Is it a sin not to work?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joseph_Kemp
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
EDWARD H WROTE: “I never said good works get us to heaven. Ridiculous.”
  • What you actually said is this:
“Would God the Father be most pleased if we all loved as His Son did?..Or sat around pleasing ourselves? (here’s where badly formed, misguided, hesitant, can’t I have it both ways, and some Once Saved Always Saved Protestants, answer Yes).”
You are very clearly describing me as “badly formed, misguided, hesitant, can’t I have it both ways,” simply because I advocate leisure as non-sinful. You also associate me with “Once Saved Always Saved Protestants.” Protestants, I might add, are well-known for believing good works do not earn them salvation. You are perfectly clear in your characterization of me as one who doesn’t believe in “working” my way into Heaven, either. You imply it’s a bad thing to “sit around pleasing ourselves (with leisure).” Such a thing, in your words, is only for the “badly formed, misguided, hesitant,” and for “some Once Saved Always Saved Protestants.”
don’t make this about you; I wasn’t mentioning you. Why do you immediately put yourself in the center of things? Do you often find yourself being easily offended? Why?

You never answered the question: would God be most pleased…
 
I think you knew perfectly well what LW meant, and I think you are the one that is gravely flawed. By the way, LW is a HE.
Thanks. Didn’t know. How is one supposed to know with neutral names.

Maybe the fancy little signature picture threw me. Apologies Lost.
 
“Fancy little signature picture…”

You have a very passive aggressive way of insulting people.
? It is fancy. Never seen anything like it.

Deb of Arc, you have a not so subtle way of inserting yourself into just about everything without adding anything substantial other than 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
 
Maybe the fancy little signature picture threw me. Apologies Lost.
In Deborah’s defense, I don’t see a how fancy signature means you have the right assume my gender. I myself exercise caution and try to be as gender neutral as I can on these boards until the person I’m talking to specifically says it themselves.

P.S.

Just to prove my point, both characters mentioned in my sig are male. The eyes you’re looking at belongs to a dude. The second one I’m quoting is a 10-year-old boy and wizarding prodigy.
 
In Deborah’s defense, I don’t see a how fancy signature means you have the right assume my gender. I myself exercise caution and try to be as gender neutral as I can on these boards until the person I’m talking to specifically says it themselves.

P.S.

Just to prove my point, both characters mentioned in my sig are male. The eyes you’re looking at belongs to a dude. The second one I’m quoting is a 10-year-old boy and wizarding prodigy.
Lost. I apologize. Looking at the signature more closely I see why I might have come to that unconscious conclusion. That eyeball reminds me of a female character somewhere in my distant past. And I can almost hear the voice too…I just can’t remember from where it is.

Again, I am sorry.
 
EDWARD H WROTE:
  • I will start right now. Any Catholic who has a simple faith life (Church, sacraments, prayer) can easily love God “with all (his/her) heart, soul, mind and strength.” Just because one may not be enormously involved in prayer, charity, or “good works” is absolutely no reason to say that a person is not loving God with all his/her “heart, soul, mind and strength.” You are wrong to imply otherwise.
You also mention that we must “always pray.” This, I assume, comes from the Biblical admonition to “Pray always." (1 Thes. 5,17) This does not mean what you imply that it does – that we have to somehow divide our attention, splitting our focus, and pray every second of every day, while simultaneously doing all the other ordinary things we do, like work and leisure – even to the point of “praying for others while they talk,” as you falsely said. This is a completely erroneous interpretation of the idea to “Pray always.”

The Catholic Church has always taught that it is very difficult to somehow avoid prayer. If you happen to recall something said in Church from the reading or homily, that is a prayer. If you see a beautiful landscape and recall God, that is a prayer. If you so much as think about God AT ALL, that is a prayer. There are TRILLIONS of ways to pray without even using WORDS.

-Everything in your (Edward H’s) description of Catholicism makes it sound like neverending, stressful, burdensome WORK. I cannot imagine a greater distortion of this simple, undemanding faith.

You, Edward H, challenged me to prove that we should not “be perfect as our Father is perfect.” You clearly mean by “perfect” that we should be treating our faith like toil, “working our way into Heaven” and despising all leisure time spent alone for ourselves, as you absolutely state above. (“A movie watched by ourselves for our own pleasure is suspect.”, “A priest once told me he had a hard time imaging a case where watching TV by oneself is a good idea.”) These things are shockingly wrong, disgustingly, even stomach-turningly wrong. They are truly anti-human. Why would you try to convince us of this? This is evil beyond belief.

