A Lenten Reflection on that Predominant Fault You Haven't Conquered Yet

Sloth from The Seven Deadly Sins by Hieronymus Bosch

Have you ever considered the question, "What is my predominant sin/fault and how can I subdue it?" There are seven deadly sins and most of us are tempted more strongly by some vices than others. And, of course, at different seasons of life, some hold more sway. 

Lenten Meditation on Anger: Is it a Virtue or a Vice?

Lent is a good time to work on developing our virtues and squelching our vices. So let's consider one of the seven deadly sins, anger. What is it and can anger ever be a good thing?

   In view of the fact that God often expressed anger toward the evil behavior of the Israelites and Christ expressed anger toward the money changers in the temple and the hypocrisy of the pharisees, anger cannot be a universal evil. Fr. James Schall has an interesting article on the Catholic Thing discussing anger. You may be surprised at some of what he says:

Discussing Sloth, One of the Seven Deadly Sins

My husband and I were talking about sloth this morning. The subject originated from the fact that Larry is reading a book on the seven deadly sins combined with a recent conversation among friends where someone described getting away with purchasing an expensive item for a fraction of its cost due to a cashier's error. The person telling the story was describing the behavior of someone else but was there and knew about the event without challenging him to go back and pay the real cost of the item. Now how does a story about theft get us talking about sloth?

Many people (myself included for a long time) don't understand the nature of sloth. It's laziness, of course,

Do you ever think about Sodom and Gomorrah?

At adoration last night I was reading about Abraham and the angels who visited him on their way to annhilate Sodom and Gomorrah. It got me thinking about the cities on the plain and their sinful lifestyles. It's pretty significant that God couldn't even find ten good people to redeem the others. Those two cities represent in my mind the epitome of the culture of death.

What do you think that means? Well, I doubt there were many children in the cities. With sodomy being a significant sin, many people were engaging in depraved and sterile sex. On top of that, what gods were these folks worshipping? Baal and Molech probably who demanded human sacrifice. So the poor little ones who managed to be born were likely butchered and thrown into the fire along with the sick and elderly to assuage the bloodthirsty pagan gods.

Not a pretty picture, eh? But don't be too smug. It looks amazingly like our own . The pagan altars at Planned Parenthood make the Old Testament atrocities look tame. The bloody pagan sacrifices were downright moderate compared to our day-in, day-out love affair with child-killing and euthanasia of the weak. As for their depraved sex, we have our own poster children like the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" and the S & M crowd, the gay pride champs, and the transvestite beauty queens. What's more, our sexual indulgence isn't limited to same sex perversion. The porn industry is double edged. Whatever your sick fantasy, heterosexual or homosexual, wallow in it in the privacy of your home. As in the first century, you can still know Christians by the way they love one another beginning with life-long fidelity in marriage that is open to life, welcomes children, and cares for the sick and aged. How many families fit that category?

The big question remains. If Abraham asked God today for the equivalent of "ten good people" to save our "city," would he find them? I hope so and I'm confident that, with the growing focus on Eucharistic Adoration and the young faithful religious congregations like the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist and the Wyoming Carmelite monks, that God's fiery judgment would be, if not aborted, at least delayed. We need more time to convert this cold culture of death. May God grant it to us. And may our prayer, sacrifice, and witness touch the hard hearts of those enslaved in deadly sin. The repentant sinner has the capacity to be the greatest saint.

P.S. Have you been to Confession lately?

Disordered Attachments and the Spiritual Life

I'm engaged in an interesting exchange with a homosexual man in the comment section of one of the posts. It got me thinking this morning about disordered attachments. Many in our culture suffer from disordered attachments to sex, sins of lust. Fornication, adultery, masturbation, sodomy, pornography, contraception, same sex acts --.sins against chastity are as common as sand at the beach.

But lust isn't the only sin. How many of us have disordered attachments to food, alcohol, money, "stuff", even our beds. Lust is only one of the seven deadly sins. Greed, gluttony, anger and sloth aren't exactly rare. Envy is pretty common. And pride is a root sin for most, if not all, of us. So there are plenty of things for each of us to work on.

I recently cut out a saying by Cardinal John Newman from my Magnificat prayer book and taped it to the mirror so I would read it often.

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first-- do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God's glory; say the rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

That's quite a daily regimen. I'm working on it.