Tag Archives: The Beatitudes

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 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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The Beatitudes Confront the Seven Deadly Sins

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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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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Living Virtue Well in Our Marriages and Families

22 Saturday Feb 2020

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A year ago, we ran a series of Lenten reflections on the Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and love. This year, we will be focusing on two areas: 1) The four Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance and 2) How to counteract the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, avarice (greed), envy, wrath, sloth, lust, and gluttony with the seven beatitudes of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-12).

In our post-Christian culture, we no longer consider virtue an important aspect of life. All great cultures of the past ended in ruin when virtue was thrown by the wayside. Our culture is at the precipice of destruction. It is only virtuous living, especially in our marriages and families, that our culture may avert disaster.

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