SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Sin – disobedience; transgression of God’s law (I John 3:4; James 4:17); “missing the mark”

Sins of commission (“what I have done”) and omission (“what I have failed to do”)

Original sin (Romans 7:18b-20) and personal sin

Mortal sin and venial sin

Seven Deadly or Capital Sins were catalogued by Pope Gregory I at the end of the 6th century.
They are: Anger, Envy, Lust, Pride, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed.

They are capital sins because they are the cause and source of all the other sins.

All these sins make us unhappy in the long run (short term gratification; long term unhappiness).

We are all guilty (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12; I John 1:8).

ANGER

Anger is the desire for revenge.

We can overcome anger with meekness (Prov. 15:1), patience, and forgiveness.

The First Word: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

Rather than demanding an “eye for an eye” we must love our enemies (Matt. 5:44).

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (and It’s All Small Stuff).

Anger is not always a sin (e.g. righteous indignation in response to injustice, etc.)

Ignorance is the reason we should forgive others; we “know not” the other person’s heart, so we
shouldn’t judge (Matt. 7:1; Luke 6:37).

Forgiveness has no limits (Matt. 18:21-22).

 ENVY

Envy is sorrow at someone else’s good fortune.

It is an inordinate desire for power, influence, and possessions. We should not envy or covet
material things (Matt. 6: 19-20; Philippians 4:11). We should be like children (Matt. 18:3-5).

There is also a benevolent form of envy (a desire, or zeal, for spiritual things).

We can overcome envy by showing kindness and praising others when they succeed and by
showing pity and compassion when they fail.

Envy is the source of our wrong judgments about others.

The Second Word: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43)

The Thief on the Left envied Christ’s power; he wanted to be taken down from the cross.

The Good Thief asked to be taken up; he envied nothing and received everything (Heaven).

LUST

Lust is an inordinate love of the pleasures of the flesh, as opposed to the normal desires that all
human beings have. God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28).

Lust is the objectification of another person in order to gratify one’s own carnal desires.

Beware of lustful thoughts (Matt. 5: 27-28). We live in an age of carnality (Today, one in two
marriages ends in divorce).

Lust, like all the Deadly Sins, leads to other sins. For example, David’s lust caused him to
commit adultery with Bathsheba and murder Uriah.

The virtue that counterbalances lust is chastity (the example of Christ: He was born of a virgin;
He lived a chaste life; in His Third Word He gave us His mother; she thus became the mother of
all those He redeemed: Woman, behold thy son; behold thy mother (John 19:26, 27).

The solution to the sin of lust is to seek a higher form of love, something higher to love than the
flesh. We can find it on the Cross (Christ) and beneath it (Mary).
 PRIDE

Pride, an excessive love of self, was the primordial sin. It caused the fall of Lucifer and of Adam
and Eve.

Pride is the source of all the other sins.

Self esteem and confidence in oneself and a healthy sense of pride in family, country, etc. are
good things.

Pride expresses itself in a swollen ego, being puffed up (I Corinthians 8:1b). Pride is vanity
(Ecclesiastes 1:2).

We put too much emphasis on the physical and not enough on the spiritual (I John 2:16).

We can counterbalance pride with the virtue of humility. Jesus showed us how to be humble.

Jesus made reparation for the proud, for those who say they don’t need God, by allowing
Himself to feel totally abandoned by God (the Fourth Word from the Cross: My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).

GLUTTONY

Gluttony is taking immoderate pleasure in food or drink. The key word here is immoderate.

When we overindulge, we are being wasteful. The money we spend on excess food and drink
could have gone to feed the poor. Sodom was guilty of this sin (Ezekiel 16:49).

A sign of societal decay is when people pay more attention to their bodies than to their souls.

Christ made reparation for gluttony with the Fifth Word: I thirst (John 19:28). In addition to His
physical thirst He thirsted for love, He wanted to be thirsted for. He alone can quench our
spiritual thirst.

Dieting vs. fasting. Dieting is for the body. Fasting is for the soul. What rules our lives – the
things of the world or the things of the Kingdom of God?

The antidote to gluttony is the virtue of temperance. Asceticism (abstinence and fasting).
 SLOTH

Sloth is “a malady of the will that causes us to neglect our duties.” It manifests itself as lethargy,
indifference, apathy. It is a sin of omission (“what I have failed to do”).

Work seen as a curse or punishment (Genesis 3:17-19). Another view – the dignity of work; it
gives meaning and purpose to our lives (II Thessalonians 3:6-13).

Jesus completed the work He was sent to do. The Sixth Word (John 19:30): “It is finished.”

“His work was done. But ours is not” (p. 83).

Parable of the talents (Matt. 25: 14-30) – the “good and faithful” servants were rewarded and the
“wicked and slothful” servant was punished.

Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow Him.

Eternal punishment awaits those who fail to minister to the needy (Matt. 25:41-46).

Remedy for sloth is diligence (for example, by performing one of the corporal works of mercy).

GREED

Greed (avarice, covetousness) is “inordinate love of the things of this world.” We need money
for our livelihoods. Greed is the pursuit of wealth as an end rather than as a means.

“The love of money is the root of all evil” (I Timothy 6:10).

Earthly treasures do not satisfy the longing of our souls (Matthew 6:19-21).

The antidote for greed is generosity. Jesus gave away all he had, and in the Seventh Word He
gave up the only thing He had left – His Spirit: “Father, into Thy hands I commend my
Spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Guard against greed – when we leave this life we can only take our soul with us, nothing more.

We were never meant to be perfectly satisfied in this life. Perfection, completion, and fulfillment
will come only in the next life, when we are in Heaven with God.