Pride is the summit of self-love and the greatest of the seven deadly sins. Every sin contains a germ of pride. Besides, sins directly springing from pride come in a multitude of forms. Each of us is inclined to some of them. It is necessary to…
Greed is an excessive love of worldly goods that leads to an unrestricted desire to acquire material things. We tend to associate it with money, but it can also be manifested in a love of clothes, jewelry, frivolous gadgets, etc. Greed is often a subtle vice, one we easily excuse.
The term “wrath” gets used routinely in everyday language. People like to use it to describe unchecked fury. Books and movies have glorified it, in many cases, to the point where wrath is seen as a sort of noble pursuit of justice. Because of this…
Envy is a sin alive and well in our society. Its venom courses through social media and news programs, school and work environments, and even into our churches and homes. Despite this, I’ve heard little mention of this sin. What is it exactly? How does it differ from jealousy? And what makes it so dangerous?
“The sin which causes most souls to go to Hell are sins of the flesh.” That awful sentence was by Our Lady of Fatima. In a world where sensuality and the appeal to sex are omnipresent, that sentence chills us to the bone.
Sloth can be a difficult sin to identify. The other capital sins are “active” sins: we consciously choose to do something evil. Sloth is a sin of omission: we fail to do something good. It is easy to dismiss because we’re not actively doing any harm—or so we think.