Catholic Hermit: The Seven Deadly Sins

"Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away" (Acts 3:19).

Did a little review of some good ol' moral theology.  Here's the easy, go-to-list of the seven deadly sins (not that the consequences of sin and various wrong-doings are "easy"):

pride
greed
lust
envy
gluttony
wrath
sloth

Consider these words as rather vast categories; expand their breadth to visage, image, expansive multi-facets.

Then consolidate down to personal-riveting drill bit, torqued, and battery charged.

As is stated, "These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions."

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church (persons therein, such as theologians and spiritual thinkers, inspired, and teacher-writers) categorize sins as mortal and venial.  Mankind seeks order and understanding; we are more secure with reason.  We want a sense of things temporally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. 

Mortal sin's gravity is tested by whether or not the act itself is intrinsically evil and immoral.  A benchmark for gravity is that the person must know that what they are doing or planning to do is evil and immoral.  Another gauge is deliberate consent: the person must freely choose to commit the act or plan to do it.

Mortal sins imperil our souls, and venial sins complicate ours and others' lives as they are still wrongs done but less serious breaches of God's law.  Of course, determining the categories and breadths and depths and impact and consequences to our lives, others' lives,  and ultimately, most importantly to others' souls and our souls requires discernment and "judgment."  This judgment is that requiring critical thinking skills and wisdom, ability to discern right from wrong but also have perspective as to particulars, details, mitigating or aggravating circumstances, and numerous other considerations.

Conscience comes into play in determining if our actions are sins or not, and if so, what "value" ascribed such as grave or less serious; a person needs a well-formed conscience and a degree of mental capacity to be able to judge one's own actions and thoughts.  Or we need to find someone with a keen conscience, mind, and strong levels of the virtues in order to help us judge, discern, decipher what we have done if we are unable to see for ourselves.  In fact, it is often a great spiritual benefit to have another person adept in discerning and making wise judgment to help us sift through our thoughts and actions when we have caused harm to others and ourselves even in the slightest of ways.

I'm not writing here of becoming scrupulous--to nit-pick over ourselves to the degree of narcissistic morbidity which is on flip side self-love gone awry to finding a perverse type pleasure in agonizing over every thought and action we make daily and often nightly.  

However, there are times when our thoughts (less often) and our actions (more easily noticed due to external aspects and of which other people see or are affected by our wrong doings, our sins) are not so easily detected for us to discern and judge and make correction.    This is true especially when an emotion of sorrow, shock, anger, or other such feeling enters; emotion seems to be a trigger point for committing wrongs, and emotion likewise seems to be what masks our wrong doings from ourselves and also can tempt us in providing ourselves with excuses for what wrongs we've done.

I'm trying to refrain from examples for they will come from my own lived experience that involves others.  However, please think of the above statements, and I also think examples will come to mind.  Or, I can use myself in a recent re-reckoning of a sin I committed in writing of a situation and the persons in it.  I did not intend to cause hurt, at least not consciously.  In self-examining, I cannot say that even subconsciously I intended or wanted to hurt anyone.  

However, I felt shock in something I had to face regarding others and the situation; I had great sorrow in each persons' lives; I had frustration in that my previous attempts to try to bring reason and logic to one of the persons was not going to get through or bring about change; and I had outrage and anger in the effects of behaviors of one upon the other.  So I turned to writing about the situation and my means of trying to work through my own issues in trying to digest and let go of it, through spiritual means.

I also had verbalized to another and even I think another who knew nothing of the persons involved, but listened to my upset, concerns, frustration, and inability to bring about change when it was getting to a point that one person was going to be further at risk.  I could have taken action in calling upon professional intervention, but the situation was such that it would not be easily discernible what was evolving and had for a long time.  So I prayed, but my own impatience and emotion, hindered my self-control from verbalizing which I did in writing.  

Even if anonymous, someone read it who found it or else one who alerted the subject read it, and thus the person of half of the situation was deeply hurt, and hurt then causes anger, upset, outrage and actions.  So wrong doings, sins even if venial which include lack of wise discretion, lack of ultimate faith in silently leaving the situation with God, causes the person who is in a situation of upset and wrong, then also makes choices in reacting to being essentially accused of doing wrong, even if the person has aspects of issues in which cannot see the wrongs, the rejection, the whatever that in turn has harmed a situation which was the basis of the whole mess to begin with. 