Bottom line: You are clearly saying that enjoying life and leisure time spent alone are sinful. You are wrong. You were wrong when you first started saying it, and you are wrong now.
Joseph…not never ending Work…but never ending love, God’s love working willingly (and ever increasingly joyfully) through us. Love is willing sacrifice. That’s the message of the Gospel (the life of Christ, given for us). The model of Christian love is expressed in the Cross. The Catholic understanding of love isn’t ‘airy fairy, carefree, no obstacle, we have plenty of food, our bellies are full, the music is great, health and wealth, no pressure’ love. It’s learning how to convert your whole ordinary day into an offering for God, “in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world”.

That’s what I mean by praying always, by having a presence of God throughout the day, by giving joyfully to God.

This is our response to God. This is our “Fiat” (as in Mary’s fiat). Let Your will be done through me.

This is how we maintain unity of life.

We don’t pigeon hole God into 1 hour on Sunday. We invite Him into our conversations. We take Him shopping. This is how God permeates the whole world (stores, conversations, traffic, baseball games, all forms of leisure, all forms of work, people in hospitals when we visit them, funerals, workshops when we fix our son’s bicycle chains). God becomes present through our intention and our actions, our efforts, our love.

No…He is with us always. We maintain a natural, unhurried, no fretting conversation with Him as often as we can, amid the things that He gives and permits to us. Go back to my description of taking the Marine Combat Fitness test a couple of weeks ago. Nothing unnatural. Nothing unusual. Just supernaturalizing our life with God. Not God in the Box on Sunday. God living with us in all of our life. This is “the interior life”.

Prayer can be formal…it often is a good way to kick-start the longer running prayer with God throughout the day.

Prayer is conversation with God.
 
If anyone wants to understand this point of ‘interior life’ with God (God living in our soul), consider reading

In Silence with God (Benedict Baur): Excellent, deep but practical still.

Or there’s an excellent book by a Catholic mystic of sorts: “He and I” by Gabrielle Bossis (a prayer diary written in the 1930s-1940s). Phenomenal examples, and almost a description of how to pray through out one’s daily life; how one soul developed an interior life, quite joyfully and in a simple childlike way.

Beautiful and profound points.
 
I havent read this whole thread yet but I already have a bad impression as I skimmed thru some posts.

Seriously, are some of you saying we shouldnt have our own hobbies? I think I have a right to enjoy my life as much as I can as long as I dont cross the moral boundaries.
 
I havent read this whole thread yet but I already have a bad impression as I skimmed thru some posts.

Seriously, are some of you saying we shouldnt have our own hobbies? I think I have a right to enjoy my life as much as I can as long as I dont cross the moral boundaries.
Of course not. No…Not saying this.

2 cases:

Case 1. Our hobbies can be supernaturalized. They can be made even more useful, easily. God with you in your hobbies. And who knows…you might be able to teach someone later on as you master your hobby. Maybe you build something that gives someone else pleasure. We can thank God during our work…Lord your trees give such great material to work with…who might I give this tree house to? Will this provide a home for your beautiful birds, Lord? Who might I be able to teach…how about that young kid down the street whose father ran away?

Case 2 .I close myself in my workshop…build beautiful birdhouses all by myself, no teaching to others, no sharing, no communion, no gift to others, and then I burn the birdhouses. All activity centers around me. No glory to God, no conversation with Him, no service to others. No beauty to offer the world.

Which form of hobby should we consider following?
 
EDWARD H WROTE: “David, you don’t get it. My intention should be primarily to please God in all things I do.”
  • On the contrary. YOUR intention, Edward H, seems to be:
(1.) to demonize leisure that can be pursued when alone, in solitude. (“A movie watched by ourselves for our own pleasure is suspect.”, “A priest once told me he had a hard time imaging a case where watching TV by oneself is a good idea.)

(2.) to demonize having fun and enjoying life as “sinful.” (“If your intention is to please yourself whether it is in work or in leisure, then it might be sinful.”)

(3.) to declare that someone with a simple faith life (Church, sacraments, prayer) is not loving God “with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.” (to the extent we are acting as the sad rich man coveting our things, our time, our leisure, our pleasure…holding on as it were…this is not a good thing. What do you think it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and STRENGTH.)

(4.) to work your way into Heaven (a MAJOR heresy). (“Would God the Father be most pleased if we all loved as His Son did?..Or sat around pleasing ourselves? (here’s where badly formed, misguided, hesitant, can’t I have it both ways, and some Once Saved Always Saved Protestants, answer Yes.”)

