Negative emotion and sin

[alphonsus1]

How can someone be angry and hate sin itself, which St. Alphonsus and St. Augustine say is certainly lawful, while avoiding unlawful anger at someone on account of his sin, or unlawful anger at the person himself?

How does one avoid judgment while prudentially correcting sin?

How does one avoid imprudent fear that can lead to despair while at the same time prudentially sprinting in abject terror from committing acts that have grave matter? This is because objective mortal sins with grave matter that also have full culpability and are unforgiven upon death (which is judged by God), will send you immediately to hell!

How can one be prudentially disgusted at sin, which should repulse you, while not sinning through imprudent disgust?

Some precautions to avoid sin.

1. Avoid pejoratives. Never call someone bad names or use personal attacks. Ever.
2. Remove names when talking about a person’s sin. This is to avoid detraction and calumny at all costs. We do not know a person’s culpability, so, whenever possible, do not talk about a another person’s sin at all. Therefore, one should definitely avoid publicly revealing sin!
3. Speak well of all and always give people the benefit of the doubt. Try to vehemently defend someone that you disagree with (I try to defend awesome Fr. James Martin). Find someone who makes you angry or annoyed and pray for them and speak well of them as often as possible.
4. Focus tunnel vision on hating the sin by calling it “wickedness.” However, avoid talking about the sinner. Solely try to talk about sin on an abstract level detached from people. Even avoid words of judgement like “you see those people that…”
5. Be prudential in “tone.” Be socially aware of the time, place, and person before you speak. Also, while any path of a Doctor is almost certainly an equally valid path to Holiness, otherwise the Saint would not be a Doctor in the first place, not all “tones” are prudential. Some people like a Pope Francis approach, some people a St. Thomas approach, and some a tone with hellfire sermons and working out our salvation in fear and trembling.

So here is my most important question.

Give concrete examples of when you think different “tones” are more or less prudent? Finally, I think it is very easy, even after taking all the precautions outlined above, and while thinking one is solely hating sin, to end up with emotions of anger at the person, resentment, etc. These can be sinful if one consents to them through his thoughts. It is very easy for one emotion to lead to another emotion, where that second emotion would be sinful if deliberately acted upon.

Is there a way to avoid this? What other precautions can someone take to utterly annihilate and eradicate sins against charity from his life? Let me know your thoughts?

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

A lot of times our strong emotions relate to our own wounds and personal experiences and losses.

For instance somebody who is very judgemental of drunkeness, then you come to find out their family was torn apart by a parent’s alcoholism.

So at least one strategy is to work towards knowing ourselves and healing from the childhood wounds.

 

[alphonsus1]

I always hear the advice to acknowledge feelings, which is apparently different from validating them. How does that help? Given feelings themselves are often temptations to sin, because sin can cause bad feelings to temporarily go away, then what is the next step after acknowledging feelings? What about an approach where we do not give feelings any power, because with God’s assistance, we can do all things in Him who strengthens us? This can be compared to an approach where we recognize our weakness (without the assistance of God): we can do nothing without God.

 

[The27thPsalm]

I think you will enjoy these articles on judgement and sins of anger, you are already on the mark: Judgment : Being Judgmental | Catholic Healing Psychology
Anger, wrath, and anger without sin | Catholic Christian Healing Psychology

A major help is the distinction between two types of anger in it, by which one can see clearly if your anger is sin or not. Anger as a physical feeling of irritation, annoyance, frustration (such as when you are cut off when driving) and then sinful anger as a desire to hurt or harm or get revenge because of it (when one flies into a road rage over it).

 

[njlisa]

@alphonsus1: Is there a way to avoid this? What other precautions can someone take to utterly annihilate and eradicate sins against charity from his life? Let me know your thoughts?

St. Thérèse helps me whenever I want to snap back at someone who has offended me. I simply ask, “Thérèse, what would you do?”

She always reminds me about the incident at the laundry when one of the other sisters was splashing her with dirty water.

“My first impulse was to draw back and wipe my face, to show the offender I should be glad if she would behave more quietly; but the next minute I thought how foolish it was to refuse the treasures God offered me so generously, and I refrained from betraying my annoyance. On the contrary, I made such efforts to welcome the shower of dirty water, that at the end of half an hour I had taken quite a fancy to this novel kind of aspersion, and I resolved to come as often as I could to the happy spot where such treasures were freely bestowed.”

Yes, Thérèse was offended. But she stopped herself from striking back.