Mortal Sin

[Gnosis]

I was just wondering where this idea of mortal sin arises from? I have never come across it in the Bible…

How is it that the Church just decided that some sins were just so much more severe than others?

 

[thistle]

Gnosis:

I was just wondering where this idea of mortal sin arises from? I have never come across it in the Bible…

How is it that the Church just decided that some sins were just so much more severe than others?

Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. CCC numbers 1846 -1876 which gives the Church’s tecahing on both mortal and venial sins and the appropraite scripture passages. It is far too lengthy to type out here.

 

[thistle]

thistle:

Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. CCC numbers 1846 -1876 which gives the Church’s tecahing on both mortal and venial sins and the appropraite scripture passages. It is far too lengthy to type out here.

Excuse my typos! Should be teaching and appropriate!

 

[martino]

The term was used by the apostles:

1John 5:16 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

 

[Allen537]

Gnosis:

I was just wondering where this idea of mortal sin arises from? I have never come across it in the Bible…

How is it that the Church just decided that some sins were just so much more severe than others?

I think it is also a bit of common sense. Some sins are simply more serious than others. Saying a bad word isn’t as serious as killing someone.

 

[Future_Prodigy]

I dont think its common sense… the apologetists always make that point… that sin is sin and a swear word would have made the incarnation necessary!?

 

[drafdog]

It isn’t the swear word; it’s the uncaring attitude that gave rise to it that’s sinful.

Matthew

 

[drafdog]

There are enough threads out there delineating what constitutes a mortal sin so I won’t go over the ground again. A principal point is that the individual must know the seriousness of the offence and give full consent of the will. There are enough mitigating circumstances around almost everything a person does that you really have to work hard at committing a mortal sin. A clinically depressed person who commits suicide is guilty of at most a venial sin. The drug addict who commits murder to get money for drugs is not guilty of mortal sin either. Too much is out of the control of either person.
I personally can’t commit a mortal sin because, after taking care of most of the things I need to do just to get on with life, I can’t work up the enthusiasm to do that much evil. It’s too much like work!

Matthew

 

[Matt_Collins]

I personally can’t commit a mortal sin because, after taking care of most of the things I need to do just to get on with life, I can’t work up the enthusiasm to do that much evil. It’s too much like work!

Matthew

One can also sin mortally by committing a sin of omission, which takes no effort at all!

 

[guanophore]

A principal point is that the individual must know the seriousness of the offence and give full consent of the will.  There are enough mitigating circumstances around almost everything a person does that you really have to work hard at committing a mortal sin.  A clinically depressed person who commits suicide is guilty of at most a venial sin.  The drug addict who commits murder to get money for drugs is not guilty of mortal sin either.  Too much is out of the control of either person. Matthew

This boggles my mind! It sounds like you are saying that a person who is sick has no responsibility to get well! Why did Jesus ask the man at the pool “do you want to be healed?” His whining and blaming his condition on others is what was interfering with his healing. It is also appalling that you can say such sins do not separate people from eternal life.

 

[fix]

There are enough threads out there delineating what constitutes a mortal sin so I won’t go over the ground again. A principal point is that the individual must know the seriousness of the offence and give full consent of the will. There are enough mitigating circumstances around almost everything a person does that you really have to work hard at committing a mortal sin. A clinically depressed person who commits suicide is guilty of at most a venial sin. The drug addict who commits murder to get money for drugs is not guilty of mortal sin either. Too much is out of the control of either person.
I personally can’t commit a mortal sin because, after taking care of most of the things I need to do just to get on with life, I can’t work up the enthusiasm to do that much evil. It’s too much like work!

Matthew

That is a common thing I read. One does not always have to work hard to commit a mortal sin.

 

[Future_Prodigy]

drafdog - so in your interpretation, it was only mortal sins that called for the incarnation? And if so by your own commission, you don’t commit mortal sins so Jesus didn’t need to come to save you?

 

[Sixtus]

That is a common thing I read. One does not always have to work hard to commit a mortal sin.

I used to abstain from receiving Communion most weeks. One day the priest told the deacon to take me outside and give me a good talking to. He did, I was astonished at how I had been so repressed by what I thought was definite damnation, which the good deacon described as at worst ‘venial’ sin.

I was educated to believe that you MUST NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE receive communion unless you were absolutely holy and free from any kind of defilement from sin. As a kid remember going to bed early on Saturday night so as to minimise the risk or ‘sinning’ before Sunday morning.

The dear nuns at school, the school register was marked every Monday morning, you had to say if you went to confession, mass and holy communion. Now you were just too honest not to lie so it was very embarrassing to say ‘confession mass but no communion, I sinned in the 12-hours between’!

The wonders and mystery of childhood…oh and all the hang-ups!!!

I listened to what the deacon had to say and…ignored it! The education is inground too deep to change now. I miss communion most weeks but at least the fear of sin is one sin I do not have to worry about.