(5.) to cover up your emphasis on exhausting work by calling it “love.” (“Joseph…not never ending Work…but never ending love, God’s love working willingly (and ever increasingly joyfully) through us.”)

These exact five HERESIES appear in your posts over and over again. They form your entire argument. Everything you have been saying is nothing BUT these five heresies, round and round with no variation.

Let’s examine some of your recent comments in light of your five heresies.

YOU WROTE: “Love, self-donation, focus of our actions, intention, laying down our life, loving with all our heart mind, soul, strength, laying down our life…all done for God, with God. giving us a unity of life. Sound familiar?”
  • Very familiar. Once again, you are directly saying that a simple faith life (Church, sacraments, prayer) is somehow not “holy” or “good” enough. That’s heresy # 3. You are also implying that we must work our way into Heaven with all this “self-donation, focus of our actions, intention, laying down our life, etc.” That’s heresy # 4. You are also trying to cover up your emphasis on exhausting, neverending work by calling it “love” – trying to make it sound righteous and pious somehow, by casting it as “love for others,” ie,. “self-donation,” although it most certainly is not. That’s heresy # 5. You are wrong.
YOU WROTE: “If I intend to slip away in the Garden hiding myself from God…the way Adam and Eve did…then God may ask us what we’re up to. Why we are covering ourselves!!”
  • If you are talking about leisure time spent when alone when you say “slip(ing) away in the Garden hiding myself from God,” this is heresy # 1: demonizing leisure time spent in solitude. The Church does not condemn this. You are still wrong.
YOU WROTE: “I haven’t labeled anything moral or condemned anything…despite your and Joseph’s attempt to insertion.”
  • You have labeled and condemned all of the five things that I pointed out above. This is an outright falsehood.
YOU WROTE: “If we’re holding back, coveting our time, leisure, carving out a portion of our time, hiding from God, gently walling him out…then we might want to take that to prayer and examination.”

Again, you are asserting here that leisure time spent when alone is “sinful,” which is absolutely false. ("If we’re holding back, coveting our time, leisure, carving out a portion of our time, hiding from God…”) Again, this is heresy # 1. By implication, you are also condemning any enjoyment of life we may obtain from our leisure time spent when alone. That’s heresy # 2.
 
(continued from above)

When I wrote that you (Edward H) most certainly believe the heresy of “working your way into Heaven,” your ONLY reply was:

“don’t make this about you; I wasn’t mentioning you. Why do you immediately put yourself in the center of things? Do you often find yourself being easily offended? Why? You never answered the question: would God be most pleased…”
  • You avoid confronting the fact that you hold the heretical belief of “working your way into Heaven.” God would be “most pleased” by us not holding such heresies.(“ here’s where badly formed, misguided, hesitant, can’t I have it both ways, and some Once Saved Always Saved Protestants, answer Yes.”) You are still wrong.
YOU WROTE: “Joseph…not never ending Work…but never ending love, God’s love working willingly (and ever increasingly joyfully) through us. Love is willing sacrifice…The Catholic understanding of love isn’t ‘airy fairy, carefree, no obstacle, we have plenty of food, our bellies are full, the music is great, health and wealth, no pressure’ love. It’s learning how to convert your whole ordinary day into an offering for God, “in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world”.”
  • This statement contains heresies 3, 4 and 5. You are most blatantly trying to cover up your emphasis on exhausting work by calling it “love.”(“ Joseph…not never ending Work…but never ending love.”) This is a mere word game. You are also blatantly preaching heresy # 4: “working our way into Heaven.” (“The Catholic understanding of love isn’t ‘airy fairy, carefree, no obstacle, we have plenty of food, our bellies are full, the music is great, health and wealth, no pressure’ love.”) This is exactly the kind of thing you said earlier that is only believed by “badly formed, misguided, hesitant, can’t I have it both ways, and some Once Saved Always Saved Protestants” - who obviously DON’T believe in working their way into Heaven, unlike you. You also imply by this that someone with a simple faith life (Church, sacraments, prayer) is somehow not doing enough, not “loving” enough, not WORKING enough, and will (likely) not get into Heaven. That’s heresy # 3.
DIVINEFAITH wrote: “Seriously, are some of you saying (on this forum) we shouldn’t have our own hobbies? I think I have a right to enjoy my life as much as I can as long as I don’t cross the moral boundaries.”

