Category: SIN

  • It may be useful to train oneself, initially, to the notion that
    sudden death and Judgment are imminent. This is because
    the principle of “love” might not be attractive to a frivolous person while, on the other hand, fear mixed with trust might be a viable starting point; experiencing love will follow.

    From Heart to Heart
    Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty

  • When you sin, blame your thought, not your action. For had your intellect not run ahead, your body would not have followed.

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.

    It is therefore possible to lose as much as we gain by making your man a coward; he may learn too much about himself! There is, of course, always the chance, not of chloroforming the shame, but of aggravating it and producing Despair. This would be a great triumph. It would show that he had believed in, and accepted, the Enemy’s forgiveness of his other sins only because he himself did not fully feel their sinfulness—that in respect of the one vice which he really understands in its full depth of dishonour he cannot seek, nor credit, the Mercy. But I fear you have already let him get too far in the Enemy’s school, and he knows that Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it.

    As to the actual technique of temptations to cowardice, not much need be said. The main point is that precautions have a tendency to increase fear. The precautions publicly enjoined on your patient, however, soon become a matter of routine and this effect disappears. What you must do is to keep running in his mind (side by side with the conscious intention of doing his duty) the vague idea of all sorts of things he can do or not do, inside the framework of the duty, which seem to make him a little safer. Get his mind off the simple rule (I’ve got to stay here and do so-and-so’) into a series of imaginary life lines (‘If A happened—though I very much hope it won’t—I could do B—and if the worst came to the worst, I could always do C’). Superstitions, if not recognised as such, can be awakened. The point is to keep him feeling that he has some-thing, other than the Enemy and courage the Enemy supplies, to fall back on, so that what was intended to be a total commitment to duty becomes honeycombed all through with little unconscious reservations. By building up a series of imaginary expedients to prevent ‘the worst coming to the worst’ you may produce, at that level of his will which he is not aware of, a determination that the worst shall not come to the worst. Then, at the moment of real terror, rush it out into his nerves and muscles and you may get the fatal act done before he knows what you’re about. For remember, the act of cowardice is all that matters; the emotion of fear is, in itself, no sin and, though we enjoy it, does us no good,

    The Screwtape Letters
    C. S. Lewis

  • From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.

    When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over.

    The Screwtape Letters
    C. S. Lewis

  • As soon as she does anything wrong, everybody must know it. Yesterday, not meaning to do so, she tore off a small piece of wallpaper. She wanted to tell her Father immediately, and you would have pitied her to see her anxiety. When he returned four hours later and everybody had forgotten about it, she ran at once to Marie, saying: ‘Marie, hurry and tell Papa I tore the paper.’

    Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

  • Better that it create in me a sense of my own responsibility before the world, which can lead me through faith in God into holiness of life, peace of soul, and joy of heart. Dostoevsky captures this concept in The Brothers Karamazov, when the Elder Zosima recounts a conversation between his dying brother Markel and his mother: “[ I] tell you, dear mother, that each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all.” . . . “How can it be . . . that you are the most guilty before everyone? There are murderers and robbers, and how have you managed to sin so that you should accuse yourself most of all?” “Dear mother, heart of my heart . . . you must know that verily each of us is guilty before everyone, for everyone and everything! I do not know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it pains me. And how could we have lived before, getting angry, and not knowing anything?” Thus he awoke every day with more and more tenderness, rejoicing and all atremble with love.

    How to Be a Sinner
    Peter Bouteneff

  • He is describing what ideally happens when we place ourselves in front of goodness: not destructive shame, but the sense of possibility. The built-in potential for good is ultimately a sense of the true inner self. It contains the sense of how sin is utterly contrary to that inner self.

    How to Be a Sinner
    Peter Bouteneff

  • When I go without the nourishment of truth, I will crave filling my spiritual hunger with temporary physical pleasures, thinking they will somehow treat the loneliness inside.

    Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
    Lysa TerKeurst

  • Indeed, when we’re harmed by others, we feel sorrow, but not when we harm ourselves. God demonstrates that those unjustly harmed by others gain renown, while those who harm themselves receive injury. This distinction encourages us to endure external injustices courageously but avoid self-inflicted harm.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • No man will do you harm, if you do not deal a blow to yourself. If you have not sin, ten thousand swords may threaten you, but God will snatch you away out of their reach. But if you have sin, even should you be in Paradise you will be cast out.

    Saint John Chrysostom
    HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
    On the Vanity of Riches