Does mortal sin destroy all charity?

[JillH2008]

I’m so confused and almost want to guess ‘no’ as I know many people who commit mortal sin that still love God with all of their heart.

For example even myself, I’ve not woken up for Mass when my alarm clock has gone off. The church says this is ‘grave’, I ‘know’ the church says this is grave, and although of course I would never really want to skip, in that moment I’m willfully choosing my self and sleep above God.

But after I still have LOVED God just as deeply and ardently as before while in this state of mortal sin- woke up, hated myself for sleeping, said a rosary, made sure to go sometime during the week. If I were to have died I would NEVER choose to be separated from Him.

I can make this work with the CCC to a point

1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man

1822 Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.

So in mortal sinning I’m not loving God above ‘all’ things but I can still LOVE him, thus being capable of repenting.

But then the CCC seems like it contradicts itself the further you read on Hell-

1033
We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves.

And then according to this, in a state of mortal sin we don’t love him, our souls are in a place where we would willfully choose to separate our self from him at death.

Help I just can’t make this work (knowing myself and others who mortal sin and still passionately love God while in the state- would so choose Him and Heaven if died without confession) and reconcile in my mind or understand what mortal sin does to us.

Does mortal sin destroy Charity? Thanks so much!

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

When we wake up, we are not as awake as we think we are and we don’t have the FULL use of our mental faculties. Once when I was called in the middle of the night to anoint someone, I took down the address and then hung the receiver up and went back to bed. Later in the morning the people called again and I remembered the incident as a dream. I then looked on my desk and saw the address I had taken down. Fortunately, the person didn’t die during the night and I was eventually able to anoint him. Even though I had walked across the room to answer the phone, I had not been fully awake.

To commit a mortal sin, the act must be a grave evil, one must know this and one must FREELY CHOOSE IT ! But once one HAS freely chosen to turn one’s back on God, then one must repent and be absolved. We simply cannot be facing God and turning our back to Him at the same time. To be in the state of mortal sin is to have our back to Him.
Only repentance turns us around. And only absolution assures us that God as accepted it. To act as though we love God while in the state of mortal sin is to not acknowledge the elephant in the living room.

No one loves God passionately while in the state of mortal sin. This is like a person insisting that he is in perfect health while consumed with fever. It’s called denial!

The Church does teach that in danger of death in the absence of a priest, when a person attempts an act of perfect contrition, God will forgive him. The problem here is that we can’t be sure if our contrition is perfect.

Of course, this whole conern can be rectified by not commiting mortal sin. It is quite possible if we want to be faithful to the Lord enough. And should we fall, then we don’t walk, we run to the priest for Confession. He is obliged to serve us in this way.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.