To which Edward H replied: “Of course not. No…Not saying this.”
  • I personally think this is absolutely untrue. You, Edward H, very clearly said before that “A movie watched by ourselves for our own pleasure is suspect.” and that,**“A priest once told me he had a hard time imaging a case where watching TV by oneself is a good idea.” **(Heresy # 1.) You also previously said “If your intention is to please yourself whether it is in work or in leisure, then it might be sinful.” (Heresy # 2.) It would seem to follow from this that any hobbies spent while alone, for our own enjoyment, are regarded by you as “sinful.”
And predictably, in the very next paragraph, you say:

“Case 1. Our hobbies can be supernaturalized. They can be made even more useful, easily. God with you in your hobbies. And who knows…you might be able to teach someone later on as you master your hobby. Maybe you build something that gives someone else pleasure…who might I give this tree house to? Will this provide a home for your beautiful birds, Lord? Who might I be able to teach…how about that young kid down the street whose father ran away?”

This is heresy # 4 – “working your way into Heaven. ” (“Our hobbies can be supernaturalized. They can be made even more useful, easily.”) Hobbies don’t have to be “useful.” There is no sin in this. You are wrong.

This is also heresy # 5 – “to cover up your emphasis on exhausting work by calling it “love.” You especially try to make your overemphasis on work sound respectable by claiming you are always working “for others” – even though the Catholic Church does not teach that leisure time (or hobbies) when spent in solitude are “sinful.” You are wrong again.

You then heap scorn on anyone who practices leisure and hobbies in solitude, as if such enjoyment is “sinful” (heresies 1 AND 2 together.)

“Case 2 .**I close myself in my workshop…build beautiful birdhouses all by myself, no teaching to others, no sharing, no communion, no gift to others, and then I burn the birdhouses. **All activity centers around me. No glory to God, no conversation with Him, no service to others. No beauty to offer the world.”

This is actually quite ridiculous, since I suspect most people who build things don’t immediately destroy them or throw them away. What a false, unfair characterization of leisure. Plus you are again demonizing leisure time when spent alone, and are demonizing any enjoyment obtained from such pursuits. What a ridiculous and false position.

Your last two paragraphs quoted above are actually quite remarkable. All five heresies in just a few sentences. No wonder people on this forum get misdirected and sidetracked when reading your posts. You are a very confusing person. Such confusion does not arise from God at all, but from the Devil. Now that I’m wise to your little tricks, it’s almost too easy to spot them. They just the same five falsehoods, over and over again. You were wrong when you first started posting them, and you are wrong now.
 
Joseph

A sure sign you’re losing the argument is that you have to translate down every point I’ve made.

I haven’t used the word “demonize” (that’s your doing)

I haven’t used the condemn (that’s your doing)

I haven’t declared that someone doesn’t love God (that’s your doing)

You’ve characterized me as a heretic.

You’ve said that I said we work our way into heavan.

Again and again, the stretch and downward translation.

Not going to follow you into your gutter.

I have said that we can and should pray always…and I’ve described how the Church encourages to do this

I have said that we can add God to our daily events. And the Church encourages us to do this.

I have pointed out that in the Bible we are told to love God with all our heart mind soul and strength…and I’ve shown how to do this without going nuts.

I haven’t said that leisure is sinful. I have said it can be sinful. And I’ve said it can be sanctified.

All of this is Church doctrine.

None is heresy.
 
Moderator.

Please close down this forum.

I am tired of Joseph calling heretical what is Church doctrine. All our life can be sanctified…and this is very different from ‘working your way into heaven.’
 
Just because you are wrong does not mean the forum must be shut down. This site is about Catholic ANSWERS. Which means correcting those who may be mistaken, as it says in Scripture. It is strange you would see this as grounds for having the forum shut down.
 
Just because you are wrong does not mean the forum must be shut down. This site is about Catholic ANSWERS. Which means correcting those who may be mistaken, as it says in Scripture. It is strange you would see this as grounds for having the forum shut down.
I am wrong that we are called to holiness, that we are called to sanctify our work and our leisure with God? That we can, with the grace of God supernaturalize our leisure?

That some forms of leisure can be sinful; and others holy?

That we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength?

And these holy ambitions you call not just wrong but heretical?

Let me give you hint. The more bolding and underlining you use in your posts, and the longer winded you get…the more you come off a sad stunted human, stuck inside a dank workshop building shoddy birdhouses for your own enjoyment. But that’s what gets conveyed via your writing.
 