 

[Future_Prodigy]

I used to abstain from receiving Communion most weeks. One day the priest told the deacon to take me outside and give me a good talking to. He did, I was astonished at how I had been so repressed by what I thought was definite damnation, which the good deacon described as at worst ‘venial’ sin.

I was educated to believe that you MUST NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE receive communion unless you were absolutely holy and free from any kind of defilement from sin. As a kid remember going to bed early on Saturday night so as to minimise the risk or ‘sinning’ before Sunday morning.

The dear nuns at school, the school register was marked every Monday morning, you had to say if you went to confession, mass and holy communion. Now you were just too honest not to lie so it was very embarrassing to say ‘confession mass but no communion, I sinned in the 12-hours between’!

The wonders and mystery of childhood…oh and all the hang-ups!!!

I listened to what the deacon had to say and…ignored it! The education is inground too deep to change now. I miss communion most weeks but at least the fear of sin is one sin I do not have to worry about.

I aggre with you on this… that is true reverence for the sacrament, something i see dwindling within the Church. EO still has profound reverence for the Eucharist but all this liberal nonsense happening is driving me nuts. IN the early patristic days you never went to receieve communion even if you thought you might be in sin.

 

[guanophore]

I listened to what the deacon had to say and…ignored it! The education is inground too deep to change now. I miss communion most weeks but at least the fear of sin is one sin I do not have to worry about.

Why?!

 

[DanteAlighieri]

I aggre with you on this… that is true reverence for the sacrament, something i see dwindling within the Church. EO still has profound reverence for the Eucharist but all this liberal nonsense happening is driving me nuts. IN the early patristic days you never went to receieve communion even if you thought you might be in sin.

My understanding is that receiving the Eucharist absolves one of venial sin, provided that one is properly penitent. Am I mistaken?

Assuming that this is correct, why on earth would one long for the “good old days” in which many people were taught not to receive Communion if they had committed ANY sin? I, too, lived under this assumption for many years – it is a shame, but most Catholic religion and CCD teachers are far too ignorant of that which they teach – and was not informed of the sanctifying quality of the Eucharist until I was 31 years old!

Now, of course, if I’m wrong about this, I’ll just have to go to confession every other day.

Peace,
Dante

 

[Future_Prodigy]

go to any orthodox divine liturgy and you’ll see how many ppl receive… that is reverence… making up theology such as sanctifiyin grace (maybe it is correct i dont know) is wrong. I actually much prefer the old days when it had more meaning

 

[DanteAlighieri]

go to any orthodox divine liturgy and you’ll see how many ppl receive… that is reverence… making up theology such as sanctifiyin grace (maybe it is correct i dont know) is wrong. I actually much prefer the old days when it had more meaning

I hope you don’t mean to imply that Catholics in genera are not reverent when receiving the Eucharist…that would be misguided, especially since we are taught to be reverent, and to comport ourselves reverently (ie: posture), as we prepare to receive.

Regarding the debate above, here we are:

1393 Holy Communion separates us from sin. The body of Christ we receive in Holy Communion is “given up for us,” and the blood we drink “shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins.” For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins:

For as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. If we proclaim the Lord’s death, we proclaim the forgiveness of sins. If, as often as his blood is poured out, it is poured for the forgiveness of sins, I should always receive it, so that it may always forgive my sins. Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy.230

1394 As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins.231 By giving himself to us Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in him:

Since Christ died for us out of love, when we celebrate the memorial of his death at the moment of sacrifice we ask that love may be granted to us by the coming of the Holy Spirit. We humbly pray that in the strength of this love by which Christ willed to die for us, we, by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, may be able to consider the world as crucified for us, and to be ourselves as crucified to the world. . . . Having received the gift of love, let us die to sin and live for God.232

1395 **By the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist *preserves ***us from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ and progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to break away from him by mortal sin. The Eucharist is not ordered to the forgiveness of mortal sins - that is proper to the sacrament of Reconciliation. The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church.

It does not appear that I was “making up theology” after all.

 

[John_Henry]

I was just wondering where this idea of mortal sin arises from? I have never come across it in the Bible…

How is it that the Church just decided that some sins were just so much more severe than others?

Someone has already pointed out 1 John 5:16. Furthermore, if you look at the OT, which is a type of the New, you will see that many sins were punishable by death, and many…weren’t. This is a type of the distinction, now true in the NT, between those sins that result in spiritual death and those that do not.

 

[Future_Prodigy]

Yeah, i understand but thats a modern day interpretation… i do side with you though becaus ein medieval times theology like that caused strange spirtual practices but i will get into that another time. You may be reverent but i prefer the medieval way. You can not be trully united witht he body of christ with sin on your soul. Now theology says it will cleanse you so go ahead. Being worthy to receive the Lord i think has gone down. ESPECIALLY WITH THIS JOKE OF A ONE HOUR FAST BEFORE!!! Come on, like people cant fast for a couple hours one day a week. Should be a night down unless its a saturday mass then it should be at least 3 hours before