Venial Sin

By Fred Vilbig 

Here we are in Lent. We are called in Lent to repentance. But repentance from what? I’m not such a bad guy. I’m OK, and for purposes of this post, I am going to assume that you are OK, too, although if I really thought about it … wait, I’m getting distracted.

In our society, we have really lost a sense of our sinfulness. Peter Kreeft, in his book Making Sense Out of Suffering, talks about how unlike ancient societies, we think of ourselves as basically good. He argues that we are basically rotten with a residue of goodness since we are made in the image and likeness of God.

But it is interesting to me that even in our highly secular society that is drowning in relativism, we still seem to recognize certain serious sins. Although the church does not actually have a list of mortal sins, people generally acknowledged that murder, rape, and these kinds of sins are “mortal” sins. On the spiritual side, we can probably throw in missing Mass on Sunday or demonic worship.

In the Bible, St. John in his first epistle distinguishes between what we would call venial sins, and those that he calls “deadly” or mortal. 1 John 5:16–17. St. Thomas Aquinas explained that for a sin to be mortal, three conditions had to be present:

· grave matter;

· full knowledge; and

· deliberate consent.

These are grave offenses against the love of God, either directly or indirectly.

But what about venial sins? These are the little sins we commit every day: little white lies; fudging on some project at work; inflating our expense account; talking about people behind their backs; those minor things we do where “no one is really hurt.” How serious can those really be?

The problem, of course, is that Jesus told us that we should be perfect even as Our Heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48. That is further complicated if we think about the perfection of God.

I think in our contemporary Church (and even more so in our society), we try to over humanize Jesus. Yes, He is True God and True Man, but we seem to downplay the divine nature of Jesus. We like to think of him more as a great moral teacher.

But I think it is a serious error to ignore or even just minimize the divine. And in our reflection on sin, we need to keep in mind that God is the perfection of all perfections. He is perfect in love, beyond anything that we can ever imagine. He is perfect in beauty beyond anything we can possibly imagine. And yes, He is perfect in holiness beyond anything we can ever possibly imagine. And it is that perfect holiness that makes even venial sins, so horrible.

In a series of lectures that were published under the title “Anglican Difficulties,” Blessed John Cardinal Newman wrote:

The Church holds that it were better for the Sun and Moon to drop from Heaven, for the Earth itself to fall, and for all the many millions who are on it to die of starvation, in extremist agony (as far as temporal affliction goes), then that one soul, I would not say would be lost, but should commit one venial sin. Anglican Difficulties, P. 199.

In the introduction to a little pamphlet (written in the early 20th century) entitled simply “Venial Sin” by Bishop John S. Vaughan, the Benedictine Cardinal Gasquet relates the following: “St. Catherine of Siena, when she was shown how hideous venial sin made the soul in God’s sight, fainted at the vision.”

Yet as Bishop Vaughan wrote, we don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of venial sin, because the consequences are not as apparent as those of mortal sin. But in his little treatise, Bishop Vaughan points out at least four consequences.

First, venial sin tends to darken the intellect and cloud the judgment regarding the things of God. We lose a sense of the holiness of God and of His unapproachable sanctity. We see God more on the level of man (like I mentioned), and less as the profoundly transcendent Being that He is. This spiritual blindness causes us to minimize the evil of venial sin.

A second consequence of venial sin is that the habit of continual venial sins “increases the violence and strength of our spiritual enemies,” our own passions, sinful desires, and evil intentions. Bishop Vaughan explains that “[s]mall passions easily grow by little indulgences, until they become almost irresistible.”

A third consequence of venial sin is that it deprives us of the friendship of God. God is always waiting for us to turn to Him, but it is us who turn away from Him through our sins. When we turn away from God, we forfeit the close union to God, which is what we should all be striving after.

Finally, Bishop Vaughan says that the fourth consequence of venial sin is that it disfigures us. We were created in the image and likeness of God, who is transcendentally beautiful. When we sin, we splatter our soul with what Bishop Vaughan calls “unsightly filth.” We attain it; we wound it; we render it hideous, so that the soul cannot enter the Presence of God without a thorough purging.

The good news, of course, is that we have a remedy: confession and penance. But in order for confession to be truly effective, we must resolve to try to avoid those sins in the future. Will we sin again? Unfortunately, yes, and it may even be the same sin. Still, we need to keep going back to confession and do penance. This is how we strengthen our moral resolve and grow in holiness. And that is what Jesus told us to do: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”