So we see by my even trying to give an example of the ways of sins (venial sins in this case although the one hurt might think it a mortal wounding) that examples become complex, yet the ultimate reality that surfaces after writing or reading the ins-and-outs of the ripple effect of errors, mistakes, wrongs, sins--is that of a mess of chaos.  

And for those (and we all have degrees of this in us) whose modus is needing to have control over situations, others, and life itself, the result of wrong doings no matter the impetus that gets the ball rolling, is that there is loss of control.  The result is loss of peace inner and outer, loss of control over reconciliation, loss of future outcome as sin is very much a riveter of usually bringing the past alive in the present moment in order to try to eradicate it.

On a more concrete note here, a bit more on venial sins....  Venial sins tend to follow along one or two of the same conditions met in mortal sins.  The thought or action is immoral or intrinsically evil; there is full knowledge of these; there is full consent to knowingly commit the wrong, the sin.  So venial sins are minor violations of moral law.  

Venial sins weak the soul but do not kill the grace within the soul.  But venial sins weaken our inner strength and purity of thought and emotion--of soul.  Venial sins--infractions showing our weaknesses in one or more virtues--cause more venial sins in ourselves and in the ones seeing, knowing of, or experiencing the effects of our infractions and weaknesses.  This is the ripple effect of wrong thought and wrong action.  

Our venial sins can cause reaction in others that tempts them to not only their own venial sins in reaction but to mortal sin depending upon how they are affected by even the most minor of sin on our part.  Bullying is one such venial sin that can result in the recipient committing not only venial sin of anger, but can also cause the recipient to act on that anger either toward mortal or grave sin against others or more likely, on themselves.

There are volumes that could be, and indeed are, written about morality in the sense of study of God, or theology, and of sin--mortal and venial, of the consideration of virtues and vices, of mitigating conditions, of discernment and judgment, of consequences, examination of conscience, spiritual guidance, confession, forgiveness given and forgiveness received, forgiveness accepted or rejected.


We can even begin to grasp that such as our own wrong doing--mortal or venial sin--can be a result of someone else's wrong whether or not the persons grasp or are psychologically able to grasp, or of situations from years past and what might trigger us to react in a way that we lose virtue and commit sin whether venial or mortal.  (The labels are simply for our ease in analysis and learning with the goal of understanding and correction over time, in our lives.)

Yet we must not fall to the temptation of recognizing that what we may have done that was wrong and hurtful, was a reaction to what others had done or persisted in that was wrong and hurtful, or that what we or others were doing or thinking that was a later-on reaction from others' actions or ways of being years before, of which the behaviors and thoughts and ways of doing and thinking triggered or in part caused or affected the wrongs or sins later in life.

When sin is involved, no matter if we consider it an error or lapse, a mistake, or a sin of grave matter--we must stop ourselves dead in our tracks and not get into excuses for ourselves.  We cannot analyze nor go through examination of conscience for others; that is not our due process unless asked or employed in that line of work.  We can reason the various aspects and conditions when examining ourselves and what it might have been that triggered our thoughts and caused us to act or speak or write wrongly, or why we harmed others, if we intended to or not.  

When our sins, our wrongs, our vices are involved, we must remain in the present moment and humbly embrace our mea culpa!  I have sinned against my brother and sister, against myself, and against God through my own fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault.

Once we express our remorse and sorrow to those we've hurt or wronged, whether or not the other is able to forgive or also even be able to forget to some degree or other, or for other/s to ask that question of if there is some aspect in myself or themselves that reflects in any particle the wrong, the sin, the other/s committed--we must pick ourselves up and move on with the prayer and resolve to actively work on changing the vices we have and also changing the conditions in which we are tempted to sin. A bully needs to stop bullying as much as the bullied will want to avoid the bully. A spouse who had proven unfaithful will need to either stop the infidelity or accept the wounded spouse will need to decide if can risk further wrongs or can forgive and continue on, or if the unfaithful spouse is being unfaithful due to factors that both are not willing to change.

