A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion/Chap. IV. The Violation of the Commandments
CHAPTER IV.
The Violation of the Commandments.
§ 1. On Sin in general.
I. What is actual sin?
Actual sin is a wilful violation of the Law of God.
2. In how many ways may we sin?
We may sin, 1. By bad thoughts, desires, words, and actions; and 2. Also by the omission of the good which we are bound to do.
3. Are all sins equally grievous?
No; there are grievous sins, which are called mortal; and there are lesser ones, which are called venial.
Some sins in the Holy Scripture are compared to motes, and others to beams (Matt. vii. 3); and it is also written of the just man that 'he shall fall seven times' (Prov. xxiv. 16).
4. When do we commit mortal sin?
We commit mortal sin when we wilfully violate the Law of God in a matter which we know or believe to be important.
5. Why are grievous sins called ' mortal ' sins?
Because grievous sin deprives the soul of supernatural life — that is, sanctifying grace — and renders us guilty of eternal death, or everlasting damnation.
'Sin, when it is completed, begetteth death' (James i. 15). 'I know thy works, that thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead' (Apoc. iii. 1).
6. When do we commit venial sin?
We commit venial sin when we transgress the Law of God in a matter not of grave importance, or when our transgression is not quite voluntary.
7. When is the transgression not quite voluntary?
When with our understanding we do not sufficiently perceive the evil, or, with our will, we do not fully consent to it.
8. Why are lesser sins called 'venial' sins?
Because they can be forgiven more easily, and even without confession.
9. Should we dread only mortal sins?
No; we should dread and carefully avoid any sin, whether it be grievous or venial, as the greatest evil on earth.
'How can I do this wicked thing, and sin against my God?' (Gen. xxxix. 9).
10. What should deter us from committing sin?
The consideration of its malice and evil consequences.
11. In what does the malice of mortal sin principally consist?
In this: that mortal sin is —
1. A grievous offence against God, our Supreme Lord, and the most criminal disobedience to His holy will;
2. The most shameful ingratitude to God, our greatest Benefactor and best Father;
3. Detestable infidelity to our most amiable Redeemer, and contempt of His graces and merits.
1. 'Thou hast broken my yoke, and thou saidst: I will not serve' (Jerem. ii. 20). 2. 'Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken: I have brought up children and exalted them; but they have despised me' (Isai. i. 2). 3. Of those 'who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and are fallen away [from God by mortal sin],' St. Paul says 'that they crucify again to themselves the Son of God, and make Him a mockery' (Heb. vi. 4-6). 'If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema' (1 Cor. xviii. 22).
12. Can we comprehend the full malice of an offence against God?
We cannot, because we do not comprehend the infinite greatness and goodness of the Lord our God, who is offended by sin.
13. What most of all shows us the malice of an offence against God?
1. The grievous punishment of the wicked angels and of our first parents; 2. The everlasting punishment in hell which every mortal sin deserves; and 3. The most bitter Passion and Death which the Only Son of God suffered for our sins.
14. What are the consequences of mortal sin?
Mortal sin, 1. Separates us from God, and deprives us of His love and friendship; 2. It disfigures in us the image of God, and disturbs the peace of our conscience; 3. It robs us of all merits, and of our heirship to Heaven; and 4. It draws upon us the judgments of God, and, lastly, eternal damnation.
'They that commit sin and iniquity are enemies of their own soul' (Tob. xii. 10). — Examples: Cain, Antiochus, Judas. Parable of the rich man.
15. Why should we also carefully avoid venial sin?
1. Because venial sin also is an offence against God, and is, therefore, after mortal sin, the greatest of all evils;
2. Because it weakens the life of the soul, and hinders many graces which God intends to give us; and
3. Because it also brings many punishments of God upon us, and leads us by degrees to grievous sins.
'He that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater' (Luke xvi. 10). 'Behold how small a fire what a great wood it kindleth' (James iii. 5).
Application. 'My son, all the days of thy life have God in thy mind, and take heed thou never consent to sin. . . . We lead indeed a poor life; but we shall have many good things, if we fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is good ' (Tob. iv. 6, 23 ).
§ 2. On the different kinds of sin.
