Mortal Sin and Sanctifying Grace

[salvereginadude]

To prepare for Pentecost I was reading a pamphlet entitled Devotion to the Holy Spirit. In it, it said that every time we everytime we have mortal sin on our souls we don’t have sanctifying grace in our souls anymore and that the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in our hearts. I’ve realized before that mortal sin prevents you from receiving the Eucharist but I didn’t ever think about the presence of God being absent from our hearts. The pamphlet also said that when this happens none of the good works we perform or anything which we offer up as sacrifices can help us (not that I’m saying that works can save us, please don’t hammer on us, I don’t wanna get into this in this thread). But it sounds very serious, almost as if God is absent from our lives altogether, and currently I’m in the state of mortal sin and want to get to Confession as soon as possible! Is it true that the Holy Spirit is totally absent from our hearts when we are in the state of moral sin?

 

[batteddy]

Mortal sin is, indeed, defined by the death of supernatural life in our souls. It causes the extinguishing of sanctifying grace from us, the absence of God’s own divine life in us. If we die in mortal sin we go to hell, and none of the naturally good works we do while in a state of mortal sin are supernaturally meritous in any way. We may still have a dead faith and hope, but supernatural charity is gone. In mortal sin the indelible characters of baptism, confirmation, and orders become no longer a mark of glory but a mark of shame, having fallen from so noble a state. Mortal sin is a terrifying thing indeed. Get to confession as quickly as possible. God still wants a relationship with you, and desires your salvation. Therefore, though your heavenly inheritence is foresaken until you restore yourself to Sanctifying Grace, the Holy Spirit is urgently working with Actual Graces in your heart to bring you back to justification. Providence is trying to lead you to redemption. Repent and sin no more.

 

[LilyM]

Well the spirit still works, albeit in a very limited way - after all, the feelings of repentance and the desire to go to confession are themselves promptings of the Holy Spirit’s grace. And we’re still required to go to Mass - obviously our prayers are still efficacious to some degree.

But remember that a sincere Act of Perfect Contrition also restores you to sanctifying grace - for example if you die without being able to attend confession. Although of itself it doesn’t enable you to return to the other sacraments.

The Act is just your normal Act of Contrition (sorrow for your sin primarily out of love for God rather than fear or anything else), with an additional statement resolving to confess your sins as soon as possible.

 

[baltobetsy]

This Thursday is Eve of First Friday, and there are confessions at the Cathedral from 4:30 to 5:15. FYI

Betsy

 

[Greg27]

Clearly any devout Catholic who really deliberately and willingly commits a deadly sin must already in a spiritual sense, be dead to the life of God and of the spirit within them; really, carrying it through merely completes the process of destruction.