On another similar but very venial level, someone emailed of upset with returning to a parish FB site and finding inner feelings of unrest and of critical resentment or perhaps more it was boredom in noticing the same persons were yet unable to grasp that faith in God can be of spirit and within.  The women were yet clinging to externals of faith, much as Mary Magdalen tried to hold onto Jesus who said "Do not touch me!  I have resurrected!  I am with you always in spirit and truth!"  

Those on the FB site wrote  of  clinging to such as church bells ringing and their needing to drive in to listen to them as an external show of piety or religious fervor since in our time of COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders no one is to gather, and gather places are to remain closed.  They were going into the church building, with photos posted of the pews roped off other than a small area in which people were to sit for the youngish priest continues to ask them to come and pray.

The person emailing felt guilty for the inner feelings of disagreeing and of sense of passing judgment. Was it wrong?  This is an example of emotions and feelings helping us to discern, and to stop the emotions before taking action such as trying to explain to the FB persons about the kingdom of God is within, and that Jesus is not the church bells, not the sounds of ringing; Jesus is not wanting them to come in and risk getting the virus nor of taking it home to their families; jesus is not lonely for Jesus is through, with, and in us wherever  we are.  No--the person had already tried to explain and comment was censored, was removed, and the posters went on the attack of that person.

The feelings of resentment and some anger were signals that the person had graduated from the level the FB parishioners were yet in soul school.  When we graduate from one grade to the next in school, or when we take a new course in college, do we continue to remain in the previous grade or with those in certain courses when we are to move on to other courses?  No! So do not cling to where others are in their lives when we have been moved on.  And this can be a necessary aspect to ponder and pray about when we have committed a wrong or a sin, or are tempted to in thought before we commit a deed.

The late country singer Kenny Rogers had a well-known hit single titled "The Gambler." A line we may be familiar with is due to the value of the simple, applicable truth-to-life inherent:  

"You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run...."

Often in our lives, when we are faced with temptation to sin, venial especially, or when our virtues are being challenged by the vices we try to keep in check, we need to consider the situation and thoughts we are experiencing, living in, facing.  Or if we have already committed wrongs--sins venial or mortal--and look at "the cards in our hands, the cards we are dealt or picked up ourselves, current and of what aspects of past included.  Determine what to do with "the cards"--keep playing, or fold them.  Continue in the situation, or know the time has come to walk away either in the instant for a few moments, day, or let the consequences unfold and play out.  And in some cases, we need to know to run away from further complications that tempt us to sin in thought, word, and deed.

I advised the person emailing wanting to know if was sin--the person's feelings and thoughts toward what was being written on that FB site--to consider if there was anything the person was benefitting in drawing closer to God, or in further spiritual growth by what was being written?  Why was the person having feelings of unrest and some critical frustration within?  Could it be that it is a simple matter of the person having grown some, or that over time the person's faith had evolved and was a simple matter of time to go forth and have leave-taking of those who are not growing in the same ways or time frame?

Avoidance of occasion of sin, deadly or harmful (for the person who is recipient of our sins might feel it was deadly and killed some part of them, and the person doing the wrong in thought or action can lose a hunk of inner life, very much so, in committing sin)--is a major factor in the spiritual life.  We literally need to be open to learning to play the game of the soul's life in Christ.  We have to learn the rules of charity but also in that charity to know the rule of spiritual detachment to our will and of doing what is best for others and ourselves in avoiding occasions of sin.  

Sometimes it is God's will that we remain in circumstances, situations, relationships, and sometimes God's best and will to graciously have a leave-taking knowing that we never "leave" nor are the others or a situation "left" in a vacuum.  When there is a leaving, at the same time there is a going to or a coming; and that means for all involved.  Releasing means also reforming, re-entering, re-giving.

This has been an especially long post.  I have yet more to write regarding my hermit vocation, of the circumstances of the individuality of variety of hermit experience and ways the Lord forms the unique vocations based upon the unique circumstances as well, very much, as the variety of souls.
Perhaps more on that topic, but for now I'm still having trouble motivating myself to rise from the bed-tomb, despite this now the third day of First Week of Easter and the New Life.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

[I've enlarged my type font due to my eyes weakening with age!  Reality therapy!]