16. What particular kinds of sin are there?
1. The seven Capital or Deadly Sins; 2. The six sins against the Holy Ghost; 3. The four sins crying to Heaven for vengeance; and 4. The nine ways of being accessory to another person's sins.
17. Which are the seven Capital Sins?
1. Pride; 2. Covetousness; 3. Lust; 4. Anger; 5. Gluttony; 6. Envy; and 7. Sloth.
18. Are these sins always grievous?
They are grievous sins as often as a weighty duty either to God, our neighbor, or ourselves is violated by them.
19. Why are they called Capital Sins?
Because they are also vices; that is, main sources from which all other sins take their rise.
20. When do we sin by 'Pride'?
When we think too much of ourselves, do not give God the honor due to Him, and despise our neighbor.
From pride spring especially: Vanity, ambition, hypocrisy, disobedience, and resistance to superiors; coldness and hardheartedness towards inferiors; an inordinate desire of ruling; quarrel and strife; ingratitude, envy, cruelty, infidelity and heresy, hatred of God. — Examples: Lucifer, Nabuchodonosor, Holofernes, Aman, Herod, the Pharisee, etc. 'Pride is hateful before God and men. It is the beginning of all sin; he that holdeth it shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end' (Ecclus. x. 7, 15).
21. When do we sin by 'Covetousness'?
When we inordinately seek and love money or other worldly goods, and are hard-hearted towards those who are in distress.
Covetousness, or avarice, leads people to an excessive care for earthly things, to hardness of heart, lying, perjury, theft, fraud, usury, simony, treachery, superstitious seeking after hidden treasures, to manslaughter and murder. — Examples: Achan, Ahab, Giezi, Judas, Ananias, and Saphira. 'There is not a more wicked thing than to love money; for such a one setteth even his own soul to sale' (Ecclus. x. 10). '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' (1 Tim, vi. 9).
22. How do we sin by 'Lust'?
By indulging in immodest or impure thoughts, desires, words, or actions.
The ordinary effects of lust, or impurity, are: Aversion to prayer and to all that is good; excessive fondness for amusement and dissipation; neglect of the duties of our state of life; great desire of attracting notice; insensibility and cruelty; all sorts of shameless excesses and of unnatural crimes; seduction of innocence; false promises and oaths; theft, ruin of health and of domestic happiness; enmity, duels, suicide or self-murder; and likewise atheism, sacrilege, worship of the devil, madness, and despair. (See the Sixth Commandment of God.)
23. When do we sin by ' Anger'?
When we are exasperated at that which displeases us, fly into a passion, and suffer ourselves to be carried away by a violent desire of revenge.
Anger leads to hatred, enmity, quarrelling, cursing, blaspheming, reviling, and to all the sins and crimes against the Fifth Commandment of God. — Examples: Esau, whilst in anger, designs to kill his brother Jacob; Absalom kills his brother Amnon. 'Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice' (Ephes. iv. 31).
24. When do we sin by ' Gluttony '?
When we eat and drink too much, or when, out of time and in an inordinate manner, we long for eating and drinking.
From this vice proceed: Daintiness, profusion, idleness, drunkenness, destruction of domestic peace and comfort, indecent jests and buffooneries, lewdness, adultery, debauchery, impenitence; and likewise cursing, railing, striking, and murdering. — Examples: The rich man (Luke xvi. 19, etc.); King Baltassar. ' Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and that day [of judgment] come upon you suddenly' (Luke xxi. 34). 'Their [the intemperate] God is their belly' (Philip, iii. 19).
25. When do we sin by 'Envy'?
When we repine at our neighbor's good, and are sad when he is in possession of temporal or spiritual blessings, and rejoice when he is deprived of them.
Envy produces: Ingratitude and murmuring against God, blasphemy, blindness, whispering and calumny; hatred, desire of revenge, deceit and knavery, persecution and murder. — Examples: Satan, Cain, the brothers of Joseph, Saul, the Pharisees. 'By the envy of the devil death came into the world; and they follow him that are of his side' (Wisd. ii. 2i, 25).
26. When do we sin by 'Sloth'?
When we give way to our natural repugnance to labor and exertion, and thus neglect our duties.
