“Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it…For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: ‘Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.’ Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin. Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest. Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices forever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 3, Life in Christ #1855,1857,1859-1861) God has given us a free will to make choices of our own. When we choose to do something we know to be gravely wrong and in opposition to God’s law, we sin mortally and deprive ourselves of the sanctifying grace necessary to be in the “state of grace.” As the catechism states, certain conditions can “diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense,” which can diminish our culpability, but those conditions must be unintentional. “Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart” can often flow from the choice we make to ignore our conscience, or not to form our conscience properly in the first place by rejecting God’s law and the teaching of his Church. As the last line indicates, we can judge the objective gravity of an offense, but the judgment of persons is left to God alone. Only he knows a person’s heart and the true knowledge and intention of the sinner. The line that stood out to me as I read the last paragraph was “…for our freedom has the power to make choices forever, with no turning back.” May we reject those choices which separate us from God and lead to eternal death, and always choose rightly to grow closer to him and remain in the state of grace that leads us to the fullness of his Kingdom.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 04:15:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015