woe to those who arise in the morning with the thought of giving themselves up to drunkenness.” Alas, dear friends, very few of those once addicted to this terrible vice, ever break themselves of it. There are persons who see no wrong in getting drunk upon every occasion; others imagine that so long as they do not get so drunk as to lose their reason, they do not commit a great sin; others again excuse themselves saying they are led into it by their friends.

ST. JOHN VIANNEY

Damnation is wrought by gluttony

When thou shalt sit down to eat with a prince, consider carefully what is set before thy face.

And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.

PROV. 23:1–2 (DV)

_______

He who keeps the law is a wise son,
but a companion of gluttons shames his
father.

PRV 28:7

_______

Let neither gluttony nor lust overcome me,
and do not surrender me to a shameless
soul.

SIR 23:6

_______

For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

1 THES 5:5–8

_______

For it is not in the food of the belly, that we have heard good to be situated.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

_______

The blasphemous fury of the despoiled foe frets, therefore, and seeks new gains because it has lost its ancient right. Unwearied and ever wakeful, he snatches at any sheep he finds straying carelessly from the sacred folds, intent on leading them over the steeps of treasure and down the slopes of luxury into the abodes of death. And so he inflames their wrath, feeds their hatreds, whets their desires, mocks at their continence, arouses their gluttony.

POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT

_______

Unless gluttons were carried away by immoderate speech, that rich man who is stated to have feasted sumptuously every day would not have been so tortured in his tongue.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

_______

We may say of gluttony what we have said of impurity, that its pleasures are equally restricted and fleeting. Yet earth, sea, and air seem unable to gratify this passion, for many crimes are perpetrated, the poor are defrauded and oppressed, and little ones compelled to suffer hunger, to satisfy the sensuality of the great. It is deplorable to think that for the gratification of one sense man condemns himself body and soul to eternal suffering. What incomprehensible folly to flatter with such delicate care a body which is destined to be the food of worms! For this miserable body you neglect your soul, which will appear before the tribunal of God as poor in virtues as its earthly companion is rich in sensual pleasures. Nor will the body escape the punishment to which the soul will be condemned. Having been created for the soul, it will share its sufferings. Thus by neglecting the nobler part of your being to devote yourself to the inferior, you lose both and become your own executioner.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

How unworthy it is of man to fix his mind and heart on eating and drinking with such eagerness that the burden of his conversation is on the excellent fish of such a river, the luscious fruit of such a country, and the fine wines of such a region! This is a clear proof that he has lost sight of the true end of eating, which is to support nature, and that, instead of devoting to this work the senses destined for it, he debases his heart and his intelligence to make them also slaves of his gluttony.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The daughters of gluttony

Gluttony consists properly in an immoderate pleasure in eating and drinking. Wherefore those vices are reckoned among the daughters of gluttony, which are the results of eating and drinking immoderately. These may be accounted for either on the part of the soul or on the part of the body; on the part of the soul these results are of four kinds. First, as regards the reason, whose keenness is dulled by immoderate meat and drink, and in this respect we reckon as a daughter of gluttony, “dullness of sense in the understanding,” on account of the fumes of food disturbing the brain. Secondly, as regards the appetite, which is disordered in many ways by immoderation in eating and drinking, as though reason were fast asleep at the helm, and in this respect “unseemly joy” is reckoned, because all the other inordinate passions are directed to joy or sorrow, as stated in Ethic. ii, 5. To this we must refer the saying of 3 Esdra 3:20, that “wine … gives every one a confident and joyful mind.” Thirdly, as regards inordinate words, and thus we have “loquaciousness.” Fourthly, as regards inordinate action, and in this way we have “scurrility,” i.e. a kind of levity resulting from lack of reason, which is unable not only to bridle the speech, but also to restrain outward behavior. Hence a gloss on Ephesians 5:4, “Or foolish talking or scurrility,” says that “fools call this geniality—i.e. jocularity, because it is wont to raise a laugh.” Both of these, however, may be referred to the words which may happen to be sinful, either by reason of excess which belongs to “loquaciousness,” or by reason of unbecomingness, which belongs to “scurrility.”

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

The sins that are begotten from gluttony are the obscurity of the mind, vain joy, and loquaciousness. Often, lust proceeds from gluttony, which then brings in all of its daughters.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Spiritual gluttony

A great deal can be said on spiritual gluttony, the fourth vice. There are hardly any persons among these beginners, no matter how excellent their conduct, who do not fall into some of the many imperfections of this vice. These imperfections arise because of the delight beginners find in their spiritual exercises.

Many, lured by the delight and satisfaction procured in their religious practices, strive more for spiritual savor than for spiritual purity and discretion; yet it is this purity and discretion that God looks for and finds acceptable throughout a soul’s entire spiritual journey. Besides the imperfection of seeking after these delights, the sweetness these persons experience makes them go to extremes and pass beyond the mean in which virtue resides and is acquired.

Some, attracted by the delight they feel in their spiritual exercises, kill themselves with penances, and others weaken themselves by fasts and, without the counsel or command of another, overtax their weakness; indeed, they try to hide these penances from the one to whom they owe obedience in such matters. Some even dare perform these penances contrary to obedience.…

The devil, increasing the delights and appetites of these beginners and thereby stirring up this gluttony in them, so impels many of them that when they are unable to avoid obedience they either add to, change, or modify what was commanded. Any obedience in this matter is distasteful to them. Some reach such a point that the mere obligation of obedience to perform their spiritual exercises makes them lose all desire and devotion. Their only yearning and satisfaction is to do what they feel inclined to do, whereas it would be better in all likelihood for them not to do this at all.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

REMEDIES FOR GLUTTONY

The divine law, then, while keeping in mind all virtue, trains man especially to self-restraint, laying this as the foundation of the virtues; and disciplines us beforehand to the attainment of self-restraint.… If, then, we are to exercise control over the belly, and what is below the belly, it is clear that we have of old heard from the Lord that we are to check lust by the law.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

_______

Gluttonous Death, lamented and said, I have learned fasting, which I used not to know; lo! Jesus gathers multitudes, but as to me, in His feast a fast is proclaimed for me. One man has closed my mouth, mine who have closed the mouths of many. Hell said I will restrain my greed; hunger, therefore, is mine: this Man triumphs as at the marriage, when He changed the water into wine, so He changes the vesture of the dead into life.

ST. EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

_______

It belongs to abstinence not to anticipate the ordinary time of meals, as Jonathan did when he ate the honeycomb (Cf. 1 Kg. 14:27); not to desire the greatest delicacies, as the Israelites did in the desert when they longed for the fleshpots of Egypt (Cf. Exod. 16:3); not to wish for the choicest preparation of food, as the people of Sodom (Cf. Gen. 19); and not to yield to greediness, as Esau did (Cf. Gen. 25:33) when he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

_______

Even so, on the other hand, abstinence conduces to the penetrating power of wisdom, according to Ecclesiastes 2:3, “I thought in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might turn my mind in wisdom.”

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

And, preserved by this zeal of mind and continual compunction, we shall beat down the wantonness of the flesh (which becomes more proud and haughty by being fomented with food) and its dangerous incitement, and so by the copiousness of our tears and the weeping of our heart we shall succeed in extinguishing the fiery furnace of our body, which is kindled by the Babylonish king who continually furnishes us with opportunities for sin, and vices with which we burn more fiercely, instead of naphtha and pitch—until, through the grace of God, instilled like dew by His Spirit in our hearts, the heats of fleshly lusts can be altogether deadened. This then is our first contest, this is as it were our first trial in the Olympic games, to extinguish the desires of the palate and the belly by the longing for perfection.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

The remedy for gluttony is to be vigilant in temperance and abstinence, as well as put the benefit of the soul in a higher regard than that of the body. In particular, one must carefully consider that the delight of gluttony is very brief and very often the pain of the stomach and the head—which follow—are longer.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

An excellent remedy against gluttony is to bear in mind when we go to table that there are, as a pagan philosopher says, two guests to be provided for: the body, to which we must furnish the food which its necessity craves; and our soul, which we must maintain by the virtues of self-denial and temperance. A no less efficacious remedy is to compare the happy fruits of abstinence with the gross pleasures of gluttony, which will enable us to appreciate the folly of sacrificing such lasting advantages for such pernicious and fleeting gratifications.…

Add to these considerations the thought of the sufferings of the martyrs, and the fasts and mortifications of the saints. Think, too, of your many sins which must be expiated, of the pains of Purgatory, of the torments of Hell. Each of these things will tell you how necessary it is to take up the cross, to overcome your appetites, and to do penance for the sinful gratifications of the past. Remember, then, the duty of self-denial; prepare for your necessary meals with such reflections before your mind, and you will see how easy it will be to observe the rules of moderation and sobriety. Another evil against which I would warn you is dwelling upon the merits of certain dishes, and condemning others because they are not so delicate.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

When you feel the promptings of this shameful disorder, subdue them by the following considerations: Call to mind that it was a sin of gluttony which brought death into the world, and that it is the first and most important passion to be conquered, for upon the subjugation of this vice depends your victory over all others. We cannot successfully battle with enemies abroad when the forces within us are in a state of rebellion. Thus we see that the devil first tempted Our Saviour to gluttony, wishing to make himself master of the avenue through which all other vices find an easy entrance.

Consider also Our Saviour’s extraordinary fast in the desert and the many other rigorous mortifications which He imposed upon His Sacred Body, not only to expiate our excesses, but to give us a salutary example. How, then, can you call yourself a follower of Christ, if, when He fasts, you abandon yourself to the gross pleasures of the table? He refuses no labor, no suffering, to redeem you, and you will do nothing for your own salvation!

If you find abstinence difficult, think of the gall and vinegar which were given to Our Savior on the cross; for as St. Bernard tells us, there is no food so unpleasant that it may not be made palatable by mingling it with this bitter draught. Frequently reflect upon the terrible austerities and wonderful fasts observed by the Fathers of the desert; how they fled from the world to remote solitude, where, after the example of Christ, they crucified their flesh with all its irregular appetites, and, sustained by God’s grace, subsisted for many years on no other food but roots and herbs. Behold how these men imitated their Divine Model; behold what they thought necessary to reach Heaven. How can you gain this same Heaven by the path of gross and sensual pleasures? Think of the innumerable poor who are in need of bread; and at the sight of God’s liberality to you, blush to make the gifts of His bounty instruments of gluttony. Consider, again, how often the Sacred Host has rested upon your tongue, and do not permit death to enter by that gate through which life is conveyed to your soul.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

That you may not be deceived by the snares of this vice disguised as necessities, govern your appetite by reason, not by inclination. Remember that your soul can never rule the flesh, if it be not itself submissive to God. This submission will be the rule and foundation of its empire. Let God command our reason; let reason direct the soul, and the soul will be able to govern the body.

By observing this wise order decreed by the Creator, the whole man will be reformed. But when the soul rebels against reason, and reason against God, the body will soon rebel against the soul.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Abandonment gives rest

In thee, O Jesus Christ!

Here is the food most blest

That has Thy saints sufficed.

Spouse of my soul draw nigher!

I give my all to thee.

What more can I desire

Than thy sweet Face to see?

Naught can I do but smile,

Safe folded to Thy breast.

They who have known no guile

Find there most perfect rest.

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

11

AVARICE

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of avarice

he tenth commandment forbids greed and the desire to amass earthly goods without limit. It forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power. It also forbids the desire to commit injustice by harming our neighbor in his temporal goods.

CCC 2536

_______

The tenth commandment unfolds and completes the ninth, which is concerned with concupiscence of the flesh. It forbids coveting the goods of another, as the root of theft, robbery, and fraud, which the seventh commandment forbids.

CCC 2534

Covetousness may signify immoderation about external things in two ways. First, so as to regard immediately the acquisition and keeping of such things, when, to wit, a man acquires or keeps them more than is due. On this way it is a sin directly against one’s neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them, for temporal goods cannot be possessed by many at the same time. Secondly, it may signify immoderation in the internal affection which a man has for riches when, for instance, a man loves them, desires them, or delights in them, immoderately. On this way by covetousness a man sins against himself, because it causes disorder in his affections, though not in his body as do the sins of the flesh.

As a consequence, however, it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

A capital vice is one which under the aspect of end gives rise to other vices: because when an end is very desirable, the result is that through desire thereof man sets about doing many things either good or evil. Now the most desirable end is happiness or felicity, which is the last end of human life, as stated above … wherefore the more a thing is furnished with the conditions of happiness, the more desirable it is. Also one of the conditions of happiness is that it be self-sufficing, else it would not set man’s appetite at rest, as the last end does.

Now riches give great promise of self-sufficiency, as Boethius says (De Consol. iii): the reason of which, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 5), is that we “use money in token of taking possession of something,” and again it is written (Ecclesiastes 10:19): “All things obey money.” Therefore covetousness, which is desire for money, is a capital vice.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Covetousness is a desire not only for money, but also for knowledge and high places, when prominence is immoderately sought after.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

_______

Covetousness is an inordinate desire for riches. Hence we regard as covetous not only the man who steals, but also the man who passionately longs for another’s goods or too eagerly clings to his own. With great force St. Paul condemns this vice and declares it the source of all iniquity: “They that will become rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition; for the desire of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Tim. 6:9–10).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Avarice is a disordered passion for riches and it consists in three things. The first is when a man desires someone else’s goods and is not content with his own things. The second is when one desires to have more than what is necessary, nor does he wish, as he is obliged, to bestow what is superfluous upon the poor. The third is when someone possesses excessive goods that he loves, even if they are not superfluous such as when someone is not prepared to lose his goods in a case when it is necessary for the honor of God. For that reason, St. Paul says that avarice is idolatry, because the greedy man puts his goods before God and is more content to lose God than his goods.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Is it a sin to have possessions?

In whatever things good consists in a due measure, evil must of necessity ensue through excess or deficiency of that measure. Now in all things that are for an end, the good consists in a certain measure: since whatever is directed to an end must needs be commensurate with the end, as, for instance, medicine is commensurate with health, as the Philosopher observes (Polit. i, 6). External goods come under the head of things useful for an end. Hence it must needs be that man’s good in their respect consists in a certain measure, in other words, that man seeks, according to a certain measure, to have external riches, in so far as they are necessary for him to live in keeping with his condition of life. Wherefore it will be a sin for him to exceed this measure, by wishing to acquire or keep them immoderately. This is what is meant by covetousness, which is defined as “immoderate love of possessing.” It is therefore evident that covetousness is a sin.… Consequently covetousness is a special sin, forasmuch as it is an immoderate love of having possessions, which are comprised under the name of money, whence covetousness [avaritia] is denominated.

Since, however, the verb “to have,” which seems to have been originally employed in connection with possessions whereof we are absolute masters, is applied to many other things, so the term “covetousness” has been amplified to denote all immoderate desire for having anything whatever.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Possessions do not last

A just king setteth up the land: a covetous man shall destroy it.

PROV. 29:4 (DV)

_______

And he said to them, “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

LK 12:15

_______

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; … then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

2 PT 2:3–5, 9

Examine the graves of the rich and powerful of this world, and find, if you can, some trace of the luxury in which they lived, of the pleasures they so eagerly sought and so abundantly enjoyed. What remains of their magnificent retinues and costly adornments? What remains of those ingenious devices destined to gratify their senses and banish the weariness of life? What has become of that brilliant society by which they were surrounded! Where are the numerous attendants who awaited their commands? Nothing remains of their sumptuous banquets. The sounds of laughter and mirth are no longer heard; a somber silence reigns in these homes of the dead. But draw nearer and see what remains of their earthly tenements, their bodies which they loved too much. Naught but dust and ashes, worms and corruption.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

_______

So a king who justly judges and administers the kingdom, he will make it stable, rich, happy and prosperous; but he who receives bribes, from those whose crimes he is pleased to leave unpunished, permits evils to be done, oppresses good men, absolves the guilty, and unjustly condemns the innocent.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

Ah, my lords and masters that have this worldly wisdom, that study and employ your wits to cast and compass this world, what have ye of all this business at the last but a little vanity. The spider craftily spinneth her threads and curiously weaveth and joineth her web, but cometh a little blast of wind and disappointeth all together.

ST. JOHN FISHER

_______

Has not experience shown you also that where there are great riches there are many to consume, to steal, or to squander them? If you would free yourself from all the anxiety consequent on these cares, put yourself in the hands of God and fully confide in His providence, for He never forsakes those who trust in Him. Since He has subjected man to the necessity of seeking food, He will not permit him to perish from hunger. Could God, who cares for the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field, be indifferent to the necessities of one of His noblest creatures? Life is short; every moment brings us nearer to death. Why, then, lay up so much provision for so short a journey? Why burden yourself with so many possessions which must necessarily impede your progress?

When you will have reached the end of your earthly pilgrimage, poor in this world’s goods, your wealth of real treasure will far exceed that of the covetous, whose lives have been spent in accumulating riches. How different will be the account exacted of you, and how readily you will part from the little you may have of the goods of earth, because you always esteemed them at their true value! But the rich and the covetous, in addition to the terrible account which will be required of them, will be rent with anguish at parting from that wealth which they loved and adored during life.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Desire for gold weighs you down

Woe to him who gets evil gain for his
house,
to set his nest on high,
to be safe from the reach of harm!