27. What sort of sloth is particularly hateful to God?
Lukewarmness, or laziness in whatsoever concerns the service of God or the salvation of our soul. Therefore God says: 'I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth ' (Apoc. iii. 15, 16).
The effects of sloth in general are: Neglect of the duties of our calling, ruin of property, lying, deceit, effeminacy, and a great many sins against the Sixth and Seventh Commandments. 'Idleness hath taught much evil' (Ecclus. xxxiii. 29). ' Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom' (Prov. vi. 6). The effects of Spiritual Sloth, or Lukewarmness, are: Aversion to all religious exercises, contempt of the word of God and of all means of grace, irritation at salutary admonitions, love of the world, pusillanimity, impenitence, infidelity. — Examples: The slothful servant; the foolish virgins (Matt. XXV.).
28. What benefit should we reap from the doctrine of the Capital Sins?
We should carefully avoid them as the sources of all evil, and most earnestly endeavor to acquire the opposite virtues.
Application. Every morning, when you get up, resolve to guard most carefully during the day against your chief fault. At night examine your conscience on it; and if you have failed, repent, and purpose to confess it as soon as possible.
§3. The different kinds of Sin (continued).
29. Which are the Six Sins against the Holy Ghost?
1. Presumption of God's mercy; 2. Despair; 3. Resisting the known Christian truth; 4. Envy at another's spiritual good; 5. Obstinacy in sin; and 6. Final impenitence.
Examples: Cain, Pharao, the Pharisees, Elymas the magician (Acts xiii.).
30. Why are they called sins against the Holy Ghost?
Because by them we resist, in an especial manner, the Holy Ghost, since we knowingly and willingly despise, reject, or abuse His grace.
'You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you also' (Acts vii. 51).
31. Why should we particularly avoid these sins?
Because they obstruct the entrance of God's grace into the heart, and therefore hinder our conversion, or render it very difficult.
Speaking of these sins, Jesus Christ says 'that they shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come ' (Matt. xii. 32); that is to say, that they are hardly ever forgiven, because it is very, very seldom that people truly repent of them.
32. Which are the Four Sins crying to Heaven for vengeance?
1. Wilful murder; 2. Sodomy; 3. Oppression of the poor, of widows and orphans; 4. Defrauding laborers of their wages.
1. 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth' (Gen. iv. 10). 2. 'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. We will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord' (Gen. xviii. 20, and xix. 13). 3. 'Do not the widow's tears run down the cheek, and her cry against him that causeth them to fall? From the cheek they go up even to Heaven' (Ecclus. XXXV. 18, 19). 4. 'Behold the hire of the laborers, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth, and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth' (James v. 4).
33. Why are they called sins crying to Heaven for vengeance?
Because, on account of their heinous malice, they cry, as it were, for vengeance, and call on Divine Justice to punish them signally.
34. In how many ways may we become accessory to another person's sin, and be answerable for it?
In these nine ways: 1. By counsel; 2. By command; 3. By consent; 4. By provocation; 5. By praise or flattery; 6. By silence;1 7. By connivance;2 8. By partaking; 9. By defence of the ill done.
1 When we could and should prevent another's sin either by kindly admonishing him or by giving information to his parents, his pastor, etc. 'If thou declare it not to the wicked, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand' (Ezec. iii. 18). -When we could and should punish the sinner. Thus Heli sinned, ' because he knew that his sons did wickedly, and did not chastise them' (1 Kings iii. 13).
35. Why are we answerable for the sin which another commits?
Because, in any of the above ways, we are either the cause of his sin or co-operate with him in it, and thus are as guilty before God as if we had committed it our:3elves; or, it may be, even more so.
'Not only they that do such things are worthy of death, but they also that consent to them that do them' (Rom. i. 32).
Application. Always receive wholesome admonitions willingly and gratefully. Never participate in the sins of others; on the contrary, endeavor, to the utmost of your power, to hinder them; and when, for that reason, you are to reveal them, do not say: 'I do not like to denounce others, because I should not like them to denounce me.' Ought you, then, to be sorry, if some one were to snatch from your hands the knife with which you were about to kill yourself?