Do you lose all your good works when you commit a mortal sin?

[JD27076]

Hello. I was at my parish yesterday helping out and I was reading through a childrens guide for confession. I noticed something to my shock.

It said if you commit a mortal sin you lose all your good works as well.
I thought your good works remain with you until you die, even if you do commit a mortal sin.

Is this true?

Thanks

 

[davidv]

Hello. I was at my parish yesterday helping out and I was reading through a childrens guide for confession. I noticed something to my shock.

It said if you commit a mortal sin you lose all your good works as well.
I thought your good works remain with you until you die, even if you do commit a mortal sin.

Is this true?

Thanks

Sounds like the author of the guide used a poor choice of words.

Mortal sin causes the loss of sanctifying grace.

 

[dshix]

Hello. I was at my parish yesterday helping out and I was reading through a childrens guide for confession. I noticed something to my shock.

It said if you commit a mortal sin you lose all your good works as well.
I thought your good works remain with you until you die, even if you do commit a mortal sin.

Is this true?

Thanks

I think what the author was trying to say is that when you commit a mortal sin, all of your good works are worthless until you confess. After all, all the good works in the universe aren’t enough to outweigh the loss of sanctifying grace.

 

[porthos11]

I think what the author was trying to say is that when you commit a mortal sin, all of your good works are worthless until you confess. After all, all the good works in the universe aren’t enough to outweigh the loss of sanctifying grace.

Actually there is truth to the original assertion. When one falls into mortal sin, he loses all the merits due to his previous good works, and further does not merit anything until he is restored to grace (in other words, good works performed while in the state of mortal sin do not count).

It is accepted that once a mortal sinner is restored to grace, any previous merit lost due to mortal sin are thereby restored to him. However, he gets no merit from good works performed while in the state of mortal sin because at that time, he was unable to merit anything.

(As an aside, this is proof that the Catholic Church does not teach salvation by works, only by grace).

 

[Edmundus1581]

I saw two priests discuss this on EWTN. It was not the major subject of the episode but was mentioned in passing (sorry, I don’t have a link).

They said that when one is restored to a state of grace through sacramental confession all of the merits of one’s good works are also miraculously restored. They emphasised that this is a miracle.

 

[Newbie2]

We need to be careful not to overcharacterize grace as a “quantity” of some sort of substance that we gain or lose pending our actions; same with good works that stem from that grace.

Nor should we simply view grace as some sort of on-off switch which is “off” when we commit a moral sin and “on” when we receive reconciliation.

Our understanding of grace, weak as it is, is a guide to how our actions should be ordered and directed.