EDWARD H WROTE: “I am wrong that we are called to holiness, that we are called to sanctify our work and our leisure with God? That we can, with the grace of God supernaturalize our leisure? That we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength? ”
  • You are wrong in how you portray these things. You put a particular slant on them which the Church does not teach. THAT is what I object to. Not the notions in themselves. I have already outlined this above. You are wrong.
EDWARD H WROTE: “That some forms of leisure can be sinful; and others holy?”
  • Leisure time spent when alone, in solitude, is NOT sinful, even though you argue otherwise. This really IS wrong. If you don’t like the word “heresy,” I won’t use it. But arguing that solitary pursuits and leisure are “sinful” is most definitely a very serious mistake, and ENTIRELY untrue.
EDWARD H WROTE: “And these holy ambitions you call not just wrong but heretical?”
  • I say the way you portray these issues is simply wrong. There is nothing wrong with my pointing out very obvious bad reasoning. Your particular interpretation of these matters is very mistaken. I am doing you a service by saying so. Rather than rejecting everything I say, you might want to consider it. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. There’s no sin in that.
You might want to consider that perhaps you, yourself, have been wrong in some of the things you have been saying. I am not trying to condemn you. I am simply trying to present what the Church teaches as accurately as possible. This is not meant to hurt people. It is meant to help.
 
Joseph

A sure sign you’re losing the argument is that you have to translate down every point I’ve made.

I haven’t used the word “demonize” (that’s your doing)

I haven’t used the condemn (that’s your doing)

I haven’t declared that someone doesn’t love God (that’s your doing)

You’ve characterized me as a heretic.

You’ve said that I said we work our way into heavan.

Again and again, the stretch and downward translation.

Not going to follow you into your gutter.

I have said that we can and should pray always…and I’ve described how the Church encourages to do this

I have said that we can add God to our daily events. And the Church encourages us to do this.

I have pointed out that in the Bible we are told to love God with all our heart mind soul and strength…and I’ve shown how to do this without going nuts.

I haven’t said that leisure is sinful. I have said it can be sinful. And I’ve said it can be sanctified.

All of this is Church doctrine.

None is heresy.
Edward H. I haven’t followed this thread entirely, but from what I have kept up with, you are quite correct, and just because anonymous people group up on you on the internets doesn’t make you wrong. You are in line of Catholic teachings, as far as I can tell. God bless. The fact that people or a person in various names have to gang up on you and nitpick you and put words in your mouth to ‘defeat’ you, should tell you you are on the right track. 🙂
 
I agree with some of what you’re saying, Edward.

I don’t think it is wrong to build a birdhouse just for your pleasure. You don’t have to burn it down. You can just admire it.

I do think it’s important that God be a part of leisure, praying, suffering - essentially our whole lives.

I also believe that there is nothing wrong with leisure as long as there is no inordinate attachment to it.

I posted a section of “Introduction to a Devout Life” in another thread with a similar theme and I’m posting it here.

I think it describes wonderfully the attitude we should have toward leisure.
WE must needs occasionally relax the mind, and the body requires some recreation also. Cassian relates how S. John the Evangelist was found by a certain hunter amusing himself by caressing a partridge, which sat upon his wrist. The hunter asked how a man of his mental powers could find time for so trifling an occupation. In reply, S. John asked why he did not always carry his bow strung? The man answered, Because, if always bent, the bow would lose its spring when really wanted. “Do not marvel then,” the Apostle replied, “if I slacken my mental efforts from time to time, and recreate myself, in order to return more vigorously to contemplation.” It is a great mistake to be so strict as to grudge any recreation either to others or one’s self.
Walking, harmless games, music, instrumental or vocal, field sports, etc., are such entirely lawful recreations that they need no rules beyond those of ordinary discretion, which keep every thing within due limits of time, place, and degree. So again games of skill, which exercise 253 and strengthen body or mind, such as tennis, rackets, running at the ring, chess, and the like, are in themselves both lawful and good. Only one must avoid excess, either in the time given to them, or the amount of interest they absorb; for if too much time be given up to such things, they cease to be a recreation and become an occupation; and so far from resting and restoring mind or body, they have precisely the contrary effect. After five or six hours spent over chess, one’s mind is spent and weary, and too long a time given to tennis results in physical exhaustion; or if people play for a high stake, they get anxious and discomposed, and such unimportant objects are unworthy of so much care and thought. But, above all, beware of setting your heart upon any of these things, for however lawful an amusement may be, it is wrong to give one’s heart up to it. Not that I would not have you take pleasure in what you are doing,—it were no recreation else,—but I would not have you engrossed by it, or become eager or over fond of any of these things
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top