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7 Deadly Sins – Jealous/Envy by Gerald Kong
Jealousy – Where is your heart?
You shall not covet…anything that is your neighbour’s… You shall not desire your neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s. (Ex 20:17; Dt 5:21)
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Mt 6:21)
Jealousy/Envy, the last problem/curse in this series on the 7 capital sins that we beings have to face…
CCC 1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called “capital” because they engender other sins, other vices. They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.
Do jealousy and envy refer to the same thing? The main difference between envy and jealousy is that envy is an emotion related to coveting what someone else has or a desire to possess what someone else has, while jealousy is the emotion related to fear that something you have will be taken away by someone else.
Examples
* She was envious of her friend who vacationed in exotic places and posted her pictures on Facebook.
* Jane’s harmless flirting with the valet was enough to throw her boyfriend into a fit of jealous rage.
Many people use the words jealousy and envy interchangeably to describe the same emotional response, a general feeling of resentment towards a perceived rival. While these emotions do tend to overlap in some respects, there are some fundamental differences between the two. Jealousy, for example, is almost exclusively a negative emotion, while envy can has some positive effects, such as a renewed interest in self-improvement.
One difference between jealousy and envy involves the relationship between the jealous or envious person and his or her rival. An envious co-worker may develop a personal resentment towards a promoted co-worker because the position represents a higher salary and more responsibility. The true source of this envy is rarely the co-worker himself, but the perceived value of the position. The co-worker may very well deserve the advancement because of his superior skills or education, but an envious person might become angry at himself for not possessing those qualities.
Jealousy, on the other hand, focuses on the rival himself, not necessarily the object or “good” at the center of the conflict. This feeling implies a closer relationship between the jealous person and his rival. Instead of a promotion, the co-worker may start a romantic relationship with the jealous person’s secret office crush. Because this rivalry is personal in nature, the target of the jealous person’s resentment and anger is not necessarily the unattainable romantic partner, but the more attractive rival who now stands between them.
Another difference between jealousy and envy is the depth of emotion. Envy is considered to be one of the 7 deadly sins, but in general, the moral danger lies with becoming covetous of another person’s possessions or status. In one sense, it is at the root of criminal acts such as burglary or fraud. The criminal develops irrational envy about the people he or she perceives as more fortunate in life, so the theft of a victim’s property somehow balances the scales of fairness. In its rawest form, this emotion represents an irrational desire for material satisfaction, not necessarily ill will towards those who have it.
Jealousy, however, is largely focused on the perceived character of the rival himself or herself. It’s not that a more attractive rival managed to “steal” a potential romantic partner, it’s the unfairness that an undeserving rival can use his or her skills to take what rightfully belongs to the jealous person. These feelings often go deeper than those of envy, and can lead to physical confrontations with the rival or even criminal acts of violence.
Feelings of jealousy are almost always negative, since the jealous person may continue to build up resentment towards his or her rival until the situation becomes untenable or volatile. Many cases can only be defused if at least one side of the triangle is taken completely out of the equation. If the object of the jealous person’s romantic interest begins dating a third party, for example, the tension between rivals should lessen considerably. Without a focal point for passionate emotions, they generally lose their fuel.
Envy, on the other hand, can actually have some positive benefits, albeit after the fact. An envious person may be motivated to take the steps necessary to attain what his rival already has. Instead of developing irrational feelings of resentment towards a successful co-worker, for example, an envious person might pursue the same educational track as his rival or take other steps to improve his own chances for a similar promotion. Resolving such feelings does not necessitate the removal of a rival or the “good” that he now possesses, but it could require an attitude adjustment on the part of the envious one.
CCC 2538 The tenth commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart. When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King David to repentance, he told him the story about the poor man who had only one ewe lamb that he treated like his own daughter and the rich man who, despite the great number of his flocks, envied the poor man and ended by stealing his lamb. (Cf. 2 Sam 12:1-4). Envy can lead to the worst crimes. (Cf. Gen 4:3-7; 1 Kings 21:1-29). “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world.” (Wis 2:24)
CCC 1852 There are a great many kinds of sin. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:19-21; cf: Rom 1:28-32). 1 Cor 6:9-10; Eph 5:3-5; Col 3:5-8; 1 Tim 1:9-10; 2 Tim 3:2-5)
CCC 1853 … The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the the teaching of the Lord: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man.” (Mt 15:19-20). But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.
CCC 2539 Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbour it is a mortal sin:
St. Augustine saw envy as “the diabolical sin.” “From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbour, and displeasure caused by his prosperity.” (quoting St. Gregory the Great)
[Roots & Consequences] CCC 2540 Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride, the baptized person should train himself to live in humility:
Would you like to see God glorified by you? Then rejoice in your brother’s progress and you will immediately give glory to God. Because his servant could conquer envy by rejoicing in the merits of others. God will be praised. (St. John Chrysostom)
How to work on reducing envy/jealousy? Focus on God through prayer/contemplation of Him
“I want to see God”
CCC 2548 Desire for true happiness frees man from his immoderate attachment to the goods of this world so that he can find his fulfillment in the vision and beatitude of God. “The promise [of seeing God] surpasses all beatitude… In Scripture, to see is to possess… Whoever sees God has obtained all the goods of which he can conceive.” (Lk 14:33; cf. Mk 8:35)
CCC 2549 It remains for the holy people to struggle, with grace from on high, to obtain the good things God promises. In order to possess and contemplate God, Christ’s faithful mortify their cravings and, with the grace of God, prevail over the seductions of pleasure and power.