You have devised shame to your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.

For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork
respond.

HB 2:9–11

_______

Now they that were with Simon, being led with covetousness, were persuaded for the sake of money by some that were in the towers: and taking seventy thousand didrachmas, let some of them escape. But when it was told Machabeus what was done, he assembled the rulers of the people, and accused those men that they had sold their brethren for money, having let their adversaries escape. So he put these traitors to death, and forthwith took the two towers.

2 MACH. 10:20–22 (DV)

_______

For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.

1 TM 6:10

_______

Look at the ears pierced with wounds, and pity the neck weighed down with burdens. That the metals are different does not lighten the suffering. In one case a chain binds the neck, in another a fetter encloses the foot. It makes no difference whether the body be loaded with gold or with iron. Thus the neck is weighed down and the steps are hindered. The price makes it no better, except that you women are afraid lest that which causes you suffering be lost. What is the difference whether the sentence of another or your own condemn you? Nay, you, even more wretched than those, are condemned by public justice, since they desire to be set free, you to be bound.

ST. AMBROSE

_______

Covetousness makes one blind.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

Wherefore let not this evil seem of no account or unimportant to anybody: for as it can easily be avoided, so if it has once got hold of any one, it scarcely suffers him to get at the remedies for curing it. For it is a regular nest of sins, and a “root of all kinds of evil,” and becomes a hopeless incitement to wickedness, as the Apostle says, “Covetousness,” i.e. the love of money, “is a root of all kinds of evil.”

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

Kings and Emperors all be but men, all be but mortal. All the gold and all the precious stones of this world, can not make them but mortal men. All the rich apparel that can be devised, can not take from them the condition of mortality. They be in themselves but earth and ashes, and to earth they must return, and all their glory well considered and beholden with right even is but very miserable.

ST. JOHN FISHER

_______

If a brother or sister be naked and want daily food and the rich man say: “Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled,” yet give them not the necessaries of life, is that Christ’s teaching and example? To have the substance of this world, and to see one’s brother in need and to steel one’s heart against him, is that what Christianity means? Ah no! for “in this,” says St. John, “we know the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down not only our wealth, but were it necessary, even our lives for the brethren.” Go to, therefore, ye rich, weep and howl in the miseries that shall come upon you when your riches shall be corrupted, your garments moth-eaten, your gold and silver cankered, and when the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves God’s wrath, for the cry of the poor you have defrauded hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. But to be Christian, must we, like Andrew, relinquish all? Is not Philip’s hesitancy justifiable, for what indeed is the little we can afford among so many? Oh, self, self, how cunningly it argues! … Give not through pride or vanity, or hope of gain, else your largest contribution will be small and hardly pleasing to the Saviour. But giving what you can, however little, give it with love of Him and His into Jesus’ hands, and rest assured it will be multiplied indefinitely for you and them. Pure motives will make the giving of even a cup of water meritorious of eternal life, and confidence in giving becomes faith. Fear not that poverty will overtake your generosity, for whosoever gives to the poor is creditor to the Lord, and is sure to be repaid a hundredfold.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

There is another truth of which you must not lose sight: The more worldly prosperity you enjoy, the more destitute you are likely to be of spiritual riches, for an abundance of this world’s goods leads you to trust in them rather than in God. Oh! That you knew the misery which such prosperity prepares for you! The desire of more which springs from the love of riches is a torment which far exceeds the pleasure we derive from their possession. It will entangle you in a thousand temptations, fill you with cares, and under the delusive image of pleasure plunge you into renewed sin and prove an inexhaustible source of trouble and disquiet. Again, riches are acquired only at the expense of pain and labor; they are preserved only by care and anxiety; and they are never lost without bitter vexation and grief. But, worse than all this, they are rarely accumulated without offence against God; for, as the proverb says, “A rich man is either a wicked man or a wicked man’s heir.”

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

If you cleave closely to your possessions, and are cumbered with them, setting your heart and thoughts upon them, and restlessly anxious lest you should suffer loss, then, believe me, you are still somewhat feverish;—for fever patients drink the water we give them with an eagerness and satisfaction uncommon to those who are well.

It is not possible to take great pleasure in anything without becoming attached to it. If you lose property, and find yourself grievously afflicted at the loss, you may be sure that you were warmly attached to it;—there is no surer proof of affection for the thing lost than our sorrow at its loss.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

The wicked trust in riches

For what is the hope of the hypocrite if through covetousness he take by violence, and God deliver not his soul?

JOB 27:8 (DV)

See the man who would not make
God his refuge,

but trusted in the abundance of his riches,
and sought refuge in his wealth!

PS 52:7

_______

Strike the hinges, and let the lintels be shook: for there is covetousness in the head of them all, and I will slay the last of them with the sword.

AMOS 9:1 (DV)

_______

And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on their gain.

EZ 33:31

They have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.

EPH 4:19

_______

But … covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints.

EPH 5:3

_______

And they will mock him, saying, “Behold the man, etc.” that is, they will mock him because he acted stupidly, since he refused to hope in God, who is all powerful, and instead placed his hope in frail riches, which are easily lost.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Death will rob you of all your earthly possessions; your works, good and bad, will alone accompany you beyond the tomb. If this dread hour finds you unprepared, great will be your misfortune. All that remains to you will then be distributed into three portions, your body will become the food of worms, your soul the victim of demons, and your wealth the prey of eager and perhaps ungrateful or extravagant heirs.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Charity grows cold

For the wicked boasts of the desires of his
heart,
and the man greedy for gain curses and
renounces the LORD.

PS 10:3

_______

They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

2 PT 2:14–16

_______

A servant of God should never seek by his dress to gratify his vanity or indulge his flesh; his only object should be to comply with the necessities and requirements of his condition. “Seek ye, therefore, first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

_______

During His life upon earth He never ceased to manifest His love for poverty and His contempt for riches. For His Apostles He chose not the princes of great houses, but poor and ignorant fishermen. What greater presumption can there be than that of a base worm coveting riches, when the Creator of the universe became so poor for love of him!

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Overflowing with luxury, they waste their own, and covet the substance of others; extolling indeed the name of human fraternity, they nevertheless speak more fraternally than they act; for they are carried away by self love, and the genuine charity towards the poorer and the helpless is daily diminished.

POPE LEO XIII, AUSPICATO CONCESSUM
(PAPAL ENCYCLICAL, 1882), 22

Spiritual avarice

Sins are seated chiefly in the affections: and all the affections or passions of the soul have their term in pleasure and sorrow, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 5). Now some pleasures are carnal and some spiritual. Carnal pleasures are those which are consummated in the carnal senses—for instance, the pleasures of the table and sexual pleasures: while spiritual pleasures are those which are consummated in the mere apprehension of the soul. Accordingly, sins of the flesh are those which are consummated in carnal pleasures, while spiritual sins are consummated in pleasures of the spirit without pleasure of the flesh. Such is covetousness: for the covetous man takes pleasure in the consideration of himself as a possessor of riches. Therefore covetousness is a spiritual sin.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Many beginners also at times possess great spiritual avarice. They hardly ever seem content with the spirit God gives them. They become unhappy and peevish because they don’t find the consolation they want in spiritual things.

Many never have enough of hearing counsels, or learning spiritual maxims, or keeping them and reading books about them. They spend more time in these than in striving after mortification and the perfection of the interior poverty to which they are obliged. Furthermore, they weigh themselves down with over-decorated images and rosaries. They now put these down, now take up others; at one moment they are exchanging, and at the next re-exchanging. Now they want this kind, now they want another. And they prefer one cross to another because of its elaborateness. Others you see who are decked out in agnus deis and relics and lists of saints’ names, like children in trinkets.

What I condemn in this is possessiveness of heart and attachment to the number, workmanship, and over-decoration of these objects. For this attachment is contrary to poverty of spirit, which is intent only on the substance of the devotion, benefits by no more than what procures this sufficiently, and tires of all other multiplicity and elaborate ornamentation. Since true devotion comes from the heart and looks only to the truth and substance represented by spiritual objects, and since everything else is imperfect attachment and possessiveness, any appetite for these things must be uprooted if some degree of perfection is to be reached.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

The avaricious man is never satisfied

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity.

ECCL 5:10

_______

For from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness: and from the prophet even to the priest, all are guilty of deceit.

JER. 6:13 (DV)

_______

Because of the iniquity of his covetousness I
was angry,
I struck him, I hid my face and was angry;
but he went on backsliding in the way of
his own heart.

IS 57:17

_______

Of a truth, my daughter, no one will ever own themselves to be avaricious;—every one denies this contemptible vice:—men excuse themselves on the plea of providing for their children, or plead the duty of prudent forethought:—they never have too much, there is always some good reason for accumulating more; and even the most avaricious of men not only do not own to being such, but sincerely believe that they are not; and that because avarice is as a strong fever which is all the less felt as it rages most fiercely.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

Moreover, all the riches of the world, did you possess them, would never satisfy the desires of your heart. They would only excite and increase them. However great the possessions you accumulate, there will be a continual void within you; you will never cease to long for more. In its pursuit of worldly possessions your poor heart fruitlessly exhausts itself, for it will never find content. It drinks deeply at the fountains of pleasure, yet its thirst is never appeased. Its enjoyment of the possessions it has already acquired is destroyed by an insatiable thirst for more. Marveling at the covetousness of the human heart, St. Augustine asks: “Whence is it that man is so insatiable in his desires, while brutes observe a measure in theirs? They seek their prey only when they feel the cravings of hunger, and after this is appeased they are satisfied and rest. But the covetousness of the rich knows no limit; it is never satisfied, but is perpetually seeking more.”

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

The more the avaricious man possesses, the more he seeks to acquire.… After having acquired many kingdoms, Alexander the Great wept, because he had not dominion over other countries. If worldly goods could content the human heart, the rich and the monarchs of the earth would enjoy complete happiness; but experience shows the contrary. Solomon tells us that he refused no indulgence to his senses. “Whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not” (Eccl. 2:10). But after all his sensual enjoyments what did he say? Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. That is, everything in this world is mere vanity, a pure lie, pure folly.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

The daughters of avarice

The daughters of covetousness are the vices which arise therefrom, especially in respect of the desire of an end. Now since covetousness is excessive love of possessing riches, it exceeds in two things. For in the first place it exceeds in retaining, and in this respect covetousness gives rise to “insensibility to mercy,” because, to wit, a man’s heart is not softened by mercy to assist the needy with his riches. On the second place it belongs to covetousness to exceed in receiving, and in this respect covetousness may be considered in two ways.

First as in the thought [affectu]. On this way it gives rise to “restlessness,” by hindering man with excessive anxiety and care, for “a covetous man shall not be satisfied with money” (Ecclesiastes 5:9). Secondly, it may be considered in the execution [effectu].

On this way the covetous man, in acquiring other people’s goods, sometimes employs force, which pertains to “violence,” sometimes deceit, and then if he has recourse to words, it is “falsehood,” if it be mere words, “perjury” if he confirm his statement by oath; if he has recourse to deeds, and the deceit affects things, we have “fraud”; if persons, then we have “treachery,” as in the case of Judas, who betrayed Christ through covetousness.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

There are many sins thrust upon us by avarice, such as theft, robbery, fraud in buying and selling, cruelty to the poor and like things.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

The following sins arise from Avarice:

1) Hardness of heart (which is against mercy) to the needy, a lack of compassion for the poor, scolding them, exacting debts too harshly, when a creditor has not been paid, etc. It happens that this sin is mortal since the precept of almsgiving, or charity urges and still he does not assist out of hardness of heart.

2) Then there is inquietude of the heart, this is, a violent and disordered application of the mind to acquire things, or to preserve riches, with empty and vain fear, lest they not be acquired, or lost. It is a mortal sin when one withdraws from spiritual things, or other things, to which we are obliged by a grave precept (for example, hearing Mass) or induces superfluous fear, and from this want of faith toward God.

3) Violence.

4) Deceit, or treachery in words, can be a mortal sin by reason of its purpose, or means.

5) Fraud, or treachery in fact, is a mortal sin of its very nature, and touches upon numerous things in contracts, both by reason of the matter, and by reason of the price.

6) Treason, which is a deceit against a trust that was given, or due, in injury of another, it is a mortal sin of its nature. It touches on three things: a) in regard to persons, in which manner Judas betrayed Christ, and Dalila Sampson; b) in regard to things that are either immovable (such as if a soldier would reveal a way to take a fortification to the enemy), or movable, such as if you were to show the hidden place of money, clothes, etc. to a pirate; c) when one reveals a secret matter consigned to him (which is against fidelity and justice if it was promised), and it would certainly be a mortal sin if one could foresee it, or if one were to open someone else’s letters and read them.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

The worthlessness of the world

Consider, moreover, your own vileness, since you are willing for a gross and perishable interest to sacrifice your immortal soul, created to the image of God and redeemed by His Blood, compared with which the whole world is nothing. God would not give His life for this material world, but He gave it for the soul of man. How much greater, therefore, must be the value of a soul! True riches do not consist in silver, or gold, or precious stones, but in virtue, the inseparable companion of a good conscience. Set aside the vain opinions of men, and you will see that these precious metals are such only by the judgment of the world. Will you, who are a Christian, become a slave to that which even pagan philosophers despised? “He who guards his riches like a slave is their victim,” says St. Jerome; “but he who throws off their yoke possesses them as their lord and master.”

Consider also these words of Our Saviour: “No man can serve two masters, God and mammon.” (Matt. 6:24). Man cannot freely rise to God and the contemplation of His beauty while he is breathless in the pursuit of riches. A heart filled with material and earthly pleasures can never know spiritual and divine joys. No; it is impossible to unite what is false with what is true; what is spiritual with what is carnal; what is temporal with what is eternal; they can never dwell together in one heart.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

REMEDIES FOR AVARICE

A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel
oppressor;
but he who hates unjust gain will prolong
his days.

PRV 28:16

He who is greedy for unjust gain makes trouble
for his household,
but he who hates bribes shall live.

PRV 15:27

_______

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never fail you nor forsake you.”

HEB 13:5

_______

But let him (the Rich man) go and put himself under the Word as his trainer, and Christ the President of the contest; and for his prescribed food and drink let him have the New Testament of the Lord; and for exercises, the commandments; and for elegance and ornament, the fair dispositions, love, faith, hope, knowledge of the truth, gentleness, meekness, pity, gravity: so that, when by the last trumpet the signal shall be given for the race and departure hence, as from the stadium of life, he may with a good conscience present himself victorious before the Judge who confers the rewards, confessedly worthy of the Fatherland on high, to which he returns with crowns and the acclamations of angels.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

It is a triumph over avarice to despise money.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

Yesterday meanness and avarice were withering your hand; today let liberality and kindness stretch it out.

ST. GREGORY NAZANZIEN

_______

Its remedy lies in the exercise of the virtue of liberality and in the consideration that we are travelers and pilgrims in this life, and for that reason it is especially useful to not burden oneself with these goods but to divide them amongst our fellow pilgrims, that we might carry them together on our journey to our heavenly homeland, and it is more expedient that we prepare to unburden ourselves on our road.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Remember also that it is not poverty but the love of poverty which is a virtue. Hence all who voluntarily forsake wealth bear a striking resemblance to Our Saviour, who, being rich with the riches of God, became poor for love of us. They who are compelled to live in poverty, but bear it with patience, never coveting the wealth which is denied them, convert their necessity into a meritorious virtue. As the poor by their poverty conform themselves to Jesus Christ, so the rich by their alms can conform their hearts to the merciful Heart of this Divine Model, who in His lowly crib received not only the shepherds with their simple tokens of affection, but also the wise and powerful men of the East, who came to lay at His feet the treasures of their gold and frankincense and myrrh.

If, then, God has given you wealth, bestow it generously on the poor, assured that it will be laid up for you as treasure in the kingdom of Heaven; but if you waste the means God has given you, you must not expect to find any before you when you leave this life. Unless such a disposition is made of your possessions, how can you call them good, since you cannot bear them with you and enjoy them in your true home? Lay up, then, by a worthy use of your worldly wealth, a store of spiritual possessions, which alone are truly good, and of which, unless you freely surrender them, not even death can deprive you.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Do not fix your longings on anything which you do not possess; do not let your heart rest in that which you have; do not grieve overmuch at the losses which may happen to you;—and then you may reasonably believe that although rich in fact, you are not so in affection, but that you are poor in spirit, and therefore blessed, for the Kingdom of Heaven is yours.… Do not allow yourself to wish for that which is your neighbour’s until he wishes to part with it,—then his wish will altogether justify yours,—and I am quite willing that you should add to your means and possessions, provided it be not merely with strict justice, but kindly and charitably done.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

Jesus, Christ, your only treasure,

Asks one special gift of you.

No gold throne was in the stable,

yet such treasure is His due.

Sinner’s souls are like the stable,

Bare and cold in winter’s snow,

Off’ring to Him no soft shelter,

No bright fire’s cheerful glow.

Souls of sinners, save them sister!

That the throne our Lord desires;

Seeks He too, the royal welcome

Of your pure heart’s holy fires.

Day by day, at morn and even,

Still the holy words are said:

O our Father up in Heaven!

