Sin And Penance

EWTN Global Catholic Radio and St. Joseph Communications proudly present Life is Worth Living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen. This 50-part series was recorded on photograph records in the 1960s and the sound quality is sometimes limited. But the word of God spoken by Archbishop Sheen is timeless. And now here is Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Peace be to you. In the last lesson we spoke about St. in general and said that from the natural point of view it was a violation of the law of God. Every St. as a triple effect. First of all, it divides a person from himself. Two from his neighbor and three from God. First of all from himself. Because it makes the soul a kind of a battlefield. After a sin one always feels like a managerie full of wild beasts. Then sin also alienates a man from his neighbor. A man who cannot live with himself cannot live with his neighbor. That is why K. Meen after his sin asked, am I my brother's keeper? Finally it astranges us from God. It gives us the sense of loneliness. In some way we damn up and block up the mind which ought to have communion with God. And the result is that all of the scum and the flots of the mangetum of life are crowded back upon us. Now sin is of two kinds. It can be mortal or venial. Here we speak of personal or actual sins. The difference between the two is very easy to understand. We speak of some unreceiving immortal wound in the physical order. Namely it is one that kills him. If however he is not seriously wounded that would be equivalent to a venial sin. Now in a mortal sin and for those who are in the supernatural order, grace is killed. Divine life is extinguished. That is why in the supernatural order a mortal sin is not just a violation of the Lord God. It is a crucifixion. As we read in the epistle of the Hebrews, would they crucify the Son of God a second time? Sin is the second death because it is the death of the divine life. It is very much like a tree being blasted with lightning. When we fall into mortal sin we lose all of the merits that we gain before, though we can regain them after a sacramental confession just like a tree can revive in the springtime after a very hard winter. A venial sin we said is one that does not kill the divine life but it just simply wounds its slightly. It is something like the tensions between friends that endanger the friendship but never completely break it. But really when one loves one does not make so much a distinction between mortal and venial sin. It is quite wrong to say always is a mortal sin if it is I will not do it. If it is a venial sin I will. Really when you love someone you never make any distinction between a mortal and venial sin. A husband for example does not make any distinction if he loves his wife of slapping her face giving her a bloody nose or biting her ear or slitting her throat. All of them are quite inconceivable to him simply because he loves him. Coming more precisely to the definition of original sin in order that there be or many mortal sin not original in order that there be a mortal sin three conditions must be fulfilled one there must be grievous or serious matter two there must be serious and sufficient reflection and three there must be full consent of the will first there must be grievous apple grievous apple grievous matter the reason I said apple was because I was going to use the word apple as an illustration for example if you stole an apple from the neighbors orchard and he had dozens and dozens of trees that would not be grievous matter but the grievous matter you must not think must always be a sin of commission it can be a sin of omission like not going to mess on Sunday and second there must always be sufficient reflection or full adverted to what one is doing if for example you are visiting a neighbor a friend and you do sleepwalking during the sleep you break a main vase I say vase because it's very expensive it would if it were cheap we would call it a base there's no add burdens to that therefore there cannot be a mortal sin then two persons who are suffering from manian phobias and the life life full adverted finally there must be full consent of the will fear and passion and force can diminish consent I said diminish but they do not destroy it now it's not always easy to see where to know whether or not one is fulfill these three conditions and the best way to do it in confession is to confess them as dubious and then ask the police for his judgment in mortal sin therefore there is a double element a turning to preachers and also a turning from God in order to remedy all of the sins and to atone for all of the sins that are been committed since baptism are best adored at the Institute of the Sacrament of Pain. Matter that we submit in that sacrament constitutes our sins and we submit to the judgment of the church and then there is the other side of the sacrament which is the words of the priest when he absolves us he says they indulge they and they able to absolve all of the pacifics to us in all many pockets at being as good to something on it I absolve you from your sins and the name to follow in the Son of Jesus and then our Lord and not the church instituted the sacrament it did not exist in the Old Testament though in the Old Testament there was an acknowledgement of sins before God when Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit God said to him has thou eaten