Category Archives: Marriage

An Ocean of Mercy

19 Sunday Apr 2020

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Divine Mercy mosaic

You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.[1]

We are living in unprecedented times. We are faced with a global pandemic the likes of which the world has not experienced in a century. Stay-in-place orders are common in most areas of the United States. Schools and businesses are closed. Parents are struggling with schooling children while working from home themselves. Tensions are rising and patience is wearing thin. Despair and hopelessness are at all-time highs. And with churches unable to celebrate Mass, the domestic church has become the norm for families.

In the midst of all this, today the Church celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday. St. Maria Faustina Kowalska was a Polish nun who experienced apparitions of Jesus. She recorded these apparitions and messages from Jesus in a detailed diary. Her diary records 14 occasions when Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday) be observed. Here is one of those messages…

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Confronting Gluttony

12 Sunday Apr 2020

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Blessed are the Persecuted

Praised be Jesus Christ! He is risen! Jesus has conquered sin and death so that we may have abundant life with Him in heaven for all eternity. Thanks be to God for this most wonderful gift!

This Lent we have taken a journey through the Cardinal Virtues, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Beatitudes. Today we will look at the last Deadly Sin of gluttony.

Gluttony consumes an excessive amount of worldly goods, be it food or alcohol. Contrast this with being persecuted which is being deprived of even basic necessities to sustain life. While gluttony is certainly not the greatest of the deadly sins, when combined with avarice and lust, it perpetuates the illusion that our emptiness can be filled with things of the world.[1]

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Confronting Lust

10 Friday Apr 2020

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Pure in Heart

On this Good Friday, we are nearing the end of our journey through The Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Beatitudes. On this day, Jesus bore excruciating pain and death on the Cross to free us from slavery to sin. Thank Him today for the free gift of salvation. Isaiah prophesied about the Suffering Servant, Jesus, whose mission was to free us from sin and death…

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

We have discussed the Deadly Sins of pride, avarice, envy, anger, and sloth. Today we will look at the Deadly Sin of lust and on Easter Sunday, we will conclude this study with the Deadly Sin of gluttony.

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Confronting Sloth

05 Sunday Apr 2020

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Righteousness

Previously, we have addressed the Deadly Sins of pride, avarice, envy, and anger. This week, we will look at the antidote to the Deadly Sin of sloth. We are not talking about the slow-moving mammals which spend their days hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rain forests of South and Central America. Sloth is defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as “‘sorrow about spiritual good’, or joylessness when faced with God as our supreme joy.”[1]

Sloth is a sin against charity, one of the three theological virtues, which directs our hearts toward God. “Faith, hope, and charity are our spiritual glue,” says Peter Kreeft. “Whatever dissolves this glue is mortally sinful; whatever can remove faith, hope, and charity can kill God’s life in our soul. And sloth does just that.”[2] Sloth robs us of our thirst for God, our desire for Him as our ultimate good. A slothful person stops seeking God, complacent in the matters of the faith. In response to God’s offer of eternal salvation and friendship with Him, sloth says, “I’m good. Thanks, but no thanks.”

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Confronting Anger

29 Sunday Mar 2020

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Blessed are the Peacemakers

He that is angry without cause, shall be in danger; but he that is angry with cause, shall not be in danger.[1] St. John Chrysostom

Anger is one of the Seven Deadly Sins but not all anger is a sin. Anger is an emotion and emotions by themselves are not sinful or virtuous. An emotion will cease or flourish only at the discretion of the will. Peter Kreeft in his book Growing in Virtue offers this distinction between the two…

The commonest way in which the will comes in to make an emotion sinful or virtuous is by consent, which is basically the will’s approval or go-ahead to an emotion…What makes the emotion of anger into the sin of anger are two things. First, as we have seen, there must be the involvement of the will. Second, the anger must be inordinate, this is, wrong, irrational, too strong for the occasion or the person we are angry at.[2]

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Confronting Envy

22 Sunday Mar 2020

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Ulm-Muenster-BessererKapelleFenster-BruderMord_Cain killing Abel

Cain killing Abel, Hans Acker, c. 1430, Ulm Münster Cathedral

For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 1 John 3:11-12

Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God, Cain’s was not. It was the interior disposition of Cain’s heart toward his brother that led him to sin. It was the sin of envy that festered in Cain’s heart, leading to anger, and ultimately the murder of his brother.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines envy as sorrow for another’s good.[1] Envy is not the greatest sin but “it is the only one that gives the sinner no pleasure at all,” says Peter Kreeft in his book Back to Virtue. “It causes nothing but pain and sorrow. Thus it shows more clearly than other sins two profound truths about the nature of sin: that it removes our joy and that it is deceptive,” he adds. “Envy removes joy because envy is the opposite of gratitude, and gratitude is the seedbed of joy.” [2]

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Confronting Avarice

15 Sunday Mar 2020

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avarice_stained_glass

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 Timothy 6:10

This week, we will take a look at the vice of avarice and its opposing virtue mercy. Avarice is the immoderate desire for extreme wealth and material goods. In ancient times, it was known as “covetousness;” today it is known as “greed.” It is natural for man to desire material goods as a means to the basic necessities of life, but avarice turns these goods into gods. “Christian tradition ranks…[avarice]…ahead of lust and second only to pride in the list of all-time spiritual villains,”[1] says Peter Kreeft in his book Back to Virtue.

“Avarice has two parts,” says Kreeft, “greed to get what we don’t have and greed to keep what we have.” “The two opposites of avarice are 1) contentment, voluntary poverty and 2) liberality, generosity, having mercy on others.”[2]

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Confronting Pride

08 Sunday Mar 2020

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Young Nun in her Cell_Cesare Laurenti_19 cent

Young Nun in her Cell, Cesare Laurenti, 19th Century

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3

This week, we will take a look at the deadly sin or the vice of pride and its antidote, poverty of spirit.

Pride is the greatest sin. It was the first sin in all of creation, causing Satan to rebel against God. Satan fell because he could not accept God’s plan to divinize human beings. Satan could not attack God, so he retaliated against that which God loves most, us.

Pride is the also the first sin of Adam and Eve. Desiring to be like God, they fell for Satan’s deception that God did not have their best interests at heart. This is Satan’s game plan. Time and time again, he tries to convince us that God cannot be trusted with our happiness; and we must follow our own path to achieve happiness.

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The Beatitudes Confront the Seven Deadly Sins

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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sermon+on+the+mount

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:1-12

The greatest sermon ever given is undoubtedly Jesus’ Sermon of the Mount. It is a treatise on joy. There is no better place to explore the blessedness of virtue than in this sermon and the Beatitudes. Blessedness, or beatitude, is the greatest aim of the human person, our greatest good. Every person seeks this blessedness but not all find it. Jesus has given us a roadmap to blessedness in the opening to His Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7), the Beatitudes.

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The Cardinal Virtues

26 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Cardinal_Virtues_Stained_Glass

The four cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Cardinal is the Latin word for “hinge.” All of the other virtues hinge around these four virtues. This includes the lesser virtues which are corollaries of these and the higher theological virtues of faith, hope, and love which could be called the fruit of the cardinal virtues.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides concise definitions for these four virtues:

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