Give to us our daily bread,

Yet your God, become your Brother,

Suffers hunger as you do

And His childish voice is asking

For a little bread from you.

Ah! My sister! Jesus wishes

Just your love,—how great your bliss!

Let your soul be pure and spotless

For His daily bread is this.

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

12

SLOTH

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of sloth

cedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness.

CCC 2094

_______

Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia. The spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart.

CCC 2733

_______

Sloth, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man’s mind, that he wants to do nothing; thus acid things are also cold. Hence sloth implies a certain weariness of work, as appears from a gloss on Psalm 106:18, “Their soul abhorred all manner of meat,” and from the definition of some who say that sloth is a “sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good.”

Now this sorrow is always evil, sometimes in itself, sometimes in its effect. For sorrow is evil in itself when it is about that which is apparently evil but good in reality, even as, on the other hand, pleasure is evil if it is about that which seems to be good but is, in truth, evil. Since, then, spiritual good is a good in very truth, sorrow about spiritual good is evil in itself. And yet that sorrow also which is about a real evil, is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds. Hence the Apostle (2 Corinthians 2:7) did not wish those who repented to be “swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.”

Accordingly, since sloth, as we understand it here, denotes sorrow for spiritual good, it is evil on two counts, both in itself and in point of its effect. Consequently, it is a sin, for by sin we mean an evil movement of the appetite.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Sloth comes from a Greek word (acedia) and has the sense of weariness and contempt, and so it is a capital sin when one tires of any good work and is moved by contempt. Moreover, it displeases him that he is obliged to observe the divine precepts and to persevere in the path of the virtues.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Sloth is a reluctance to attend to duty, and, according to Cassian, it is especially a weariness or distaste for spiritual things. The peril to which this vice exposes us is clearly set forth in these words of Our Saviour: “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire.” (Matt. 7:19). Against its evil effects He again warned His disciples when, exhorting them to diligence, the opposite of sloth, He told them to watch and pray, for they knew not when the Lord of the house would come. (Cf. Mk. 13:35).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Sloth, or weariness of soul, can be taken up in two ways: 1) generally, for every remission of soul in the exercise of virtue, to the extent that some labor would be joined to it; 2) particularly, for sadness, and weariness of divine friendship, to the extent that through the laborious exercise of virtue one ought to be preserved, and so he will not take care of that friendship. Both are mortal sins.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

The wickedness of sloth

His watchmen are blind,
they are all without knowledge;

they are all mute dogs,
they cannot bark;

dreaming, lying down,
loving to slumber.

IS 56:10

_______

God made us without our help, but he cannot sanctify us without our help.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

_______

And consider how Solomon reproves you who are too idle or lethargic, saying, How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard, and when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? You rely upon this or that, and “pretend pretences in sins;” I am waiting for Epiphany; I prefer Easter; I will wait for Pentecost. It is better to be baptized with Christ, to rise with Christ on the Day of His Resurrection, to honour the Manifestation of the Spirit. And what then? The end will come suddenly in a day for which you are unprepared, and in an hour of which you are unaware; and then you will have for a companion lack of grace.

ST. GREGORY NAZANZIEN

_______

It is a sign of humility if a man does not think too much of himself, through observing his own faults; but if a man contemns the good things he has received from God, this, far from being a proof of humility, shows him to be ungrateful: and from such like contempt results sloth, because we sorrow for things that we reckon evil and worthless. Accordingly we ought to think much of the goods of others, in such a way as not to disparage those we have received ourselves, because if we did they would give us sorrow.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Since sloth is sorrow for spiritual good, if we take spiritual good in a general way, sloth will not be a special vice, because, as stated above … every vice shuns the spiritual good of its opposite virtue. Again it cannot be said that sloth is a special vice, in so far as it shuns spiritual good, as toilsome, or troublesome to the body, or as a hindrance to the body’s pleasure, for this again would not sever sloth from carnal vices, whereby a man seeks bodily comfort and pleasure.

Wherefore we must say that a certain order exists among spiritual goods, since all the spiritual goods that are in the acts of each virtue are directed to one spiritual good, which is the Divine good, about which there is a special virtue, viz. charity. Hence it is proper to each virtue to rejoice in its own spiritual good, which consists in its own act, while it belongs specially to charity to have that spiritual joy whereby one rejoices in the Divine good. On like manner the sorrow whereby one is displeased at the spiritual good which is in each act of virtue, belongs, not to any special vice, but to every vice, but sorrow in the Divine good about which charity rejoices, belongs to a special vice, which is called sloth.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

And whenever it begins in any degree to overcome any one, it either makes him stay in his cell idle and lazy, without making any spiritual progress, or it drives him out from thence and makes him restless and a wanderer, and indolent in the matter of all kinds of work, and it makes him continually go round, the cells of the brethren and the monasteries, with an eye to nothing but this; viz., where or with what excuse he can presently procure some refreshment. For the mind of an idler cannot think of anything but food and the belly, until the society of some man or woman, equally cold and indifferent, is secured, and it loses itself in their affairs and business, and is thus little by little ensnared by dangerous occupations, so that, just as if it were bound up in the coils of a serpent, it can never disentangle itself again and return to the perfection of its former profession.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

“He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.” (Matt. 10:22). Without this perseverance, our labor will neither bear fruit nor merit reward. Our Saviour would not descend from the cross when asked by the Jews, for the work of our redemption was not yet accomplished. If, then, we desire to follow in the footsteps of our Divine Model, let us labor to the end with unwearied zeal. Is not the reward which awaits us eternal? Let us continue to do penance; let us carry our cross after Christ. What will it avail us to have weathered the storms and triumphed over the perils of the sea of life, if we suffer shipwrecks as we are about to enter the port of eternal rest?

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

If you will not profit by time and strength to labor now, a day will come when you will vainly seek these present opportunities. Sad experience tells us how many have thus been disappointed. Life is short, and obstacles to good abound. Do not; therefore, let the promptings of sloth cause you to lose advantages which will never return, for “the night cometh when no man can work.” (Jn. 9:4).

The number and enormity of your sins demand a proportionate penance and fervor to satisfy for them. St. Peter denied his Master three times, but never ceased to weep for his sin, though he knew it had been pardoned. St. Mary Magdalen to the end of her life likewise bewailed the disorders of her youth, though she heard from Our Saviour’s lips these sweet words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Numerous are the examples of those who, returning to God, continued during life to do penance for their sins, though many of them had offended God far less grievously than you.

You daily heap up your sins; and can you consider any labor too severe to expiate them? Oh! Profit by this time of grace and mercy to bring forth fruits worthy of penance, and by the labors of this life to purchase the eternal repose of the next. Our works in themselves are paltry and insignificant, but united to the merits of Christ they acquire infinite value in the sight of God. The labor endures but a short time; the reward will continue for eternity. We are told of a saint who was wont to exclaim at the striking of the clock: “O my God! Another hour has flown—one of those hours sent me in which to work out my salvation, and for which I must render an account to Thee.” Let his example inspire us with a determination to profit by the time which is given us to lay up works for eternal life.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The ruin brought by sloth

The hand of the diligent will rule,
while the slothful will be put to forced
labor.

PRV 12:24

_______

The soul of the sluggard craves, and gets nothing,
while the soul of the diligent is richly
supplied.

PRV 13:4

_______

The way of a sluggard is overgrown with thorns,
but the path of the upright is a level
highway.

PRV 15:19

_______

Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep,
and an idle person will suffer hunger.

PRV 19:15

_______

The desire of the sluggard kills him
for his hands refuse to labor.

PRV 21:25

_______

Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.

ECCL 10:18

_______

But his master answered him, “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed?”

MT 25:26

_______

For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.

2 THES 3:10

The savor of sloth begins, as if to hover on me; it is then a dream that I ceased, for a short space.… This humankind that is lost, was undone by wandering thought: slothfulness, with negligence, brought it under yoke.

ST. EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

_______

The unclean and malignant spirit is gone out of you, being chased by baptism.… He fears the water; he is choked with the cleansing, as the Legion were in the sea. Again he returns to the house whence he came out. He is shameless, he is contentious, he makes a fresh assault upon it, he makes a new attempt. If he finds that Christ has taken up His abode there, and has filled the place which he had vacated, he is driven back again, and goes off without success and is become an object of pity in his wandering state. But if he finds in you a place, swept and garnished indeed, but empty and idle, equally ready to take in this or that which shall first occupy it, he makes a leap into it, he takes up his abode there with a larger train; and the last state is worse than the first, inasmuch as then there was a hope of amendment and safety, but now the evil is rampant, and drags in sin by its flight from good, and therefore the possession is more secure to him who dwells there.

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN

All the inconveniences of this disease are admirably expressed by David in a single verse, where he says, “My soul slept from weariness,” that is, from acedia. Quite rightly does he say, not that his body, but that his soul slept. For in truth the soul which is wounded by the shaft of this passion does sleep, as regards all contemplation of the virtues and insight of the spiritual senses.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

And now he no longer addresses to them the advice of a teacher or physician, but proceeds with the severity of a judicial sentence, and, resuming his apostolic authority, pronounces sentence on his despisers as if from the judgment seat: with that power, I mean, which, when writing with threats to the Corinthians, he declared was given him of the Lord, when he charged those taken in sin, that they should make haste and amend their lives before his coming: thus charging them, “I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present, against some, with that power which is given to me over you.” And again: “For if I also should boast somewhat of the power which the Lord has given me unto edification, and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed.” With that power, I say, he declares, “If a man will not work, neither let him eat.” Not punishing them with a carnal sword, but with the power of the Holy Ghost forbidding them the goods of this life, that if by chance, thinking but little of the punishment of future death, they still should remain obstinate through love of ease, they may at last, forced by the requirements of nature and the fear of immediate death, be compelled to obey his salutary charge.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

You say that you will go to confession before the lapse of a week. And who promises you that you will live for a week? You then say that you will to confession tomorrow. And who promises you tomorrow? St. Augustine says: “God has not promised tomorrow; perhaps he will give it and perhaps he will not.” Perhaps he will deny it to you, as he has denied it to so many others who have gone to bed in good health, and have been found dead in the morning. How many have been struck dead in the act of sin and sent to hell? And should the same happen to you, how will you be able to repair your eternal ruin? Be assured that by this delusion—I will afterward go to confession—the devil has brought thousands and thousands of Christians to hell. It is difficult to find a sinner so abandoned to despair as to wish for his own damnation. In committing sin, all sinners hope to repent and go to confession; it is thus that so many miserable souls are lost; and now there is no remedy for their damnation.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

_______

We are rarely in this mortal life without many temptations. Now low and slothful hearts, and such as are given to exterior pleasures, not being accustomed to fight nor exercised in spiritual warfare, never preserve charity long, but let themselves ordinarily be surprised by mortal sin, which happens the more easily because the soul is more disposed by venial sin to mortal.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

And you, my dear people, you whose growing years are already beginning to bend your heads upon your breasts, you who in your young days chased after the pleasures of this world and thought you would never become tired of them; you have spent many years in the pursuit of these pleasures: dances, gambling, saloons, vanity formed your whole occupation. You put off the return to God again and again. Then when you reached a maturer age you thought of nothing but of accumulating a fortune. And so you have reached old age without having done anything for your salvation.

ST. JOHN VIANNEY

The daughters of sloth

The sins that sprout forth from sloth are contempt for commands, and because one throws himself into the prey of vice, he despairs of doing good, and as a result they become rancorous against those that strive to avoid sin and take up a good life.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

These are the daughters of sloth:

1) Malice, whereby someone holds spiritual goods in hatred, and wants nothing to do with them, or in some matter where he is sorry that he did the right thing, or fulfilled what he is held to, or condemns a benefit of God in some matter, for example, by wishing he was never born, or to not acknowledge Christ, etc., which are mortal sins by nature.

2) Pusillanimity, and despairing of salvation, which are mortal sins.

3) Rancor, in which some are disdainful of spiritual things.

4) Sluggishness, when good things are done without due fervor.

5) Wandering of the mind, in which someone wanders in a spiritual exercise towards illicit things, whether by thought which is called curiosity, or by speech, and it is called verbosity, or through restlessness, and it is called inquietude, all of which are commonly held to be venial.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Spiritual sloth

Also, regarding spiritual sloth, these beginners usually become weary in exercises that are more spiritual and flee from them since these exercises are contrary to sensory satisfaction. Since they are so used to finding delight in spiritual practices, they become bored when they do not find it. If they do not receive in prayer the satisfaction they crave—for after all it is fit that God withdraw this so as to try them—they do not want to return to it, or at times they either give up prayer or go to it begrudgingly. Because of their sloth, they subordinate the way of perfection (which requires denying one’s own will and satisfaction for God) to the pleasure and delight of their own will. As a result they strive to satisfy their own will rather than God’s.

Many of these beginners want God to desire what they want, and they become sad if they have to desire God’s will. They feel an aversion toward adapting their will to God’s. Hence they frequently believe that what is not their will, or brings them no satisfaction, is not God’s will, and, on the other hand, that if they are satisfied, God is too. They measure God by themselves and not themselves by God, which is in opposition to his teaching in the Gospel that those who lose their life for his sake will gain it and those who desire to gain it will lose it [Mt. 16:25].

Beginners also become bored when told to do something unpleasant. Because they look for spiritual gratifications and delights, they are extremely lax in the fortitude and labor perfection demands. Like those who are reared in luxury, they run sadly from everything rough, and they are scandalized by the cross, in which spiritual delights are found. And in the more spiritual exercises their boredom is greater. Since they expect to go about in spiritual matters according to the whims and satisfactions of their own will, entering by the narrow way of life, about which Christ speaks, is saddening and repugnant to them [Mt. 7:14].

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

REMEDIES FOR SLOTH

Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.

ROM 12:11

Let there be no failure of prayers in the hours of night—no idle and reckless waste of the occasions of prayer.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

By the dread of the mortality and of the time the lukewarm are inflamed, the slack are nerved up, the slothful are stimulated, the deserters are compelled to return, the heathens are constrained to believe, the ancient congregation of the faithful is called to rest, the new and abundant army is gathered to the battle with a braver vigor, to fight without fear of death when the battle shall come, because it comes to the warfare in the time of the mortality.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

My sins sometimes, indeed, make me very sorrowful, and Satan would wish to imprint this sadness on me, in order to make me fall into slothfulness and weariness; but when that occurs, I look on my companion: the spiritual joy I see in him, renews mine, and the temptation passes.… My joy is a torment to the devils, for they envy me the favors I receive from God. I know and see that, when they cannot injure me by making me sorrowful, they endeavor to strip their spiritual joy from my companions, and, if they cannot succeed either with them or with me, they retire in confusion.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (AS RECORDED IN THE LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI BY CHALLIPE)

_______

There are many, indeed, who immediately become impatient and lazy when things do not go well with them. The way of man, however, does not always lie in his own power. It is God’s prerogative to give grace and to console when He wishes, as much as He wishes, and whom He wishes, as it shall please Him and no more.

THOMAS Á KEMPIS

_______

I know that you are delicate and would not be able to endure a harder life, but that is only because you are accustomed to these things. But what if you could make yourself able? Do you ask how? Rise, gird yourself, shake off sloth, use your powers, move your arms, open those folded hands, do something useful, and you will soon find that you have appetite for what takes away hunger without pampering the palate. Many things which, when idle, you turn from, after labor you will take with relish. Cabbage, beans, pottage, coarse bread, with water, are little appetizing, I allow, to an idle person, but they seem great delicacies to one who has labored. Having become unaccustomed to tunics, you are perhaps afraid to take to wear them again, as being too cold in winter and too hot in summer; but have you ever read, He who fears the hoar frost the snow shall fall upon him? (Job vi. 16).

Idleness produces distaste, exercise, hunger. You fear watchings, fastings, and the labor of the hands; but these things are trifles to him who meditates on the everlasting burnings. Then the remembrance of the outer darkness causes you not to shudder at solitude. If you remember that every idle word shall be called in question (S. Matt. xii. 36), silence will not greatly displease you. That eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth, if brought before the eyes of the heart, will render hard mat or soft couch the same thing to you. Finally, if you have faithfully kept watch the whole time of the night which the Rule prescribes, with Psalms (Rule of S. Bened., cap. ix. seqq.), hard indeed will be the couch on which you will not sleep soundly.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

_______

Therefore, if this shameful vice attack you, banish it by the thoughts we are about to suggest.

First call to mind the extraordinary labors which Our Lord endured for you; the many sleepless nights He spent in prayer for you; His weary journeys from city to city, healing the sick, comforting the sorrowful, and raising the dead. How ardently, how unceasingly He devoted Himself to the work of our redemption! Consider particularly how, at the time of His Passion, He bore upon His bruised and bleeding shoulders the heavy weight of His cross for love of you. If the God of majesty labored thus to deliver you, will you refuse to cooperate in your own salvation? When this tender Lamb endured such rude labors to free you from your sins, will you endure nothing to expiate them?

Remember, too, the weary labors of the Apostles, who preached the Gospel to the whole world. Think of the sufferings endured by the martyrs, confessors, virgins, anchorites, and by all who are now reigning with Christ. It was by their teaching and their toil that the Faith of Christ spread through the known world and that the Church has been perpetuated to the present day.