the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God knew the head why did he ask in order to elicit a confession God said to Kane where is thy brother try to gain to an elicit a confession from Kane by the way Kane refused to go to confession because the answer am I my brother's to the Old Testament too every sinner had to bring a sin offering which was burned in public as it to publicly admit his guilt John the Baptist heard the confession of sins all of these were merely types of the sacrament to come because forgiveness is possible only through the passion and merits in death of our blessed Lord our blessed Lord certainly had the power to forgive sins and he did remember the man who was let down from the roof man who was sick of palsy and our blessed Lord said to him thy sins are forgiven being and the Pharisees that were standing about said who can this be that he talks so blasphemy who can forgive sins but God only they were right only God for can forgive see but how did he do he did it through a human nature now God can communicate that power to other human nature did he communicate that power of forgiveness to his church he conferred it on Peter when he gave him the power of keys and he said to Peter what so ever thou shalt find on earth is bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt lose honor is lost in heaven that power that was given to Peter alone is rightfully in heaven but our blessed Lord also gave to Peter and the Apostles and extension of that power only to Peter were those words same but to Peter and the Apostles after the resurrection our blessed Lord said as he breathed on them as the symbol of the Holy Spirit received the Holy Spirit when you forgive men's sins they are forgiven when you hold them bowed they are bowed it's very clear that our blessed Lord who was saved that all power was given to him he now passes on to them and the very words that he used to Peter and the 11 orderless church implied hearing confessions because if they did not know if they did not hear confessions rather how would they know which sins to forgive and which sins to retain this is possible only because they could make a judgment on the material that was given you may ask will write it out already institute a confession in the telling of sins why shouldn't we bury our head in our hand could you and tell God we're sorry try it with a traffic cop sometimes there's no test of sorrow if you were the judge this suppose we did that for every other court in the world what would happen to justice in our country if all judges and courts and so forth when they had murderers and thieves and dope addicts before them handed out Kleenex seen this pride and the telling of it is the humiliation and therefore a reparation for the sins for the more in the natural order does not a hurtful thing hurt more if it is shut up a boil a tooth that aches we lands boiled by in order to release the pots for our lord said he would land holes in order to release the evil that was in and it does not nature also suggest that as soon as the stomach kicks into itself any foreign substance something that it cannot assimilate for the general good of the body it throws it off the throw too has that instinct it wants to throw off everything that is harmful to it and its destiny from another point of view when a sin is a vow it loses its tenacity it is seen as it is and all of it's hard if we suppress the sin and how many are doing that today it comes out in complex there's a normal way for sin to come out just as there is a very normal way or toothpaste to come out of a tube of toothpaste I suppose you keep the cap on and you squeeze and squeeze the tube where's the paste going to come out you do not know in many cases going to be missing now when we keep the cap on our soul and do not allow what is in us to come out as it normally should when we suppress guilt then it begins to come out in the thousand curious ways and they are all at norm God was very merciful in instituting this act but you may ask very well but why should I confess my sins to a priest maybe he's not as holy as I am that could be very true because we hear the concessions of many things but though you are holier than the priest you have not more powers in the priest you may be a far better citizen than the mayor but he has powers which you do not have our visit lord gave the power to his church did not give it to people that is why a priest is the authorize minister of the sacrament and furthermore it is not the priest who absolves you a man cannot forgive sins is the priest in the sacrament is only the instrument of Christ he gives and loans our lower his voice it is Christ who forgives and the words of absolute means I Christ absolves all you from your sins and furthermore by the ashamed to confess the sins the priest he's gone by what is called the sigilla more the seal of concession because he is only the instrument of our lord the sins that he hears are not his own they are not a part of his knowledge he merely in this instance was the ear of Christ he may not devote any sin that you confess even under the pain of death yeah suppose I kept money in a drawer here in my desk and every day somebody came in and stole some money out of the drawer then that person came to confession to me I could tell that person to return the money because there must always be a validation of that which was wrong but because I learned something in the confession namely that that person stole out of