Lost: Mortal vs. Venial

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Elizabeth502

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As a cradle Catholic, I should know this one, too. But from my vantage point today, everything blurs into one (mortal, not venial!). I mean sin is sin; it’s disgusting, let’s face it. My take on it, is that if it’s serious enough to impel you to seek Confession, it’s probably mortal, whatever the technical category it has in Systematics or Sacramental & Moral Theology or whatever. And yet I still am confused about just what is serious, what is not.

We all know the biggies: adultery & similar sexual sins, murder, stealing something significant, sacrilege, committing a deception which has consequences for others. Etc. But the less dramatic sins: how you do know which ones are “mortal”?

Any help would be appreciated.

(If no one can help me in this forum I may go to Apologetics; haven’t been there yet.)
 
May I suggest the following from the Catechism of the Catholic Church? It might help to clear up confusion:

**1863 **Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness.”

While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call “light”: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession.
 
**1855 **Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.
Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

Does this help?
 
It would help, LSK, if it were more specific.😉 That is, if the CCC were more specific. (I had also read that recently, as a refresher.) What’s written there is a good qualitative description, just not that helpful, to me, regarding the everyday sins that we commit, necessarily. (Distinguishing “serious” from not.) Maybe the answer is just prayer life. If you’re attuned enough, you tend to be more sensitized to the gravity of sin. I don’t know that there are clear demarcations, which I guess is why I’m even questioning the distinctions between mortal and venial.

Let’s put it this way. Sin that I’m conscious of seems “mortal” to me – all of it. If I know I’ve hurt someone, been untrue to myself, etc., it’s “confessable.” Period. If it looms large enough to be unavoidable in your daily examination, then it seems to me it should be confessed. To me, most sins of commission are mortal, most sins of omission are venial, and many “sins of omission” may be even faults rather than sins. But a conscious disordered activity is a sin, breaking harmony with God. That’s not very theological, but maybe more experiential. There’s some gray area, I guess, where I’m not sure just how serious/urgent something is.

Thanks for your reply.
 
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