Turn your eyes towards nature, and you will find nothing idle. The heavens, by their perpetual motion, unceasingly proclaim the glory of their Creator. The sun, moon, and stars, with all the brilliant planets which people almost infinite space, daily follow their courses for the benefit of man. The growth of plants and trees is continual until they have attained their appointed strength and proportions. Behold the untiring energy with which the ant labors for its winter’s food; with which the bees toil in building their hives and storing them with honey. These industrious little creatures will not allow an idler to exist among them; the drones are all killed. Throughout nature you find the same lesson.

Will not man, therefore, blush for a vice which the instinct of irrational creatures teaches them to avoid? To what labor do not men condemn themselves for the acquisition of perishable riches, the preservation of which, when they are obtained, is an ever-increasing source of care and anxiety! You are striving for the kingdom of Heaven. Will you show less energy, will you be less diligent, in toiling for spiritual treasures, which can never be taken from you?

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Undaunted and full of courage, let us go on with the pilgrimage we have undertaken even though the way be rough and full of obstacle. Amid the vexation and toil let us not cease to hold out suppliant hands to Mary with the words of the Church: “To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears; turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us.… Keep our lives all spotless, make our ways secure, till we find in Jesus joys that will endure.”

POPE LEO XIII, MAGNAE MATRIS DEI (PAPAL ENCYCLICAL, 1892), 27

13

ANGER

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of anger

nger is a desire for revenge.… If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin.

CCC 2302

_______

In the account of Abel’s murder by his brother Cain, Scripture reveals the presence of anger and envy in man, consequences of original sin, from the beginning of human history. Man has become the enemy of his fellow man.

CCC 2259

Properly speaking anger is a passion of the sensitive appetite, and gives its name to the irascible power, as stated above … when we were treating of the passions.… Secondly, evil is found in a passion in respect of the passion’s quantity, that is in respect of its excess or deficiency; and thus evil may be found in anger, when, to wit, one is angry, more or less than right reason demands. But if one is angry in accordance with right reason, one’s anger is deserving of praise.

Anger is properly the name of a passion. A passion of the sensitive appetite is good in so far as it is regulated by reason, whereas it is evil if it set the order of reason aside. Now the order of reason, in regard to anger, may be considered in relation to two things. First, in relation to the … object to which anger tends, and that is revenge (“revenge” here understood as administering justice and correcting faults—ed.). Wherefore if one desire revenge to be taken in accordance with the order of reason, the desire of anger is praiseworthy, and is called “zealous anger.” [Cf. Gregory, Moral. v, 45]. On the other hand, if one desire the taking of vengeance in any way whatever contrary to the order of reason, for instance if he desire the punishment of one who has not deserved it, or beyond his deserts, or again contrary to the order prescribed by law, or not for the due end, namely the maintaining of justice and the correction of defaults, then the desire of anger will be sinful, and this is called sinful anger.

Secondly, the order of reason in regard to anger may be considered in relation to the mode of being angry, namely that the movement of anger should not be immoderately fierce, neither internally nor externally; and if this condition be disregarded, anger will not lack sin, even though just vengeance be desired.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Wrath (anger) is a disordered desire for vengeance. Nevertheless, it must be noticed that a moderated anger is good and rightly ordered. This is why it is said in the Psalms: “Be angry and do not sin.” St. Basil says, “Anger has the nature of a dog, which is good when it is aggressive against enemies but not good when it seeks to bite its friends.” The disorder of wrath is in three things. The first is when someone wishes to take vengeance on someone who does not merit castigation, nor has offended him. The second is when someone wishes to take vengeance away from the proper authority, because to avenge and punish an evildoer is only the job of superiors, such as Princes and Magistrates. Since God is the supreme Prince, as a result, He says that He is the one to take vengeance. The third is when someone would set out to take vengeance out of hatred, but not out of zeal for justice in a manner that goes beyond all other circumstances.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Leads to destruction

Anger indeed killeth the foolish.

JOB 5:2 (DV)

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Therefore let not anger overcome thee to oppress any man.

JOB 36:18 (DV)

_______

And the Lord said to Jonas: Dost thou think thou hast reason to be angry, for the ivy? And he said: I am angry with reason even unto death.

JON. 4:9 (DV)

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A stone is heavy, and sand weighty, but the anger of a fool is heavier than them both. Anger hath no mercy, nor fury when it breaketh forth: and who can bear the violence of one provoked?

PROV. 27:3–4 (DV)

_______

Remove anger from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh. For youth and pleasure are vain.

ECCLES. 11:10 (DV)

Anger and wrath, these also are abominations, and the sinful man will possess them.

SIR 27:30

_______

Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.… And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

MATT. 5:22 (DV)

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Then Uzzi´ah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests leprosy broke out on his forehead, in the presence of the priests in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense.

2 CHR 26:19

_______

As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire,
so is a quarrelsome man for kindling
strife.

PRV 26:21

The wicked man sees it and is angry;
he gnashes his teeth and melts away;
the desire of the wicked man comes to
nought.

PS 112:10

_______

Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.

JAS 1:19–20

_______

He who is at enmity with anyone never enjoys peace: he is in everlasting trouble.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

_______

What am I to say of those, whose implacability even the going down of the sun sets no bound; who, prolonging it for several days, and nourishing rancorous feelings against those against whom they have been excited, they say in words that they are not angry, but in fact and deed they show that they are extremely disturbed? For they do not speak to them pleasantly, nor address them with ordinary civility, and they think that they are not doing wrong in this, because they do not seek to avenge themselves for their upset. But since they either do not dare, or at any rate are not able to show their anger openly, and give place to it, they drive in, to their own detriment, the poison of anger, and secretly cherish it in their hearts, and silently feed on it in themselves.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

Consider also that the fellow creature whom you hate is either a just man or a sinner. If a just man, it is certainly a great misfortune to be the declared enemy of a friend of God. If a sinner, it is no less deplorable that you should undertake to punish the malice of another by plunging your own soul into sin. And if your neighbor in his turn seeks vengeance for the injury you inflict upon him, where will your enmities end? Will there be any peace on the earth?

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

If then, my brethren, you wish to have revenge, bid adieu to Paradise: Without are dogs. Dogs, on account of their natural fury, are taken to represent the revengeful. These dogs are shut out from Paradise; they have a hell in this life; and they shall have Hell in the next.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Anger launches one headlong off the cliff.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

Besides these, reflect on the fatal blindness into which this passion leads man. Under the cover of justice or right, how often does it drive him to excesses which cause him a lifelong remorse!

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Blinds the will

Be not quick to anger,
for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.

ECCL 7:9

_______

For lo! the anger of men—it is a devil that grinds him every day. Demons are like wayfarers, who depart if they are compelled: but against anger though all righteous men adjure, it is not rooted out from its place.

ST. EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

_______

The deadly poison of anger has to be utterly rooted out from the inmost comers of our soul. For as long as this remains in our hearts, and blinds with its hurtful darkness the eye of the soul, we can neither acquire right judgment and discretion, nor gain the insight which springs from an honest gaze, or ripeness of counsel, nor can we be partakers of life, or retentive of righteousness, or even have the capacity for spiritual and true light: “for,” says one, “mine eye is disturbed by reason of anger.”

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

_______

Ælian tells of a lion that had been wounded by an African in a mountain defile. A year after, when this man passed the same way in the suite of King Juba, the lion, recognizing him, rushed among the royal guards, and, before he could be restrained, fell upon his enemy and tore him to pieces. Such is the model of the angry, vindictive man. Instead of calming his fierce rage by the power of reason, that noble gift which he shares with the angels, he abandons himself to the blind impulse of passions which he possesses in common with the brutes.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Though there is no time more unfavorable for action, yet there is no time in which we feel ourselves more strongly impelled to act than when in anger. This is an additional reason for opposing, with all our strength, the suggestions of this passion. For as a man intoxicated with wine is incapable of acting according to reason, and afterwards repents of what he has done in such a condition, so a man beside himself with passion, intoxicated with anger, is incapable of any action of which he will not repent in his calmer moments. Anger, wine, and sensuality are evil counselors.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Depend upon it, it is better to learn how to live without being angry than to imagine one can moderate and control anger lawfully; and if through weakness and frailty one is overtaken by it, it is far better to put it away forcibly than to parley with it; for give anger ever so little way, and it will become master, like the serpent, who easily works in its body wherever it can once introduce its head.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

The fool, that is, the sinner, is as changeable as the moon, which today waxes and tomorrow wanes; today he laughs, tomorrow he cries; today he is meek as a lamb, tomorrow cross as a bear. Why?

Because his peace of mind depends on the prosperity or the adversity he meets; he changes with the changes in the things that happen to him. The just man is like the sun, constant in his serenity, no matter what betides him. His calmness of soul is founded on his union with the will of God; hence he enjoys unruffled peace.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord

Remove vexation from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

ECCL 11:10

_______

There is a lying rebuke in the anger of an injurious man: and there is a judgment that is not allowed to be good: and there is one that holdeth his peace, he is wise.

ECCLUS. 19:28 (DV)

_______

For he intimated that it was necessary not only to efface the mark, but not to leave even a trace of anger; and that on its ceasing to boil, it was to be composed, and all memory of injury to be wiped out. “And let not the sun,” says the Scripture, “go down upon your wrath.” And he that said, “Thou shall not desire,” took away all memory of wrong; for wrath is found to be the impulse of concupiscence in a mild soul, especially seeking irrational revenge.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

_______

Although anger is not a principal passion, yet it has a distinct place among the capital vices, because it implies a special kind of movement in the appetite, in so far as recrimination against another’s good has the aspect of a virtuous good, i.e. of the right to vengeance.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

But, Father, such a one has taken away my good name, which I will renounce for no one. Such is, forsooth, the proverb, ever in the mouths of those hellhounds who seek for revenge. He has taken away my honor, I must take his life. And is the life of a man at your disposal? God alone is master of life. For it is Thou, O Lord, that hast the power of life and death. Do you wish to take vengeance of your enemy? God wishes to take vengeance of thee. Vengeance belongs to God alone. Revenge is Mine, and I will repay them in due time.

But how else, you say, can my honor be repaired? Well, and in order to repair your honor, you must trample under foot the honor of God. Do you not know, says St. Paul, that when you transgress the law you dishonor God? Thou by transgression of the law dishonorest God. And what honor is this of yours that you wish to repair? It is the same as the honor of a Turk, of an idolater: a Christian’s honor is to obey God, and observe His law.

But other men will look down upon me; and so, for fear you should be looked down upon, you must condemn yourself to Hell. But if you forgive, the good will praise you; wherefore it is, that St. John Chrysostom says: If you wish to be revenged, do good to your enemy, because then others will condemn your enemy, and speak well of you. It is not true that he loses his honor, who, when he has been injured or insulted, says: I am a Christian, I neither can nor will be revenged. Such a person gains instead of losing honor, and, besides, saves his soul.

On the contrary, he who takes revenge will be punished by God, not only in the other life, but in this also. He is obliged to flee from the justice of men, after having taken that vengeance which will render his life henceforward miserable. What an unhappiness to live a fugitive; to be always in dread of justice; always in dread of the kindred of his victim; tormented with remorse of conscience, and condemned to Hell?

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

The daughters of anger

The proud and the arrogant is called ignorant, who in anger worketh pride.

PROV. 21:24 (DV)

_______

For they spoke indeed peaceably to me; and speaking in the anger of the earth they devised guile.

PS. 34:20 (DV)

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Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men.

MT 2:16

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The Prophet declares why he said about his enemies, “they nod with their eyes,” and says that they indeed spoke peacefully with exterior words, as if they were friends, but inwardly because they broke out in anger, and “devised guile,” in which they would destroy me; this is the sense.… For those who were angry, these broke out interiorly, and lost rest and peace.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

The sins that are borne from disordered anger are contention, injurious words, beatings, unsuitable acts and if a man were to lose his mind, then the disorder of insanity and similar things.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

On the daughters of anger, which are partly from the heart, such as indignation, and the passion of the mind, partly from the mouth, such as shouting, blasphemy, contumely, cursing; partly from the work, such as brawling, fights, seditions, wounds, must be spoken of in a diverse-mode, according to the rule given above. For

1) indignation, which is a disordered affect from it, which someone reputes himself to be treated unworthily by such is venial, nay more, if it proceeds from a just judgment of reason, it is no sin at all. Still, it can be a mortal sin, if he would rise even to deliberate hatred and contempt of a person.

2) Passion of the mind, in which someone morosely devises different ways to take vengeance, and in those thoughts swells up in mind, such as devised.

3) Shouting, when an angry man lifts his voice, pouring forth many things disorderly and confusedly, is commonly held to be venial unless something is added.

4) Blasphemy is a mortal sin.

5) Contumely, whereby someone casts some evil to his neighbor, with the intention to dishonor him and it is a mortal sin of its very nature.

Now I said, ‘with a mind to dishonor,’ because in a spirit of correction, to humble, or for another reason, a superior can cast some otherwise contumelious word, in the manner that Christ called the apostles fools, and the Apostle called the Galatians irrational. Still, in such one can still sin if he were to exceed the mode of due correction, or a subject be gravely dishonored, which he merits by a crime.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Spiritual dangers

Because of the strong desire of many beginners for spiritual gratification, they usually have many imperfections of anger. When the delight and satisfaction procured in their spiritual exercises passes, these beginners are naturally left without any spiritual savor. And because of this distastefulness, they become peevish in the works they do and easily angered by the least thing, and occasionally they are so unbearable that nobody can put up with them.… Among these spiritual persons there are also those who fall into another kind of spiritual anger. Through a certain indiscreet zeal they become angry over the sins of others, reprove these others, and sometimes even feel the impulse to do so angrily, which in fact they occasionally do, setting themselves up as lords of virtue. All such conduct is contrary to spiritual meekness. Others, in becoming aware of their own imperfections, grow angry with themselves in an unhumble impatience.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

REMEDIES FOR ANGER

A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.

PRV 15:1

_______

The vexation of a fool is known at once,
but the prudent man ignores an insult.

PRV 12:16

_______

How much better is it to reprove than to stay
angry!
And the one who confesses his fault will
be kept from loss.

SIR 20:2–3

_______

If he says, “Good!” it will be well with your servant; but if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him.

1 SM 20:7

_______

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

EPH 4:31–32

_______

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

1 TM 2:8

_______

So then we ought to fear God only, and despise the demons, and be in no fear of them. But the more they do these things the more let us intensify our discipline against them, for a good life and faith in God is a great weapon. At any rate they fear the fasting, the sleeplessness, the prayers, the meekness, the quietness, the contempt of money and vainglory, the humility, the love of the poor, the alms, the freedom from anger of the ascetics, and, chief of all, their piety towards Christ.

ST. ANTHONY OF THE DESERT (AS RECORDED BY ST. ATHANASIUS IN LIFE OF ST. ANTHONY)

_______

For if the Christian has departed from rage and carnal contention as if from the hurricanes of the sea, and has already begun to be tranquil and meek in the harbor of Christ, he ought to admit neither anger nor discord within his breast, since he must neither return evil for evil, nor bear hatred.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

It is patience, too, which assuages anger, which bridles the tongue, governs the mind, guards peace, rules discipline, breaks the force of lust, represses the violence of pride, extinguishes the fire of enmity, checks the power of the rich, soothes the want of the poor, protects a blessed integrity in virgins, a careful purity in widows, in those who are united and married a single affection.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

Further, manliness is to be assumed in order to produce confidence and forbearance, so as “to him that strikes on the one cheek, to give to him the other; and to him that takes away the cloak, to yield to him the coat also,” strongly, restraining anger.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

_______

We gain no merit from good works, if we have not learned to endure injuries with patience.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

_______

Quench your anger, wipe out enmities, cherish unity, and vie with one another in the offices of true humility.

POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT

_______

The most efficacious, the sovereign remedy against this vice is to pluck from your heart inordinate love of self and of everything that pertains to you. Otherwise the slightest word or action directed against you or your interests will move you to anger. The more you are inclined to this vice the more persevering you should be in the practice of patience. Accustom yourself, as far as you can, calmly to face the contradictions and disappointments you are likely to encounter, and their effect upon you will thus be greatly diminished.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Its remedy is to devote oneself to the virtue of mildness and patience, by considering the examples of the saints and of Christ Himself, who gloriously triumphed over vices of this sort by forbearance and patience. For, it does not happen infrequently among mundane men that they propose to take vengeance very severely on their own enemies.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

When this furious enemy assails you, let the following considerations help you overcome its movements: Consider, first, that even beasts live at peace with their kind. Elephants do not war upon one another; sheep live peaceably in one fold; and cattle go together in herds. We see the cranes taking by turns the place of guard at night. Storks, stags, dolphins, and other creatures do the same. Who does not know of the friendship between the ants and the bees! Even the wildest animals live united among themselves, one lion is rarely known to attack another, neither will a tiger devour one of his kind. Yes, even the infernal spirits, the first authors of all discord, are united in a common purpose—the perversion of mankind. Man alone, for whom peace is most fitting, lives at enmity with his fellow men and indulges in implacable hatred. All animals are born with weapons for combat. The bull has horns; the boar has tusks; the bird has a beak and claws; the bee has a sting, and even the tiny fly or other insect has power to bite. But man, destined to live at peace with his fellow creatures, comes into the world naked and unarmed. Reflect, then, how contrary to your rightful nature it is to seek to be revenged upon one of your kind, to return evil for evil, particularly by making use of weapons which nature has denied you.