my desk I would never again be allowed to lock the door of that desk none of your sins will ever be told nor can we even speak to you about the mouth out of confession if you for example come in and say that you stole money I could not go up to you afterwards and say oh say remember you told me about the money that you stole from that pickle factory did you ever return it and information is not mine this God and another reason for confessing sins to a priest is this no sin is individual it hurts neighbor and if we belong to the mystical body of Christ it in some way diminishes the charity of the mystical body of Christ every sin hurts the church and because of every sin in some way involves the mystical body of Christ it is fitting and becoming that a representative of the mystical body of Christ restore you again to its unity and to its family in the early church even the penances were public in order to indicate that there wasn't some way and in the very serious way an injury done through the cahau to the mystical body of Christ to the church now let us come into the actual practice of confession before you go into the box to examine your conscience when you examine your conscience you begin with the prayer of the Holy Spirit when lighting you remember that if you zone in the face of God that in particular before the crucifix that we discover are through condition you judge ourselves not by our own standards nor by public opinion not simply by the standards of God himself now you may examine your conscience according to the commandments which is not all of these the best way because it reduces our Christian life to cold duties you have to become legalistic and very calculating we could examine our conscience in the life of virtues also the light of the seven capital sins but in many cases we have to examine our sins according to their number their kind and their circumstances this is a story and it's only only a story one day a group of lumberjacks of Canada came to confession they had not been to confession in about ten years or more they all lined outside of the box one after the other the first one went in he had not examined his conscience so he said that the priest father I have committed every sin a man can commit priest asked did you ever commit murder no he said I did not and is once in I never committed well said the priest and you go outside of the box and examine your conscience again the number the kind and the circumstances of sin as you went out of the box he saw the long line of lumberjacks outside and he said to them no use tonight boys just hearing murder cases and too when you confess in you never involve any other person you cannot for example say I was angry would you ought to know my wife what a lazy old gossip never did at least such a confession would not be sincere now we go into the box and begin the confession as soon as we go in we deal down we bless ourselves and say let's me father for I have sinned then we state how long it has been since our last confession it has been three weeks it has been two weeks it has been a month it has been a year it has been any definite period of time suppose now we will have someone who has not been the confession in 50 years those these 80 years old now what kind of a confession can he make he cannot remember all the the number of sins the light well his confession might be something like this you notice how it is father it has been 50 years since I last went to confession during 20 years of my life I never went to mass I never frequented the sacraments I never made my Easter duty I did not fast many times the day I took in the name of God falsely I used it falsely I also took false in court about five times I was disobedient in a very serious way civil authority to play I assisted the abortion twice I murdered once I was an alcoholic for 10 years I had him out of thoughts certainly every day for about 30 years in my distractions with myself many times for about 10 years while living with my first wife I was guilty of adultery many many times certainly over a period of three years while my first wife was living I married again so I lived in adultery for about five years she is now dead during this time in business I cut corners I underpaid my employees I thought only about making money I never gave to any charities except when I was forced to other public shame I particularly regret once using to send a hundred dollars to the Holy Father for the mission of the world and I have plenty of money I gave myself over to an excessive spirit of amusement theaters dinners parties I can never recall once in my life ever having helped anyone in distress I never gave up my evening once throughout the church I completely neglected my wife in regards to steam and affection I never sent my children to a religious school I let them do as I please they please and I became angry at them for their impiety and now I am suffering from these and all the sins of my past life those which I do not remember but as God sees them I ask, pardon of God and you Father that is a confession with a man away about thirty years this has been life as worth living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen for more information about this series contact St. Joseph Communications at 1-800-526-2151 outside the US call 818-3313-5549 and please join us again next time for life as worth living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen on EWTN Global Catholic Radio