Publisher's Note

Publisher’s Note
Dear readers, Since it’s the month of Holy week, I want to reflect on the 7 deadly sins that most Catholics and Christians take for granted. It is almost the opposite of the 7 Catholic virtues which are chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. Growing up and to these days, I always practice some of these virtues, [...]
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Publisher’s Note

Dear readers,

Since it’s the month of Holy week, I want to reflect on the 7 deadly sins that most Catholics and Christians take for granted. It is almost the opposite of the 7 Catholic virtues which are chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.

Growing up and to these days, I always practice some of these virtues, especially, patience, kindness, humility, charity and diligence. With temperance, I easily lose my temper especially when I give instructions and the other person cannot follow simple instructions. I must admit that I did break the virtue of chastity when I eloped at the age of 17. But I have practiced the rest of the 7 virtues specially patience.

But let us not forget that if there are 7 Catholic virtues we have to carry out in our lives, there are 7 deadly sins that will make us experience hell while we are still here on earth. As they say hell is where we are because of too many temptations and actions that we unconsciously do over and over again that falls under the 7 deadly sins as follows:

Lust

What is lust? In layman’s term it is to have a very strong sexual desire for someone.

An example of lust is mostly happening with overseas contract workers who are married back home and because of being homesick of their families end up having an affair with a fellow contract worker. In the end the guy ends up filing for divorce and will end up marrying the contract worker since they are both in Canada. Contract workers leave their families behind to seek for a better future for the wife and children. But because of lust, they forget their goal and end up abandoning their family. It doesn’t necessarily happen with contract workers, but it can happen to anyone and anywhere. But if we have God in our lives, we will live according to His will and will persevere to do what is right to accomplish our initial goal.

Gluttony

According to Wikipedia, Gluttony (Latin, gula) is the overindulgence and over consumption of anything to the point of waste. The word derives from the Latin glut tire, meaning to gulp down or swallow. In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from the needy. With hunger and starvation happening in the different parts of the world, we should be sensitive with how we consume our food. Some people have bigger eyes than their stomachs and especially on occasions where there is buffet, they end up filling their plates with a mountain full of food. But guess what, they never finished all the food on their plate and it ends up going into waste. That’s why in some restaurants they charge you if you don’t finish your food. It’s a way of telling people just get what you can consume and since its buffet you can come back for seconds.

Greed

Greed is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of desire. However, greed is applied to an artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” In Dante’s Purgatory, the penitents are bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated excessively on earthly thoughts. Hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by greed.

A good example of greed is when want to get someone else’s position by creating lies and gossips and conniving with people who will discredit the person just because she wants to takeover the position. She’ll create her own story and make people believe she’s telling the truth up to the point that she destroys the other person’s reputation because of her greed. Even worst if this happens to a family, where the mother takes sides so that only shows that it’s not just the daughter who’s greedy but also the mother.

Sloth

Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord); such disregard may lead to the slowing of one’s spiritual progress towards eternal life, to the neglect of manifold duties of charity towards the neighbor, and to animosity towards those who love God. Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do. By this definition, evil exists when “good” people fail to act.

Unlike the other capital sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger. While the state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin, the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself except under certain circumstances. Or a daughter throwing accusations to her mother because of anger, especially being disrespectful and not following one of the 10 commandments which is TO HONOR THY MOTHER AND FATHER.

Sloth not only subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions, but also slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders the man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of human’s undoing.

Wrath

Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance, In its purest form, wrath presents with injury, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of wrath can manifest in different ways, including impatience, hateful misanthropy, revenge, and self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide.

People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been offended, when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event, when they are certain someone else is responsible, and when they feel they can still influence the situation or cope with it.

In accordance with Henry Edward, angry people are “slaves to themselves”. Just like when you throw your wrath to someone who is better than you. You are full of anger, rage and hatred when you compare yourself with someone else’s success. Thus you tend to plot something against the person because of your wrath and later on you become a slave of yourself because you think that whatever you do will destroy the other person.

Envy

Envy like greed and lust, is characterized by an insatiable desire. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. It arises from vainglory,[35] and severs a man from his neighbor.

Malicious envy is similar to jealousy in that they both feel discontent towards someone’s traits, status, abilities, or rewards. A difference is that the envious also desire the entity and covet it. Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments, specifically, “Neither shall you covet … anything that belongs to your neighbor”—a statement that may also be related to greed. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages: during the first stage, the envious person attempts to lower another’s reputation; in the middle stage, the envious person receives either “joy at another’s misfortune” (if he succeeds in defaming the other person) or “grief at another’s prosperity” (if he fails); the third stage is hatred because “sorrow causes hatred”.

Envy is said to be the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel, as Cain envied Abel because God favored Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s.

Pride

Pride is considered, on almost every list, the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins: the perversion of the faculties that make humans more like God—dignity and holiness. It is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. It is identified as dangerously corrupt selfishness, the putting of one’s own desires, urges, wants, and whims before the welfare of other people.

In even more destructive cases, it is irrationally believing that one is essentially and necessarily better, superior, or more important than others, failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others, and excessive admiration of the personal image or self (especially forgetting one’s own lack of divinity, and refusing to acknowledge one’s own limits, faults, or wrongs as a human being).

Pride is associated with more intra-individual negative outcomes and is commonly related to expressions of aggression and hostility. As one might expect, pride is not always associated with high self-esteem but with highly fluctuating or variable self-esteem. Excessive feelings of pride have a tendency to create conflict and sometimes terminating close relationships.

So this Holy Week, why don’t we reflect on these 7 deadly sins and if you have any of these sins hanging in your life, try to think what you will gain from committing this sin? Or much better make amends with people you have hurt and were a victim of your greed, pride, envy, wrath, slot, gluttony and lust?

Until next issue, Happy Easter everyone!

Publisher’s Note

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