In the second place, a thirst for vengeance is a vice which befits only savage beasts. You belie your origin, you disgrace your descent, when you indulge in ungovernable rage, worthy only of a wild animal.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

You will ask how to put away anger. My child, when you feel its first movements, collect yourself gently and seriously, not hastily or with impetuosity.… Further, directly you are conscious of an angry act, atone for the fault by some speedy act of meekness towards the person who excited your anger. It is a sovereign cure for untruthfulness to unsay what you have falsely said at once on detecting yourself in falsehood; and so, too, it is a good remedy for anger to make immediate amends by some opposite act of meekness. There is an old saying, that fresh wounds are soonest closed.

Moreover, when there is nothing to stir your wrath, lay up a store of meekness and kindliness, speaking and acting in things great and small as gently as possible. Remember that the Bride of the Canticles is described as not merely dropping honey, and milk also, from her lips, but as having it “under her tongue;” that is to say, in her heart.

So we must not only speak gently to our neighbor, but we must be filled, heart and soul, with gentleness; and we must not merely seek the sweetness of aromatic honey in courtesy and suavity with strangers, but also the sweetness of milk among those of our own household and our neighbors; a sweetness terribly lacking to some who are as angels abroad and devils at home!

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

I went to confession yesterday, the priest told me that three things are necessary to avoid impatience, or anger.

1) Never manifest my anger exteriorly

2) be lovable with the person who causes my anger

3) to be silent, to put down the anger in my heart.[91]

ST. TERESA OF THE ANDES

_______________

91Michael D. Griffin, God, the Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, (Teresian Charism Press, 1995), p. 226.

14

ENVY

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of envy

nvy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin.…

Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility.

CCC 2539–40

_______

Envy inflames.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

Envy is sorrow for another’s good. Now this sorrow may come about in four ways.

First, when a man grieves for another’s good, through fear that it may cause harm either to himself, or to some other goods. This sorrow is not envy, and may be void of sin.…

Secondly, we may grieve over another’s good, not because he has it, but because the good which he has, we have not: and this, properly speaking, is zeal, as the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 9). And if this zeal be about virtuous goods, it is praiseworthy, according to 1 Corinthians 14:1: “Be zealous for spiritual gifts”: while, if it be about temporal goods, it may be either sinful or sinless. Thirdly, one may grieve over another’s good, because he who happens to have that good is unworthy of it. Such sorrow as this cannot be occasioned by virtuous goods, which make a man righteous, but, as the Philosopher states, is about riches, and those things which can accrue to the worthy and the unworthy; and he calls this sorrow nemesis, saying that it belongs to good morals.…

Fourthly, we grieve over a man’s good, in so far as his good surpasses ours; this is envy properly speaking, and is always sinful, as also the Philosopher states (Rhet. ii, 10), because to do so is to grieve over what should make us rejoice, viz. over our neighbor’s good.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Envy is a sin because the good of another man displeases him since it seems the other man has a greater excellence than he. Here, one must consider that when it displeases someone that another man has a good because he is not worthy or because he abuses it, it is not a sin. Likewise, when it displeases someone not to have the goods which others have, especially virtue, devotion and other goods of this sort, it is also not a sin; nay more, it could even be called holy and praiseworthy. On the other hand, when … he wants the other man not to have such goods lest he would be equal to him or even superior, then that is the sin of envy.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Envy consists in grieving at another’s good or repining at another’s happiness. The envious man looks with hatred upon his superiors who excel him, upon his equals who compete with him, upon his inferiors who strive to equal him. Saul’s envy of David and the Pharisees’ envy of Christ could only be satisfied by death; for it is the character of this cruel vice to stop at nothing until it has compassed its end. Of its nature it is a mortal sin, because, like hatred, it is directly opposed to charity. However, in this, as in other sins, there are degrees which do not constitute a mortal sin, as, for example, when hatred or envy is not grave, or when the will does not fully consent.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The power and destruction of envy
in sacred and secular history

Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh: but envy is the rottenness of the bones.

PROV. 14:30 (DV)

_______

Neither will I travel in the company of sickly envy,
for envy does not associate with wisdom.

WS 6:23

_______

Envy and anger shorten a man’s days, and pensiveness will bring old age before the time.

ECCLUS. 30:26 (DV)

_______

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another.

TI 3:3

And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt.

ACTS 7:9

_______

But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted what was spoken by Paul, and reviled him.

ACTS 13:45

_______

Envy is the chief of evils, the mother of death, the first door of sin, the root of vices, the beginning of suffering, the mother of calamity, the cause of disobedience, the beginning of ignominy, the deadly goad, the sword re-made, the plague of nature, venomous bile, the decay willingly applied, the bitter weapon, fastening the wart to the soul, the flame of the heart, the fire of the intestines. Anyone that has this, is unhappy with his own evils, but with another’s goods. It is similar to a bird of prey that feeds on carcasses, and they say it perishes from precious fat.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA (VITA MOSIS; CITED IN Á LAPIDE, COMMENTARIA IN PROVERBIA SALOMINIS)

Just as they say a viper is born by breaking the womb of the mother, so envy conceiving itself in the soul corrodes and dissolves.

ST. BASIL THE GREAT

_______

For envy, and jealousy, and bitterness, stand without the divine choir.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

_______

Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide. Overcome with envy, he slew his own brother, a citizen of the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot be surprised that this first specimen, or, as the Greeks say, archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a corresponding crime at the foundation of that city which was destined to reign over so many nations, and be the head of this earthly city of which we speak.

For of that city also, as one of their poets has mentioned, “the first walls were stained with a brother’s blood,” or, as Roman history records, Remus was slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference between the foundation of this city and of the earthly city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both citizens of the earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding the Roman republic, but both could not have as much glory as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have the glory of ruling would certainly rule less if his power were shared by a living consort. In order, therefore, that the whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed; and by this crime the empire was made larger indeed, but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but better.

Now these brothers, Cain and Abel, were not both animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer envy the other because he feared that, by both ruling, his own dominion would be curtailed—for Abel was not solicitous to rule in that city which his brother built—he was moved by that diabolical, envious hatred with which the evil regard the good, for no other reason than because they are good while themselves are evil.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

_______

One kingdom could not contain the Roman twins, although the shelter of one womb had held them. Pompey and Caesar were kinsmen, and yet they did not maintain the bond of their relationship in their envious power.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

But in the presence of such grace given by the Lord, of such a miracle of divine bounty, when all ought to have rejoiced, “the wicked were stirred up and gathered a council against Christ,” and wished moreover “to kill Lazarus also.” Do you not recognize that you are the successors of those whose hardness you inherit? For you too are angry and gather a council against the Church, because you see the dead come to life again in the Church, and to be raised again by receiving forgiveness of their sins. And thus, so far as in you, you desire to slay again through envy those who are raised to life.

ST. AMBROSE

_______

Health of the heart is the life of the flesh because if one safeguards the innocence of the mind, even those things which are weak shall be fortified. Still, envy is the rottenness of the bones because through the vice of envy even things made strong by virtue perish in the sight of God. Indeed the bones rot through envy and even robust things perish.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

In this verse from proverbs, we morally learn how harmful and destructive envy is, not only to others whom a man envies, but even in the one that envies himself. The fathers compare it to a snake, which is why the symbol and image of envy is a basilisk. For, just as a basilisk, as the ancients witness, is a deadly serpent born for the ruin of the world, poisons the air, burns the plants, kills animals, dissolves the very rocks, and if it sees itself in a mirror, after it strikes itself in the mirror it is killed by its own weapons. So also an envious man, who hurls curses against a pure soul, he is dispatched by his own arrows, and cuts his throat with his own sword.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

_______

Envy is a most powerful, a most injurious vice. It is spread all over the world, but predominates particularly in the courts of kings and in the society of the rich and powerful. Who, then, can be free from its attacks? Who is so fortunate as to be neither the slave nor the object of envy?

From the beginning of the world history abounds with examples of this fatal vice. It was the cause of the first fratricide which stained the earth, when Cain killed Abel. (Cf. Gen. 4). It existed between the brothers Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and the latter fell a victim to the envy of the former. Behold its effects in the brothers of Joseph, who sold him as a slave. (Cf. Gen. 37); in Aaron and Mary, the brother and sister of Moses. (Cf. Num. 12). Even the disciples of Our Lord, before the coming of the Holy Ghost, were not wholly free from it.

Ah! When we see such examples, what must we expect to find among worldlings, who are far from possessing such sanctity, and who are seldom bound to one another by any ties? Nothing can give us an idea of the power of this vice or the ravages it effects. Good men are its natural prey, for it attacks with its poisoned dart all virtue and all talent. Hence Solomon says that all the labors and industries of men are exposed to the envy of their neighbors. (Cf. Eccles. 4:4).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Satan is envious

But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world.

WIS. 2:24 (DV)

_______

From this source, even at the very beginnings of the world, the devil was the first who both perished (himself) and destroyed (others). He who was sustained in angelic majesty, he who was accepted and beloved of God, when he beheld man made in the image of God, broke forth into jealousy with malevolent envy—not hurling down another by the instinct of his jealousy before he himself was first hurled down by jealousy, captive before he takes captive, ruined before he ruins others.… Thenceforth envy rages on the earth, in that he who is about to perish by jealousy obeys the author of his ruin, imitating the devil in his jealousy; as it is written, “But through envy of the devil death entered into the world.” Therefore they who are on his side imitate him.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

_______

Consider, first, what a resemblance the envious man bears to the devils, who look with rage upon our good works and the heavenly reward we are to receive for them. They have no hope of the happiness of which they would deprive us, for they know that they have irretrievably lost it; but they are unwilling that beings created out of dust should enjoy honors of which they have been dispossessed. The crime of Satan is not theft or impurity, but enviously seeking, after his fall, to make man imitate his rebellion. This is truly the feeling which actuates the envious.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The difference between jealousy and envy

And how, you ask again, can I make any spiritual progress, seeing that I envy that of my brother? If you lament that you envy him, though you feel the envy, you do not consent to it. It is, so to speak, an illness to be cured, not an action to be condemned. Only you must not allow yourself to settle down into an habitual envy, meditating evil designs upon your bed, nursing, as it were, and fostering your disease, satisfying your evil feelings, persecuting the innocent, speaking evil of his good actions, impeding, perverting, and corrupting them. But that jealousy, if it be not yielded to, does not injure a soul which is in motion and stretching forward to better things, because then it is not he that does the wrong, but sin that dwelleth in him (Rom. vii. 20).

Condemnation, therefore, is not for him who is far from giving his members as instruments unto iniquity; neither his tongue to detraction, nor any other part of his body to the injury of wrong of his neighbor in any way whatsoever; who on the contrary, is ashamed to be of an evil disposition, who makes vigorous efforts to expel the deep-seated vice by confessing and bewailing it in prayer: and if he does not succeed in doing so, is on that account more gentle towards others and more humble in himself. Who is the wise man who would condemn a soul like this, which has learned from the Lord to be meek and lowly in heart?

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

The daughters of envy

From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

_______

The number of envy’s daughters may be understood for the reason that in the struggle aroused by envy there is something by way of beginning, something by way of middle, and something by way of term. The beginning is that a man strives to lower another’s reputation, and this either secretly, and then we have “tale-bearing,” or openly, and then we have “detraction.” The middle consists in the fact that when a man aims at defaming another, he is either able to do so, and then we have “joy at another’s misfortune,” or he is unable, and then we have “grief at another’s prosperity.”

The term is hatred itself, because just as good which delights causes love, so does sorrow cause hatred, as stated above.… Grief at another’s prosperity is in one way the very same as envy, when, to wit, a man grieves over another’s prosperity, in so far as it gives the latter a good name, but in another way it is a daughter of envy, in so far as the envious man sees his neighbor prosper notwithstanding his efforts to prevent it. On the other hand, “joy at another’s misfortune” is not directly the same as envy, but is a result thereof, because grief over our neighbor’s good which is envy, gives rise to joy in his evil.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

_______

Envy will also produce many other sins, such as perverse judgment, to have joy when another suffers evil, as well as murmuring, detraction, to seek to diminish the good reputation of one’s neighbor due to envy, nay more, he is roused to suddenly commit murder, just as Cain did when he murdered his brother out of envy, and likewise the Jews who prepared the Lord’s death from envy.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

Consider, moreover, how envy corrodes the heart, weakens the understanding, destroys all peace of soul, and condemns us to a melancholy and intolerable existence. Like the worm which eats the wood in which it is engendered, it preys upon the heart in which it was given birth. Its ravages extend even to the countenance, whose paleness testifies to the passion which rages within. This vice is itself the severest judge against its victim, for the envious man is subjected to its severest tortures. Hence certain authors have termed it a just vice, not meaning that it is good, for it is a most heinous sin, but meaning that it is its own greatest punishment.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

REMEDIES FOR ENVY

To these rewards that you also may come who had been possessed with jealousy and rancour, cast away all that malice wherewith you were before held fast, and be reformed to the way of eternal life in the footsteps of salvation. Tear out from your breast thorns and thistles, that the Lord’s seed may enrich you with a fertile produce, that the divine and spiritual cornfield may abound to the plentifulness of a fruitful harvest. Cast out the poison of gall, cast out the virus of discords. Let the mind which the malice of the serpent had infected be purged; let all bitterness which had settled within be softened by the sweetness of Christ.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

_______

Would you like to see God glorified by you? Then rejoice in your brother’s progress and you will immediately give glory to God. Because his servant could conquer envy by rejoicing in the merits of others, God will be praised.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Charity is never without those things which are hers; that is, those which are necessary for salvation; and these she not only possesses, but possesses them in abundance. In these she desires to abound for herself, that she may abound for all others also; she desires to have sufficient for herself, that she may abound for all others also; she desires to have sufficient for herself, that she may be wanting in nothing for any others. In other words, she is imperfect if she is not full.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

_______

Its remedy is to devote one’s self to the exercise of fraternal charity.… For the envious man inflicts himself and consumes himself inwardly, and God often raises up a thing to be envied in such a way that the envious man who desired the thing is downcast and humbled. We see that the devil repulsed the first man from earthly Paradise by envy, but in the time that God sent Christ into the world, he gave back earthly Paradise due to His merits. The brothers of Joseph the Patriarch sold him through envy, but on that occasion, God saw to it that ultimately he would evade them. King Saul persecuted David from envy, and God took the kingdom from Saul and bestowed it upon David.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Therefore, you must diligently arm yourself against the attacks of such an enemy, and unceasingly ask God to deliver you from it. Let your efforts against it be firm and constant. If it persevere in its attacks, continue to oppose an obstinate resistance, and make little account of the unworthy sentiments it suggests. If your neighbor enjoys a prosperity which is denied you, thank God for it, persuaded that you have not merited it or that it would not be salutary for you. Remember, moreover, that envying the prosperity of others does not alleviate your own misery, but rather increases it.

When you envy the virtue of another you are your own greatest enemy; for if you continue in a state of grace, united to your neighbor through charity, you have a share in all his good works, and the more he merits the richer you become. So far, therefore, from envying his virtue, you should find it a source of consolation. Alas! Because your neighbor is advancing, will you fall back? Ah! If you would love in him the virtues which you do not find in yourself, you would share in them through charity; the profit of his labors would also become yours.

_______

Let us wean our hearts from worldly honors and possessions, and seek only spiritual riches, for such treasures are not diminished when enjoyed by numbers, but, on the contrary, are increased. It is otherwise with the goods of the earth, which must decrease in proportion to the numbers who share them. For this reason envy finds easy access to the soul which covets the riches of this life, where one necessarily loses what another gains.

Do not be satisfied with feeling no grief at the prosperity of your neighbor, but endeavor to benefit him all you can, and the good you cannot give him ask God to grant him. Hate no man. Love your friends in God, and your enemies for God. He so loved you while you were still His enemy that He shed the last drop of His Blood to save you from the tyranny of your sins.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

Be contented with your state, do not envy others, who are placed higher than you are; remember that earthly greatness and grandeur are vain and transitory. For what brings man respect and dignity? Virtue, according to the words of Holy Scripture: “Oh, how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory! For the memory thereof is immortal; because it is known both with God and with men” (Wis. iv. 1). Sin on the other hand causes disgrace and shame. Therefore this prayer is recommended to all, but especially to Christian young women: “Preserve us from sin and shame.” What gives man real greatness? A self-sacrificing love for God and our neighbor. For this reason we honor a St. Martin, a St. Vincent de Paul, and so many others.

ST. JOHN VIANNEY

15

PRIDE

WORDS FROM THE TREASURY
OF THE CHURCH

The nature of pride

atred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments.

CCC 2094

_______

Some say pride is to be taken in three ways. First, as denoting inordinate desire to excel; and thus it is a special sin. Secondly, as denoting actual contempt of God, to the effect of not being subject to His commandment; and thus, they say, it is a generic sin. Thirdly, as denoting an inclination to this contempt, owing to the corruption of nature; and in this sense they say that it is the beginning of every sin.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Pride is a disordered appetite for a proper excellence; it is a mortal sin by its nature if it is consummated, and carried out, i.e. if someone so desired to be preeminent, that he refuses to be subject to God, superiors and their laws. Still it is imperfect whereby someone that does not refuse to be subject to those things which he ought, but magnifies himself in his passions, then it is only venial.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Pride is a disorder

What hath pride profited us?

