Exactly. I think that many people focus too much on sin in terms of a distinct act rather than a state of life. Sin is simply falling short of the glory of God. We are all sinners because we all fall short. Everyone wants to know whether they sinned in this situation or that situation, but the reality is that we are all sinners to the core. It is a state, a sickness, and we are infected. The very fact of being human makes us sinners.
I would say be careful about this. Sin is most certainly a distinct act. That “state of life” concept became popular in the 1970s and went by the name “fundamental option.” This has been roundly condemned.One single act of (mortal) sin by an otherwise good person is enough to cut him off from God’s grace and eternal life.
Great! Now I get to add praying to my list of scruples. Does it ever end. Now because it is only “likely OK” I will have to destroy all of my prayers, go out and buy prayer books and never use the internet again. just great.
Actually it became popular in the first few centuries of Christian history. It is part of eastern theology. Read some Greek Christian theology and you will see it.
It is not Catholic teaching. It is an infallible dogma that all who depart from this life in original sin or personal mortal sin will descend into Hell. God will not spare anyone who has not repented of even one sin. There are many heresies that circulated in Early Christianity, such as Apocastasis.
If you consider Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Maximus the Confessor, Macarius, and several others to be heretics, that is your perogative, but the Catholic Church considers them all saints. And there is nothing heretical about Greek theology. Unless of course you want to condemn the Greek Catholic Church, the Melkite Catholics, The Ukranian Catholics, The Ruthenian Catholics, The Russian Catholics, and some others.
Indeed.
To the OP: not only is it not sinful to copy prayers on Sunday, I find it laudable.I don’t wish to be uncharitable, but somehow your reply reminds me of the attitude of the Pharasees at the time of Christ who were so terribly concerned over the letter of the law, rather than its intent! Yours is not an answer I would offer a person suffering from immaturity or scrupulosity.
I must interject here that this is also a teaching held in the western church as well. This is why people speak of being in a state of grace or a state of sin. It is in no way incompatible with the idea of specific acts of sin by which we lose the state of grace an enter the state of sin.
Yes, but not all grave sins are mortal. For those sins that are mortal there is such thing as implicit repentance. In other words if I spent a decade carousing, fornicating, and living in the ways of the world and later truly repented and confessed but didn’t have a complete and specific catalogue of all of the sins I committed in that time, my confession would validly absolve me of all my sins including those I forgot assuming I did not deliberately withhold anything.
The conception of sin as a sickness has a very periferral position in the west. The only times I have ever seen it referenced by western Christians is when they are comparing eastern and western theology. They reference this as an aspect of eastern theology.
This isn’t merely peripheral, what you are referring to is known in the west as the lasting effects of sin, which if I had only taken better notes in class I could fill a few threads full of information on the western teachings on the subject. It is categorized as guilt, harm, stain, an a few others I don’t recall off the top of my head.
Maybe the concept is included in there. But that is still a different way of thinking than the east. They might both be true, and there might be overlap, but they are different. The east doesn’t really speak of a debt to be paid, or even guilt in the way the west does. They focus more on sickness. Just as cancer is a sickness of the body, sin is a spiritual sickness. And the medicine is the Eucharist. There is more of a legal emphasis in the west. Different terms are used.
Largely because one is built upon the Latin language, and the other is based on the Greek.
I certainly hope that there is a miscommunication between us, because Jesus spoke both of debt and guilt.
This is definitely in line with western spirituality. If I may quote Pope St. Pius X:
Now I’ll be the first to say that the words are much different than you might use, but the concept is there.
But a different emphasis is hardly the same as a different substance.
who in the world copyrights a prayer?