WIS. 5:8 (DV)

_______

For the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible. And though from this corruption of the flesh there arise certain incitements to vice, and indeed vicious desires, yet we must not attribute to the flesh all the vices of a wicked life, in case we thereby clear the devil of all these, for he has no flesh. For though we cannot call the devil a fornicator or drunkard, or ascribe to him any sensual indulgence (though he is the secret instigator and prompter of those who sin in these ways), yet he is exceedingly proud and envious. And this viciousness has so possessed him, that on account of it he is reserved in chains of darkness to everlasting punishment.

Now these vices, which have dominion over the devil, the apostle attributes to the flesh, which certainly the devil has not. For he says “hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envying” are the works of the flesh; and of all these evils pride is the origin and head, and it rules in the devil though he has no flesh. For who shows more hatred to the saints? Who is more at variance with them? Who more envious, bitter, and jealous? And since he exhibits all these works, though he has no flesh, how are they works of the flesh, unless because they are the works of man, who is, as I said, spoken of under the name of flesh?

For it is not by having flesh, which the devil has not, but by living according to himself—that is, according to man—that man became like the devil. For the devil, too, wished to live according to himself when he did not abide in the truth; so that when he lied, this was not of God, but of himself, who is not only a liar, but the father of lies, he being the first who lied, and the originator of lying as of sin.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Pride is worse than every other vice from the fact that it springs even from virtue and its guilt is less felt.

ST. ISIDORE OF SEVILLE

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There is then no other fault which is so destructive of all virtues, and robs and despoils a man of all righteousness and holiness, as this evil of pride, which like some pestilential disease attacks the whole man, and, not content to damage one part or one limb only, injures the entire body by its deadly influence, and endeavors to cast down by a most fatal fall, and destroy those who were already at the top of the tree of the virtues.

For every other fault is satisfied within its own bounds and limits, and though it clouds other virtues as well, yet it is in the main directed against one only, and specially attacks and assaults that, … but this one when once it has taken possession of some unfortunate soul, like some most brutal tyrant, when the lofty citadel of the virtues has been taken, utterly destroys and lays waste the whole city; and levelling with the ground of vices the once high walls of saintliness, and confusing them together, it allows no shadow of freedom henceforth to survive in the soul subject to it. And in proportion as it was originally the richer, so now will the yoke of servitude be the severer, through which by its cruel ravages it will strip the soul it has subdued of all its powers of virtue.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

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Pride is a sin because a man reckons that he is more than he really is, thus, he wishes to be put ahead of others and cannot suffer one to be higher than him or equal to him.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

The foot of pride

Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me.

PS. 35:12 (DV)

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In his commentary on the Psalms, St. Robert addresses pride commenting on the verse, “Let not the foot of pride come unto me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me.”

The prophet, now anxious for himself, lest he might be deprived of such a good, he begs God for the gift of perseverance, and especially against the vice of pride, to which many men are guilty, as he was. “Let the foot of pride not come unto me,” he says, i.e. I ask you not to allow the foot of proud men to approach me, lest perhaps their hand would move me by word or example, or another temptation, and would cast me down from the state of grace into pit of sin. By the word “pride” and “of the sinner,” whose foot and hand, i.e. whose approach and power he fears, the devil in particular is understood, who is the king over all the sons of pride; then his ministers and allies are understood.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

Pride increases iniquity

Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.

PS. 72:6 (DV)

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The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God: Because his heart is departed from him that made him: for pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end. Therefore hath the Lord disgraced the assemblies of the wicked, and hath utterly destroyed them.

ECCLUS. 10:14–16 (DV)

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The prophet declares what fruit prosperity produces in the impious, viz. pride and an increase of iniquities. For they use the wealth of temporal things to satisfy their lusts and to oppress the weaker; while on the contrary pious men exceedingly fear and are humbled when prosperity dries up; for they hold prosperity suspect, lest perhaps it would be their wage, and that they would draw from their eternal wage, which they thirst for with their whole heart. But the words must be known. He says, “Pride held them,” not the proud hold on to their pride, but are held by pride, just as by a fetter. For “he who sins is the servant of sin.” (John 8). The Hebrew word means Pride will encompass them just as a chain bound on the neck, and they are covered with iniquity and impiety. This means the wicked in prosperity do not only have sin in their heart, as often the poor and miserable have who desire in heart theft, adultery, the pomps of the world; but they do not bring it about in work, that which they would gladly carry out if they could, therefore their sins are hidden within them. But the wicked abounding in all things are wholly covered in iniquity, that they sin not only in thought and desire but also in their hands, feet, tongue, appearance, word and work.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

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The fool, because he is proud, strikes other men with his mouth and tongue as if with the rod of pride, by mocking one, despising another, by convicting this one, etc.; by flogging others he also flogs himself, because he flogs those by whom he will, in turn, be flogged himself with the law of vengeance. Therefore, the pride of his words, which he spews from his mouth, will be his rod, i.e. the cause and instrument and stick with which he flogs, he will be confounded and punished.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

Pride is hateful before God

He that worketh pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house.

PS. 100:7 (DV)

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Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
the sound of your harps;

maggots are the bed beneath you,
and worms are your covering.

IS 14:11

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This shall be their lot in return for their pride,
because they scoffed and boasted
against the people of the LORD of hosts.

ZEP 2:10

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The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.

Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.

PRV 8:13

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Arrogance is hateful before the Lord and before
men,
and injustice is outrageous to both.

SIR 10:7

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For his splendor he was called Lucifer [light-bearer], but became, and is, called Darkness through his pride as well as the apostate hosts who are subject to him, creators of evil by their revolt against good and our inciters.

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN

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Nothing in man is further removed from humility than reliance upon his own virtue.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

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St. Bernard tells us that if we truly knew our hearts we would be displeasing to ourselves, which alone would make us pleasing to God; but because we do not know ourselves we are inflated with pride and therefore hateful in His sight. The time will come when we shall be odious to God and to ourselves—to God because of our crimes, and to ourselves because of the punishment they will bring upon us. Our pride pleases the devil only; for as it was pride which changed him from a pure and beautiful angel into a spirit of malice and deformity, he rejoices to find this evil reducing others to his unhappy state.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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The first and most formidable of these enemies is pride, that inordinate desire of our own excellence, which spiritual writers universally regard as the father and king of all the other vices. Hence Tobias, among the numerous good counsels which he gave his son, particularly warns him against pride: “Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind or in thy words, for from it all perdition took its beginning.” (Job 4:14).

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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Here he touches upon the root of evil, namely pride; from pride arises vengeance for injuries, injustice, contumelies, and all iniquity; for that reason he argues against it, and dissuades with nine reasons.… The reason why pride is so hateful before God and man is that it is from it that injustice and avarice descend and these two vices disturb and overturn every state. Hence pride is especially treacherous for princes, inasmuch as those who are higher than the rest stand out in degree, and often acknowledge no superior except for God.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

What leads to pride

But subsequently becoming neglectful of discipline, proud, and puffed up with confidence in their fathers, they despised the divine precepts, and lost the favor conferred upon them.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

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The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, “Ye shall be as gods,” which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true God.

By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light by which, had he followed it, he would himself have become light—this wicked desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open sin was but its consequence.

For that is true which is written, “Pride goeth before destruction, and before honor is humility;” that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin, while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner is the Highest (that is, God, Ed.) forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize it as ruin, when there occurs an evident … transgression of the commandment? And consequently, God’s prohibition had reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be defended on any pretense of doing what was righteous. And I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves, as already, by pleasing themselves, they had fallen.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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It may also be said that apostasy from God is called the beginning of pride, because it is the first species of pride. For it is characteristic of pride to be unwilling to be subject to any superior, and especially to God; the result being that a man is unduly lifted up, in respect of the other species of pride.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

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This is the reason of the first fall, and the starting point of the original malady, which again insinuating itself into the first man, through him who had already been destroyed by it, produced the weaknesses and materials of all faults. For while he believed that by the freedom of his will and by his own efforts he could obtain the glory of Deity, he actually lost that glory which he already possessed through the free gift of the Creator.

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

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There are some whose only purpose is to appear learned. Others desire to parade their wit and conversational powers. The first are thus led into hypocrisy and deceit, and the second become the sport of self-love and vanity. It does not suffice, therefore, that our conversation be good in itself—it must be directed to some good end, such as the glory of God or the profit of our neighbor.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

The prideful are cast out

That his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left; so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

DT 17:20

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The LORD of hosts has purposed it,
to defile the pride of all glory,
to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

IS 23:9

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I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;

I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
and lay low the haughtiness of the
ruthless.

IS 13:11

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The horror you inspire has deceived you,
and the pride of your heart,

you who live in the clefts of the rock,
who hold the height of the hill.

Though you make your nest as high as the eagles,
I will bring you down from there, says the
LORD.

JER 49:16

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But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit hardened unto pride, he was put down from the throne of his kingdom, and his glory was taken away.

DAN. 5:20 (DV)

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For all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.

DN 4:37

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Where pride is, there also shall be reproach: but where humility is, there also is wisdom.

PROV. 11:2 (DV)

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Thus he that had just been thinking that he could command the waves of the sea, in his superhuman arrogance, and imagining that he could weigh the high mountains in a balance, was brought down to earth and carried in a litter, making the power of God manifest to all.

2 MC 9:8

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There are some who aim at the credit of generosity for pride alone, because they wish thereby to gain the good opinion of the multitude for leaving nothing to themselves; but while they are seeking rewards in this life, they are laying up none for the life to come, and having received their reward here they cannot hope for it there.

ST. AMBROSE

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Pride is the most manifest sign of the lost.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

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Brethren there is but one small door to heaven and many seek to enter and are not able. They are larger than the door, puffed up with pride and worldliness, for that small door is Jesus crucified.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

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Again, O proud man, I would ask you to remember that your pride is displeasing to all—to God, who resists the proud and gives His grace to the humble (Cf. James 4:6); to the humble, who hold in horror all that savors of arrogance; and to the proud themselves, who naturally hate all who claim to be greater than they. Nor will you be pleasing to yourself. For if it ever be given to you in this world to enter into yourself and recognize the vanity and folly of your life, you will certainly be ashamed of your littleness. And if you do not correct it here, still less satisfaction will it afford you in the next world, where it will bring upon you eternal torments.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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Where there is pride, there is a proud man despised by others.… For the proud are condemned from the same arrogance with which they despise others, they are mocked, and affixed with disgrace; moreover, as clouds swelling with vapors … break out in hail, thunder and lightning. Therefore, pride acquires contempt … while on the other hand, the humble never put themselves before anyone, but always place themselves after them. Therefore they are truly wise, that is humble and experienced in virtue, they are thought and also on account of this humility and wisdom they are honored and loved by all.…

The sense will be complete if you join active ignominy to the passive in this way, in other words: The proud man, on account of arrogance, is despised by others and is affixed with scorn, therefore in turn he despises them and affixes them with derision, when he is scolded by them and fights with importuning to over come them. But the humble man, when he is despised and disturbed by abuses, is humbly silent and wisely dissimulates, and returns words of wisdom for abuse, with which he shows his patience and charity, and so softens those hurling abuse at him, pacifies and hurries in his love as well as is hard pressed to convert to the fear of God; for which reason here by admonishing modestly, then compelling with kindness, now by consoling leniently, he mitigates their anger, turns away derisive language, obtains love and benevolence.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

Pride defiles

A vain man is lifted up into pride, and thinketh himself born free like a wild ass’s colt.

JOB 11:12 (DV)

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Whoever touches pitch will be defiled,
and whoever associates with a proud
man will become like him.

SIR 13:1

Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.

PRV 16:18

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He [the bishop] must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

1 TM 3:6

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Humility makes men angels, and pride makes angels devils.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.” And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction.

And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin.

… And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another name, “self-pleasers.” For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one’s self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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For He alone could make this distinction, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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We do not deserve any grace from God. Our tendency to sin is always present. The sin of Adam has almost entirely spoiled and soured us, filling us with pride and corrupting every one of us, just as leaven sours, swells and corrupts the dough in which it is placed.

ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT

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Just as pitch adheres to the hand of one who touches it, and it applies and sticks part of itself to it; so even such a great iniquity as the pride of the proud, adheres to part of the one who touches it, and through it, just like pitch, it stains and pollutes both in repute and in conscience; for infamy detracts from reputation.… An example of this is in Lucifer, who rubbed his pride on all his angels, and in Adam, who passed this same thing on to all posterity; hence such was the ruin of the angels and equally of men.

Hence, vice, especially pride, is suitably compared to pitch:

1) because the color of both is black;

2) both are vicious and stick and rub themselves on other things;

3) both stink of a foul-smelling odor;

4) pitch burns with much smoke, just as pride.

Thereupon, the fire of hell remains for the proud, burning them with pitch and sulphur.… The reason why pride, apart from all other vices, smears itself on one communicating with the proud, is both the proclivity of corrupted nature toward it, and the innate love of excellence in man.

CORNELIUS Á LAPIDE

Pride brings down the just

For the vice of pride is a near neighbor to good deeds, and arrogance ever lies in wait hard by virtue: because it is hard for him that lives praise-worthily not to be caught by man’s praise unless, as it is written, “he that glorieth, glorieth in the Lord.” Whose intentions would that most naughty enemy not dare to attack? Whose fasting would he not seek to break down seeing that, as has been shown in the reading of the Gospel, he did not restrain his wiles even against the Savior of the world Himself?

POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT

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The devil, desiring the growth of pride and presumption in beginners, often increases their fervor and readiness to perform such works, and other ones, too. For he is quite aware that all these works and virtues are not only worthless for them, but even become vices. Some of these persons become so evil-minded that they do not want anyone except themselves to appear holy; and so by both word and deed they condemn and detract others whenever the occasion arises, seeing the little splinter in their brother’s eye and failing to consider the wooden beam in their own eye [Mt. 7:3]; they strain at the other’s gnat and swallow their own camel [Mt. 23:24]. Sometimes they minimize their faults, and at other times they become discouraged by them, since they felt they were already saints, and they become impatient and angry with themselves, which is yet another fault.

They are often extremely anxious that God remove their faults and imperfections, but their motive is personal peace rather than God. They fail to realize that were God to remove their faults they might very well become more proud and presumptuous.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

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Now, how can you preserve this spirit when you join the company of those who will speak to you only of pleasures and honors, only to laud themselves and to boast of their pretended good qualities and of all they have done or not done? If you are in the company of such a one for any length of time you will become, without noticing it, as proud as he. If you hear somebody continually talk evil of his neighbor you will yourself, without noticing it, get a wicked tongue, which carries to every place, wherever you may be, destruction of peace.… Ah! my good friends, woe to him who follows the world! He is lost! If you wish to be saved you must necessarily flee this world, as otherwise you would think and act like the world and find yourself among those who have been cursed by the Lord.

ST. JOHN VIANNEY

The daughters of pride

The sins which Pride produces are to boast of oneself, vainglory, to contend with others, likewise discord, disobedience and similar things. This is why it is written: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, and confounds those who exalt themselves.”

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

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Consider also the danger of vainglory, the daughter of pride, which as St. Bernard says, enters lightly but wounds deeply. Therefore, when men praise you, think whether you really possess the qualities for which they commend you. If you do not, you have no reason to be proud. But if you have justly merited their praise, remember the gifts of God, and say with the Apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” (1 Cor. 15:10).

Humble yourself, then, when you hear the song of praise, and refer all to the glory of God. Thus you will render yourself not unworthy of what He bestows upon you. For it is incontestable that the respect men pay you, and the good for which they honor you, are due to God. You rob Him, therefore, of all the merit which you appropriate to yourself. Can any servant be more unfaithful than one who steals his master’s glory? Consider, moreover, how unreasonable it is to rate your merit by the inconstant opinion of men who today are for you, and tomorrow against you; who today honor you, and tomorrow revile you. If your merit rests upon so slight a foundation, at one time you will be great, at another base, and again nothing at all, according to the capricious variations of the minds of men.

Oh, no; do not rely upon the vain commendations of others, but upon what you really know of yourself. Though men extol you to the skies, listen to the warnings of your conscience and accept the testimony of this intimate friend rather than the blind opinion of those who can judge you only from a distance and by what they hear. Make no account of the judgments of men, but commit your glory to the care of God, whose wisdom will preserve it for you and whose fidelity will restore it to you in the sight of angels and men.

Be mindful also, O ambitious man, of the dangers to which you expose yourself by seeking to command others. How can you command when you have not yet learned to obey? How can you take upon yourself the care of others when you can hardly account for yourself? Consider what a risk you incur by adding to your own sins those of persons subject to your authority. Holy Scripture tells us that they who govern will be severely judged, and that the mighty shall be mightily tormented. (Cf. Wis. 6:6). Who can express the cares and troubles of one who is placed over many? We read of a certain king who, on the day of his coronation, took the crown in his hands, and, gazing upon it, exclaimed, “O crown richer in thorns than in happiness, did one truly know thee he would not stoop to pick thee up even if he found thee lying at his feet.”

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

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There are three daughters of pride. The first is presumption, which is an appetite to undertake something beyond one’s strength. The common opinion is that it is only venial, still it becomes mortal if it causes damage to God or neighbor. For example, if you presume ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the power of Holy Orders, likewise the office of a doctor, an advocate, a confessor, without due experience and training.

The second is ambition, which is a disordered appetite for dignity and honor that is not due to someone, or due to one greater; such as if one was to canvass for an ecclesiastical benefice, or an office for which he is unworthy whether by an illicit manner or an illicit means, namely through simony. In itself it is a venial sin, but it becomes a mortal sin either by reason of the matter, or by reason of the means through which the honor is sought or by reason of the damage which is inflicted on one’s neighbor.

The third is vain glory, namely lust for empty glory, whose end is the disordered manifestation of a proper excellence, whether true or imaginary.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

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Hearing the praise of another, or his own on a matter mortally sinful, he would sin mortally if he would approve, receive and admire it as a matter worthy of praise.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

Pride leads to presumption

They convince themselves that God will forgive them, that they will not die without confession, that they will not be lost for all eternity. They take all this for granted because they say the Rosary, fast on Saturdays, are enrolled in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary or the Scapular, or a sodality of our Lady, wear the medal or the little chain of our Lady.

When you tell them that such a devotion is only an illusion of the devil and a dangerous presumption which may well ruin them, they refuse to believe you. God is good and merciful, they reply, and he has not made us to damn us. No man is without sin. We will not die without confession, and a good act of contrition at death is all that is needed. Moreover, they say they have devotion to our Lady; that they wear the scapular; that they recite faithfully and humbly every day the seven Our Fathers and seven Hail Marys in her honor; that sometimes they even say the Rosary and the Office of our Lady, as well as fasting and performing other good works.

Blinding themselves still more, they quote stories they have heard or read—whether true or false does not bother them—which relate how people who had died in mortal sin were brought back to life again to go to confession, or how their soul was miraculously retained in their bodies until confession, because in their lifetime they said a few prayers or performed a few pious acts, in honour of our Lady. Others are supposed to have obtained from God at the moment of death, through the merciful intercession of the Blessed Virgin, sorrow and pardon for their sins, and so were saved. Accordingly, these people expect the same thing to happen to them.

Nothing in our Christian religion is so deserving of condemnation as this diabolical presumption. How can we truthfully claim to love and honor the Blessed Virgin when by our sins we pitilessly wound, pierce, crucify and outrage her Son?

ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT

REMEDIES FOR PRIDE

For in pride there is ruin and great confusion; and in shiftlessness there is loss and great want, because shiftlessness is the mother of famine.

TB 4:13

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And let not the worshipper, beloved brethren, be ignorant in what manner the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the temple. Not with eyes lifted up boldly to heaven, nor with hands proudly raised; but beating his breast, and testifying to the sins shut up within, he implored the help of the divine mercy.

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

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For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly presumed and satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred Psalmist when he says, “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Thy name, O Lord”; that is, that they who have pleased themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied with Thee in seeking Thy glory.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

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But this carpenter’s son with his crown of thorns, has humbled and cast down my pride, in His shame and His dying: Sheol has seen Him, yea, and fled from before Him.

ST. EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

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If the heart is truly humble, the good that it hears of itself it either fails to recognize or fears lest the hope of future title to reward be changed for some passing favor.

POPE ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

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Here Cassian reminds us that to avoid the sin of pride, we must cultivate the awareness of the fact that all the good we have and do comes from God and the saint reminds us to be grateful for those gifts.

And so we can escape the snare of this most evil spirit, if in the case of every virtue in which we feel that we make progress, we say these words of the Apostle: “Not I, but the grace of God with me,” and “by the grace of God I am what I am;” and “it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

For “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” “For what hast thou which thou didst not receive? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?”

ST. JOHN CASSIAN

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Pride precipitates man from the highest elevation to the lowest abyss, but humility raises him from the lowest abyss to the highest elevation. Through pride the angels fell from Heaven to Hell, and through humility man is raised from earth to Heaven.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

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The below is an excerpt from the dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena, dictated by her while she was in a state of ecstasy. In this passage the great saint relays God’s revelation concerning the word “obedience.”

Wherefore it is not enough that it should be only in word, and not practiced by you. I have already told you that this word is the key which opens heaven, which key My Son placed in the hands of His vicar. This vicar placed it in the hands of everyone who receives holy baptism, promising therein to renounce the world and all its pomps and delights, and to obey. In this way each man has in his own person that very same key which the Word had, and if a man does not unlock in the light of faith, and with the hand of love the gate of heaven by means of this key, he never will enter there, in spite of its having been opened by the Word; for though I created you without yourselves, I will not save you without yourselves.

Wherefore you must take the key in your hand and walk by the doctrine of My Word, and not remain seated, that is to say, placing your love in finite things, as do foolish men who follow the first man, their first father, following his example, and casting the key of obedience into the mud of impurity, breaking it with the hammer of pride, rusting it with self-love.

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA

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Humility is the only virtue that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.

ST. JOHN CLIMACUS

_______

We must not rely too much upon ourselves, for grace and understanding are often lacking in us. We have but little inborn light, and this we quickly lose through negligence. Often we are not aware that we are so blind in heart. Meanwhile we do wrong, and then do worse in excusing it. At times we are moved by passion, and we think it zeal. We take others to task for small mistakes, and overlook greater ones in ourselves. We are quick enough to feel and brood over the things we suffer from others, but we think nothing of how much others suffer from us. If a man would weigh his own deeds fully and rightly, he would find little cause to pass severe judgment on others.

THOMAS Á KEMPIS

_______

The remedy for pride is that a man will rest upon holy humility with all diligence, i.e. that he might understand himself to be nothing, and whatever we have is the gift of God and he should consider others better than himself and hence, esteems himself less than others and subject to all; outwardly and inwardly he will honor men in no matter what degree they are. It also helps to consider in the first place, that pride makes a man similar to the devil, and it is especially hated by God.

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE

_______

After this, reflect on that astonishing example of humility given us by the Son of God, who for love of us took upon Himself a nature so infinitely beneath His own, and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:8). Let the example of your God teach you, O man, to be obedient. Learn, O dust, to humble yourself. Learn, O clay, to appreciate your baseness. Learn from your God, O Christian, to be “meek and humble of heart.” (Matt. 11:29).

If you disdain to walk in the footsteps of men, will you refuse to follow your God, who died not only to redeem us but to teach us humility? Look upon yourself and you will find sufficient motives for humility.

Consider what you were before your birth, what you are since your birth, and what you will be after death. Before your birth you were, for a time, an unformed mass; now a fair but false exterior covers what is doomed to corruption; and in a little while you will be the food of worms. Upon what do you pride yourself, O man, whose birth is ignominy, whose life is misery, whose end is corruption? If you are proud of your riches and worldly position, remember that a few years more and death will make us all equal. We are all equal at birth with regard to our natural condition; and as to the necessity of dying, we shall all be equal at death, with this important exception: that those who possessed most during life will have most to account for in the day of reckoning.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

But a still more efficacious means of becoming prudent is humility, for pride is the greatest obstacle to this virtue. “Where pride is, there also shall be reproach,” the Holy Ghost tells us; “but where humility is, there also is wisdom.” (Prov. 11:2). And throughout the Scriptures we are frequently reminded that God instructs the humble and reveals His secrets to the lowly.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

_______

First reflect on the terrible punishment which the angels brought upon themselves by one sin of pride. They were instantly cast from Heaven into the lowest depths of Hell. Consider how this fall transformed Lucifer, the prince of the angelic hosts, and the bright and beautiful star surpassing in splendor the sun itself. In one moment he lost all his glory, and became not only a demon but the chief of demons. If pure spirits received such punishment, what can you expect, who are but dust and ashes? God is ever the same, and there is no distinction of persons before His justice.

VENERABLE LOUIS OF GRANADA

Could he not see that when God wills to grant us a favor, it is mere pride to reject it, that God’s gifts must needs be accepted, and that true humility lies in obedience and the most literal compliance with His Will! … Just so humility hides our earthly virtues and perfections, only expanding them at the call of Charity, which is not an earthly, but a heavenly, not a mere moral, but a divine virtue; the true sun of all virtues, which should all be ruled by it, so that any humility which controverts charity is unquestionably false.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

_______

And so, for like reasons, we should all abstain from noticing with any vainglory the sins of other people; but rather we should then esteem ourselves as worse in ourselves than they are, and should say, Lord, if Thou hadst not helped, I should have done worse. Otherwise, to punish us for our pride, God will permit us to fall into worse and more shameful sins.

The prayer of a humble soul penetrates the heavens, and presents itself before the throne of God; and departs not without God’s looking on it and hearing it. And though the soul be guilty of any amount of sin, God never despises a heart that humbles itself: “A contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise; [Ps. 1: 19] God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” [James 4:6]. As the Lord is severe with the proud, and resists their prayers, so is He kind and liberal to the humble. This is precisely what Jesus Christ said one day to St. Catherine of Siena: “Know, my daughter, that a soul that perseveres in humble prayer gains every virtue.”

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI

_______

The great and noble of the earth,

In palaces they proudly dwell;

The poor and lonely find their home

In hut, in cabin and in cell.

So in a humble cattle-shed

The Christ-Child lies, this Christmas night;

Leaving His palace in the skies,

He veils His glory’s dazzling light.

Your heart loves poverty, I know;

You count yourself divinely blest;

So Jesus finds a palace-home

Within your humble, happy breast.

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

Humility brings spiritual advancement

But souls who are advancing in perfection at this time act in an entirely different manner and with a different quality of spirit. They receive great benefit from their humility, by which they not only place little importance on their deeds, but also take very little self-satisfaction from them. They think everyone else is far better than they are, and usually possess a holy envy of them and would like to emulate their service of God. Since they are truly humble, their growing fervor and the increased number of their good deeds and the gratification they receive from them only cause them to become more aware of their debt to God and the inadequacy of their service to him, and thus the more they do, the less satisfaction they derive from it.

Their charity and love makes them want to do so much for God that what they actually do accomplish seems as nothing. This loving solicitude goads them, preoccupies them, and absorbs them to such an extent that they never notice what others do or do not accomplish, but if they should, they then think, as I say, that everyone is better than they. They think they themselves are insignificant, and want others to think this also and to belittle and slight their deeds. Moreover, even though others do praise and value their works, these souls are unable to believe them; such praises seem strange to them.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

The following is related of St. Philip Neri:

As to humility, he laid so much stress on it that it was often noticed that, as he walked about the house, he would be repeating to himself, in a sort of low chant: Umilta e staccamento;—humility and detachment.… He was also careful to teach his penitents to avoid all that might tempt them to vainglory, as that would be to them not only an occasion of venial sin, but would also endanger the loss of any little humility which they might have acquired. He bade them never to speak, whether in jest or in earnest, in their own praise; saying, that they should not only shun the applause of men, but ask God to hide whatever graces He might be pleased to bestow on them, lest they might prove occasions of vainglory; and that if they had done any good work, and the merit of it was given to another, they ought to rejoice and thank God for it as for a great benefit, since the honor which they lost before men would be restored to them manifold before God. And if perchance any of them told what would redound to his own glory, he would immediately reprove him by saying: “Secretum meum mihi, secretum meum mihi:” meaning to intimate that we ought not to publish the secret inspirations or other favors which God may have granted us.

Pride is the feature of the city of
man, humility of the city of God

There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us.

But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition; and then comes to pass what is written: “Thou did cast them down when they lifted up themselves.” For he does not say, “when they had been lifted up,” as if first they were exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but “when they lifted up themselves” even then they were cast down—that is to say, the very lifting up was already a fall.

And therefore it is that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city of God, and in the person of Christ its King; while the contrary vice of pride, according to the testimony of the sacred writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

16

PRAYERS TO TURN TO IN THE
STRUGGLE AGAINST DEADLY SIN

THE FIRST PRAYERS WE LEARN

The Our Father

ur Father,

who art in heaven,

hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. Amen.

The Hail Mary

Hail Mary, full of grace,

The Lord is with thee;

Blessed art thou among women

And blessed is the fruit

Of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners

Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The Glory Be

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.

IMITATE AND CALL ON CHRIST

Jesus, Our Model

Picture to yourself in your heart his behavior and his actions:

How meek and quiet in his manner among all classes of men;

how genial among his own;

how reserved in his eating and drinking;

how full of feeling for the poor, to whom he was in all things like, who belonged to his own inner circle.

How he turned no one aside; how he shrank from none, not even the leper, not even the sinner, not even the shameful, not even the shameless!

How he paid no court to the great;

how he was obsequious to none!

How he kept himself aloof from the cares of the world!

How he troubled himself in nothing for the needs of the body!

How restrained were his eyes;

how patient he stood under insult;

how gentle his answers!

How he would not vindicate his honor by a sharp or bitter reply!

How he turned away malice by calm and quiet, by assertion of truth, by the offer of his love!

Again, how composed his every movement, how faultless in every action!

How he longed for the salvation of souls, for the love of whom he had willed to

become man and had willed to die!

How in all his behavior he was a model of all good, the light of all men, their WAY, their TRUTH, their LIFE!

Again, how he endured labor and want and hunger and thirst and utter weariness!

How compassionate he was with all who suffered!

How he adapted himself to the weak, how he stooped to the lowly!

How he avoided scandal.

How he refused no sinner.

How kindly he welcomed every penitent.

How peaceful in all his words;

how encouraging to good will;

how stern to hard hearts.

How earnest in prayer,

how quick to do a service, saying of himself, “I am in the midst of you as he that serves.”

Again, how long his hours of prayer.

How obedient to his parents.

How he shunned every sign of boasting, every show of being singular.

How he avoided all this world’s glory, all this world’s power, all this world’s means to success!

All this, and much more, comes to the mind when we think of him.

In him we find a model for our every word and deed,

moving or standing, seated, eating, silent or speaking, alone or with others.

Study him and you will grow in his love. In his company you will gain sweetness and confidence,

and you will be strengthened in every virtue.

Let this be your wisdom, this your meditation, this your study:

to have him always in mind, to move you to imitation, to win you to his love.

ARCHBISHOP ALBAN GOODIER, SJ (SLIGHTLY ADAPTED)

Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us. Jesus, hear us. Jesus, graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, splendor of the Father, have mercy on us.

Jesus, brightness of eternal light, have mercy on us.

Jesus, King of glory, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Sun of justice, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on us.

Jesus, most amiable, have mercy on us.

Jesus, most admirable, have mercy on us.

Jesus, the mighty God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Father of the world to come, have mercy on us.

Jesus, angel of great counsel, have mercy on us.

Jesus, most powerful, have mercy on us.

Jesus, most patient, have mercy on us.

Jesus, most obedient, have mercy on us.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, have mercy on us.

Jesus, lover of chastity, have mercy on us.

Jesus, lover of us, have mercy on us.

Jesus, God of peace, have mercy on us.

Jesus, author of life, have mercy on us.

Jesus, example of virtues, have mercy on us.

Jesus, zealous lover of souls, have mercy on us.

Jesus, our God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, our refuge, have mercy on us.

Jesus, father of the poor, have mercy on us.

Jesus, treasure of the faithful, have mercy on us.

Jesus, good Shepherd, have mercy on us.

Jesus, true light, have mercy on us.

Jesus, eternal wisdom, have mercy on us.

Jesus, infinite goodness, have mercy on us.

Jesus, our way and our life, have mercy on us.

Jesus, joy of angels, have mercy on us.

Jesus, King of the patriarchs, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Master of the Apostles, have mercy on us.

Jesus, Teacher of the Evangelists, have mercy on us.

Jesus, strength of martyrs, have mercy on us.

Jesus, light of confessors, have mercy on us.

Jesus, purity of virgins, have mercy on us.

Jesus, crown of saints, have mercy on us.

Be merciful. Spare us, O Jesus.

Be merciful. Graciously hear us, O Jesus.

From all evil, deliver us, O Jesus.

From all sin, deliver us, O Jesus.

From Your wrath, deliver us, O Jesus.

From the snares of the Devil, deliver us, O Jesus.

From the spirit of fornication, deliver us, O Jesus.

From everlasting death, deliver us, O Jesus.

From the neglect of Your inspirations, deliver us, O Jesus.

By the mystery of Your holy Incarnation, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your nativity, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your infancy, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your most divine life, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your labors, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your agony and passion, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your cross and dereliction, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your sufferings, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your death and burial, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your resurrection, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your ascension, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your institution of the most Holy Eucharist, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your joys, deliver us, O Jesus.

By Your glory, deliver us, O Jesus.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, spare us, O Jesus.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Jesus.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, O Jesus.

Jesus, hear us.

Jesus, graciously hear us.

Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You have said, “Ask and you shall receive, seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you.” Grant, we beg of You, to us who ask it, the gift of Your most divine love, so that we may ever love You with our whole heart, in word and deed, and never cease praising You.

Give us, O Lord, as much a lasting fear as a lasting love of Your Holy Name, for You, who live and are King for ever and ever, never fail to govern those whom You have solidly established in Your love. Amen.

The Stations of the Cross

If we would conquer sin, we must strive to imitate Christ. One of the foremost “schools” at which we learn to do so is the ancient devotion of the Stations of the Cross, through which the faithful devoutly meditate on Christ’s Passion. Take courage from Christ’s falls under the weight of the cross, and when you fall into sin, get up, confess your sins, and continue the struggle.

1.Pilate condemns Jesus to die.

2.Jesus accepts his cross.

3.Jesus falls for the first time.

4.Jesus meets his mother, Mary.

5.Simon helps carry the cross.

6.Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

7.Jesus falls for the second time.

8.Jesus meets the three women of Jerusalem.

9.Jesus falls for the third time.

10.Jesus is stripped of his clothes.

11.Jesus is nailed to the cross.

12.Jesus dies on the cross.

13.Jesus is taken down from the cross.

14.Jesus is placed in the tomb.

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

O Lord Jesus Christ, who before ascending into Heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish your work in the souls of your Apostles and disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that he may perfect in my soul the work of your grace and your love.

Grant me the gift of Wisdom, that I may despise the perishable things of this world and desire only the things that are eternal; the gift of Understanding, to enlighten my mind with the light of your Divine truth; the gift of Counsel, that I may always choose the surest ways of pleasing God and gaining heaven; the gift of Fortitude, that I may bear my cross with you and may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation; the gift of Knowledge, that I may know God and know myself, and grow perfect in the science of the Saints; the gift of Piety, that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable; the spirit of Fear, that I may be filled with a loving reverence toward God, and a holy fear of thinking, saying, or doing anything to displease Him.

Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of your true disciples, and animate me in all things with your Spirit. Amen.

To Obtain Detachment From Earthly Goods

O JESUS, who chose a life of poverty and obscurity, grant me the grace to keep my heart detached from the transitory things of this world. May you be my only treasure, for you are infinitely more precious than all other possessions. My heart is too set upon the vain and fleeting things of earth. Make me always mindful of your warning words: “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?”

Grant me the grace to keep your holy example always before my eyes, that I may despise the nothingness of this world and make you the object of all my desires and affections. Amen.

God Knows

Jesus, when it is very hard,

When the body is tired,

When the mind is clouded,

When the soul is troubled,

When I am a weary burden to myself,

When I am a scandal to others,

When my best friends seem to be against me,

When every door is closed:

Then let me remember myself,

What I am and what I deserve.

My nothingness, fit only to be trodden on,

My fickleness, utterly unreliable,

My sinfulness, meriting a worse doom,

My selfishness, always seeking its own,

My cruelty to others in similar circumstances,

And let me see your hand in it all.

Let me remember you,

Who you are and what you deserve,

And yet what you have received.

Whom none could accuse of sin,

Yet who found yourself a scandal to many.

Who would not break a bruised reed,

Yet whose soul was made sorrowful unto death.

Who for me despised the shame

And endured the Cross.

Let me remember my Father

Who is faithful,

Who will not try me more than I am able,

Who rules from end to end mightily

And disposes all things sweetly.

Who out of evil will draw good,

Who is sweet and gentle

And of much mercy to all who will love him.

ARCHBISHOP ALBAN GOODIER, SJ (SLIGHTLY ADAPTED)

Prayer at the Moment of Temptation

O Jesus! Come to my help and grant me grace not to yield to this temptation. My Jesus, have mercy! Amen.

GO TO MARY

The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Rosary of the Virgin Mary … is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains … a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness.… The Church has always attributed particular efficacy to this prayer, entrusting to the Rosary, to its choral recitation and to its constant practice, the most difficult problems. At times when Christianity itself seemed under threat, its deliverance was attributed to the power of this prayer, and Our Lady of the Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose intercession brought salvation. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.[92]

Begin by making the sign of the cross. Then recite the Apostle’s Creed and pray one Our Father, three Hail Marys (for an increase in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity), and one Glory Be. Then proceed to the five decades of the mysteries upon which you will be meditating. Begin each decade with the Our Father, then recite ten Hail Marys while meditating upon the mystery, and close with the Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer (“O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy”) before moving on to the next mystery.

The Joyful Mysteries

The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Our Lady

The Visitation of Our Lady to Elizabeth

The Nativity of Our Lord

The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple

The Finding of Our Lord in the Temple

The Luminous Mysteries

The Baptism in the Jordan

The Miracle at Cana

The Proclamation of the Kingdom

The Transfiguration

The Institution of the Eucharist

The Sorrowful Mysteries

The Agony in the Garden

The Scourging at the Pillar

The Crowning With Thorns

The Carrying of the Cross

The Crucifixion

The Glorious Mysteries

The Resurrection of Our Lord

The Ascension of Our Lord

The Descent of the Holy Spirit

The Assumption of Our Lady

The Crowning of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven

After the prayers of the final decade, conclude with these additional prayers:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears! Turn, then, O most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. O God, whose only-begotten Son, by his life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant, we beseech thee, that meditating on these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain, and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Angel of God, my guardian dear … (see p. 299)

The Memorare to Our Lady

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of Virgins, my mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions; but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

To the Blessed Virgin Mary for Acquiring Virtues

O Mary, Mother of Mercy, others may ask of you what they please—bodily health, worldly goods and advantages—but I ask for whatever you consider most needful for me and what is most in conformity with your pure heart. You are so humble; obtain for me humility and love of contempt. You were so patient under the sufferings and trials of life; obtain for me patience and fortitude. You were most charitable toward your neighbor; obtain for me charity toward all, and particularly toward those who are in any way my enemies. You are filled with the love of God; obtain for me the gift of His pure and holy love. You are entirely united to the Divine Will; obtain for me complete conformity to the Will of God in all things. You are the holiest of all creatures, O Mary; make me a saint.

Love for me is not wanting on your part; you can do all and you have the will to obtain all for me. The only thing, then, that can prevent me from receiving your favors is neglect on my part in having recourse to you, or too little confidence in your intercession.

These gifts I ask of you, hoping with the greatest confidence to receive them, O Mary, my Mother, my hope, my love, my life, my refuge, my help, and my consolation. Amen.

PRAYERS TO YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL

It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that each person has a guardian angel. As the Catechism tells us: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.”

Guardian Angel Prayer

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.

Litany of the Holy Guardian Angel

(For private use)

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Queen of the Angels, pray for us.

Holy angel, my guardian, pray for us.

Holy angel, my prince, pray for us.

Holy angel, my monitor, pray for us.

Holy angel, my counselor, pray for us.

Holy angel, my defender, pray for us.

Holy angel, my steward, pray for us.

Holy angel, my friend, pray for us.

Holy angel, my negotiator, pray for us.

Holy angel, my intercessor, pray for us.

Holy angel, my patron, pray for us.

Holy angel, my director, pray for us.

Holy angel, my ruler, pray for us.

Holy angel, my protector, pray for us.

Holy angel, my comforter, pray for us.

Holy angel, my brother, pray for us.

Holy angel, my teacher, pray for us.

Holy angel, my shepherd, pray for us.

Holy angel, my helper, pray for us.

Holy angel, my watcher, pray for us.

Holy angel, my conductor, pray for us.

Holy angel, my preserver, pray for us.

Holy angel, my instructor, pray for us.

Holy angel, my enlightener, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, Graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

V. Pray for us, O holy guardian angel,

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, who in the counsel of Your ineffable goodness have appointed to all the faithful, from their mother’s womb, a special angel guardian of their body and soul, grant that I may so love and honor him who you have so mercifully given me, that—protected by the bounty of Your grace and by his assistance—I may merit to behold, with him and all the angelic hosts, the glory of Your face in the heavenly kingdom, You who live and reign, world without end. Amen.

PRAYERS FOR HUMILITY

To God the Father

O God, who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, endow me with that true virtue of humility of which your Divine Son gave us a living example. Let me never provoke you to anger by my pride, but make me always conscious of my lowliness and my unworthiness and my total dependence on you. Amen.

To Our Lord Jesus Christ

O my most humble Jesus, who for love of me humbled yourself and become obedient unto the death of the Cross, how dare I appear before you and call myself your follower when I see myself so proud that I cannot bear a single slight without resenting it! How, indeed, can I be proud, when by my sins I have so often deserved to be cast into the abyss of hell!

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, help me and make me like unto you. You, for love of me, bore so many insults and injuries. I, for love of you, will bear slights and humiliations patiently. But you see, O Jesus, how proud I am in my thoughts, how disdainful in my words, how ambitious in my deeds. Grant me true humility of heart and a clear knowledge of my own nothingness. May I, for love of you, rejoice at being despised and feel no resentment when others are preferred before me. Let me not be filled with pride when I am praised, but seek only to be great in your sight and to please you in all things. Amen.

PRAYERS FOR PURITY

To St. Joseph

Saint Joseph, father and guardian of virgins, to whose faithful keeping Christ Jesus, innocence itself, and Mary, the virgin of virgins, was entrusted, I pray and beseech you by that twofold and most precious charge, by Jesus and Mary, to save me from all uncleanness, to keep my mind untainted, my heart pure, and my body chaste; and to help me always to serve Jesus and Mary in perfect chastity. Amen.[93]

To St. Aloysius

Saint Aloysius, adorned with angelic virtues, I commend to you most earnestly the chastity of my mind and body. Commend me to the Immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ, and to His most holy Mother, the Virgin of virgins, to protect me from every grievous sin. Permit me not to defile myself by any spot of impurity; and when you see me in temptation or in danger of sin, banish far from my heart every unclean thought and desire. Awaken in me the thought of eternity and of Jesus Crucified; imprint deeply in my heart a lively sense of the holy fear of God; set me on fire with the love of God and grant me the grace to imitate you on earth, that I may enjoy the possession of God with you in Heaven. Amen.

ADDITIONAL PRAYERS TO
OVERCOME PARTICULAR FAULTS

Sloth and Lukewarmness

O my God, I know well that so negligent a life as mine cannot please you. I know that by my lukewarmness I have closed the door to the graces which you desire to bestow upon me. O my God, do not reject me, as I deserve, but continue to be merciful toward me, and I will make great efforts to amend and to arise from this miserable state. In the future, I will be more careful to overcome my passions and to follow your inspirations; and never through slothfulness will I neglect my duties, but will strive to fulfill them with greater diligence and fidelity. In short, I will from this time forward do all I can to please you, and will neglect nothing which I know to be pleasing to you.

Since you, O my Jesus, have been so generous with your graces toward me and have deigned to give your blood and your life for me, I am sorry for having acted with so little generosity toward you, who are worthy of all honor and all love. But, O my Jesus, you know my weakness. Help me with your powerful grace; in you I place my confidence and trust.

O Immaculate Virgin Mary, help me to overcome myself and to become a saint. Amen.

Prayer of a Soul Enslaved by Bad Habits

Behold me, O my God, at your feet! I do not deserve mercy, but, O my Redeemer, the Blood which you shed for me encourages and obliges me to hope for it. How often I have offended you, and yet I have again fallen into the same sin. O my God, I wish to amend, and in order to be faithful to you, I will place all my confidence in you. I will, whenever I am tempted, instantly call upon you. Thus far, I have trusted in my own promises and resolutions and have neglected to recommend myself to you in my temptations. This has been the cause of my repeated failures. From this day forward, be you, O Lord, my strength, and thus I shall be able to do all things, for “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” Amen.

To Overcome Some Vice Such as
Intemperance or Impurity

O God, who broke the chains of blessed Peter the Apostle, and made him come forth unscathed, loose the bonds of your servant, (Name), held in captivity by the vice of (name it); and by the merits of the same Apostle, be pleased to grant me (him, her) to be delivered from its tyranny. Remove from my (his, her) heart all excessive love for sensual pleasures and gratifications, so that living soberly, justly and piously, I (he, she) may attain to everlasting life with you. Amen.

Against Evil Thoughts

Almighty and all-merciful God, look favorably upon our prayers and free our hearts from temptation to evil thoughts, that we may deserve to be accounted worthy dwelling places of the Holy Spirit. Shed upon our hearts the brightness of your grace, that we may ever think thoughts worthy of your majesty and pleasing to you, and that we may always sincerely love you. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

SEVEN SPECIFIC PRAYERS AGAINST
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Against lust

O Lord Jesus Christ, guardian of chaste souls and lover of purity, who was pleased to take our nature and to be born of an immaculate virgin, mercifully look upon my infirmity. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Help me to drive away all evil thoughts, to conquer every sinful desire, and so pierce my flesh with the fear of you that, this worst enemy being overcome, I may serve you with a chaste body and please you with a pure heart.

Against gluttony

O Lord Jesus Christ, mirror of abstinence, who, to teach us the virtue of abstinence, did fast for forty days and forty nights, grant that, serving you and not our own appetites, we may live soberly and piously with contentment, without greediness, gluttony, or drunkenness, and that your will may be our meat and drink so that we may hunger and thirst after justice and finally obtain from you that food which endures until life eternal.

Against avarice

O Lord Jesus Christ, though you were rich yet for our sakes did become poor, grant that all over-eagerness and covetousness of earthly goods may die in us, and the desire of heavenly things may live and grow in us. Keep us from all idle and vain expenditures, that we may always have to give to him that needs, and that giving not grudgingly nor of necessity, but cheerfully, we may be loved by you, and be made through your merits partakers of the riches of your heavenly treasure.

Against sloth

O Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Love, who in the Garden prayed so long and so fervently that your sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground; put away from us, we beg you, all sloth and inactivity both of body and mind; and kindle within us the fire of your love. Strengthen our weaknesses so that whatsoever we are able to do we do it earnestly, and that, striving heartily to please you in this life, we have you hereafter as our reward.

Against anger

O most meek Jesus, Prince of Peace, who, when you were reviled, reviled not, and on the cross prayed for your murderers: implant in our hearts the virtues of gentleness and patience, that, restraining the fierceness of anger, impatience, and resentment, we may overcome evil with good, and, for your sake, love our enemies, and, as children of our Heavenly Father, seek your peace and evermore rejoice in your love.

Against envy

O most loving Jesus, pattern of charity, who makes all the commandments of law consistent with the love of God towards man, grant to us so to love you with all our hearts, with all our minds, and all our souls, and to love our neighbor for your sake, that the grace of charity and brotherly love may dwell in us. We pray that all envy, harshness, and ill-will may die in us. Fill our hearts with feelings of love, kindness, and compassion so that by constantly rejoicing in the happiness and success of others, by sympathizing with them in their sorrows, and putting away all harsh judgments and envious thoughts, we may follow you, who are yourself the true and perfect love.

Against pride

O Lord Jesus Christ, pattern of humility, who emptied yourself of your glory, and took upon the form of a servant: root out of us all pride and conceit of heart, that, owning ourselves miserable and guilty sinners, we may willingly bear contempt and reproaches for your sake, and glorying in nothing but you, may esteem ourselves lowly in your sight. Not unto us, O Lord, but to your name be the praise, for your loving mercy and for your truth’s sake.

PRAYERS OF ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI
FOR FINAL PERSEVERANCE

Eternal Father, I humbly adore you, and thank you for having created me and for having redeemed me through Jesus Christ. I thank you most sincerely for having made me a Christian, by giving me the true faith, and by adopting me as your Son, in the Sacrament of Baptism.

I thank you for having waited for my repentance after the numberless sins I’d committed, and for having pardoned (as I humbly hope) all the offences that I’ve committed against you, and for which I’m now sincerely sorry, because they have been displeasing to you, who are infinite Goodness. I thank you for having preserved me from the many relapses of which I would have been guilty, if you hadn’t protected me.

Even so, my spiritual enemies still continue—and will continue till death—to fight against me, and to endeavor to make me their slave. If you don’t constantly guard and support me with your aid, this miserable creature will return to sinning and will certainly lose your grace. I beg you, then, for the love of Jesus Christ, to grant me holy perseverance until death.

Jesus, Your Son, has promised that you’ll grant whatever we ask in His name. So through the merits of Jesus Christ, I beg for myself and for all those who have been justified the grace never again to be separated from your love, but to love you forever, in time and eternity. Amen.

O Queen of Heaven, most holy Mary, once I was a slave of Satan, but now I dedicate myself to be your servant forever. I offer myself to your perpetual honor and service. Accept me, then, as your servant; don’t cast me out as I deserve! In you, my mother, have I set all my hope. I praise and thank almighty God, who in His mercy gives me this confidence in you. True it is, in the past I have fallen miserably into sin; but I hope that I have already obtained pardon for it through the merits of jesus Christ and through your intercession.

But this is not enough, dear Mother. One thought distresses me, and that is that I may turn back and lose the grace of God. The dangers are always present, my enemies never sleep, fresh temptations will assail me. Protect me, then, my Lady! Defend me against the assaults of hell and do not allow that I should begin again to commit sin and offend Jesus, your divine Son. No, may it never come to pass that I should begin again to suffer the loss of my soul, of paradise, and of God.

This is the grace that I ask of you, O Mary; this is my one desire; obtain this for me by your intercession. This is my firm hope. Amen.

_______________

92Pope St. John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (Apostolic Letter, 2002), 1.

93From the website of the Oblates of St. Joseph. https://osjusa.org/prayers/for-purity/. Used by permission.

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