CCC 2550 On this way of perfection, the Spirit and the Bride call whoever hears them (Cf. Rev 22:17) to perfect communion with God: There will true glory be, where on one will be praised by mistake or flattery; true honour will not be refused to the worthy, nor granted to the unworthy; likewise, no one unworthy will pretend to be worthy, where only those who are worthy will be admitted. There true peace will reign, where no one will experience opposition either from self or others. God himself will be virtue’s reward; he gives virtue and has promised to give himself as the best and greatest reward that could exist… “I shall be their God and they will be my people…” This is also the meaning of the Apostle’s words: “So that God may be all in all.” God himself will be the goal of our desires; we shall contemplate him without end, love him without surfeit, praise him without weariness. This gift, this state, this act, like eternal life itself, will assuredly be common to all. [St. Augustine, City of God].
Sport Outing
7 Deadly Sins – Gluttony by Wilson Poh
Consider these four scenarios:
* Is going to Seoul Garden and eating till you are full and a bit beyond, gluttony?
* Is piling food on your plate during a buffet, a sin of gluttony?
* Is finishing the food on your plate even when you are full, a sin of gluttony?
* Or how about when you go over to your girlfriend/boyfriend’s place and her/his mother keeps pressing you to eat even when you are full, a sin of gluttony?
What is gluttony? Gluttony is an inordinate love of the pleasures attached to the eating of food and/or drink. Most people would agree with me that gluttony compared to the other mortal sins like the sin of rape is less severe, but however, why is a capital sin?
Gluttony is a capital sin because it generates, so to say, easily other sins, especially sin related to the body. He, who eats too much, easily lets his guard down and falls into other weakness. If these weakness are grave sins, even gluttony can be a mortal sin.
Story
There was a man who made a deal with the devil. In return for the service of the devil, the man has to choose between these three sins he needs to commit: sin of rape, sin of murder, or the sin of gluttony. Feeling that the sin of gluttony was less severe than the other two, the man chose to commit the sin of gluttony. So he went again to get himself drunk. Upon fulfilling his end of the deal, he went home; but to his greatest mistake, he went to his parents’ place instead. When he entered the bed room, he saw a woman, who he immediately went to bed with her. Little did he know that that woman was his mother. She screamed for help and resisted his advances. Hearing her screams, her husband ran up to stop the intruder. However, being in the blurry state, the son though the father was trying to hurt him. He killed his father, rapes his mother and killed her too. In this unfortunate event, the man committed the sin of rape, murder, incest, anger, and gluttony. SO DON’T PLAY PLAY HOR!
In the other hand, if the inordinate concupiscence in the vice of gluttony be found to affect such things as are directed to the end, for instance when a man has too great a desire for the pleasure of the palate, yet would not for their sake do anything contrary to God’s law, it is a venial sin.
What is considered glutinous? St Thomas Aquinas defined five forms of gluttony:
1. Eating food that is too luxurious, exotic, or costly
2. Eating food that is excessive in quantity
3. Eating food that is too daintily or elaborately prepared
4. Earing too soon, or at an inappropriate time
5. Eating too eagerly
We have two appetites:
1. Natural appetite which cannot be controlled by us since our body needs a certain amount of food to continue to live and,
2. Sensitive appetite which gives us pleasure in tasting food, what satisfies our palate and makes us like to eat.
CCC2535: The sensitive appetite leads us to desire pleasant things, things we do not have, e.g. the desire to eat when we are hungry or to warm ourselves when we are cold. These desires are good in themselves but often they exceed the limits of reason and drive us to covet unjustly what is not ours and belongs to another or is owed to him.
Ending
Once upon a time there was a little glutton who only ate sweets and candy. One day,in an antique shop he found an old magnifying glass. He liked it very much, and his parents bought it for him. He was so happy with his magnifying glass! As soon as he could, he used it to look at a little ant. It was great! The ant looked so big. But then a strange thing happened. When he took the magnifying glass away, the ant stayed the same size it had appeared through the glass.
Very surprised, the boy kept experimenting, and he found that anything he looked at through the magnifying glass would get bigger, and stay that way.
Suddenly, he realised how he could best use this special ability, and he ran home. At home he took all the candies and sweets, and he made them gigantic with his magnifying glass. Then he completely stuffed himself with them, until he could eat nothing more. However, the next morning he woke up totally swollen, a bit purple, and with a huge bellyache. When the doctor came to see him, he said it was the worst case of upset tummy he had ever seen. Night and day, the little glutton suffered so much that for a long time he didn’t want to hear mention of large amounts of food. His parents were happy about this. Thanks to their son’s latest gluttony their pantry was full of the food he could not eat. What’s more, he gave up being a glutton who only ever ate sweets and candy. He wanted nothing to do with them.
And so it was that the little glutton learned that even with the best things in life, if you have too many of them, you will end up feeling ill. He decided to keep the magnifying glass in a box until he found something that would really be worth making bigger.
How about you? What would you use the magnifying glass for?
7 Deadly Sins – Greed and Envy by Christofer Kristo
Spiritual reading: Genesis 4:1-16
CCC #2539: Envy: sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When one wishes grave harm to a neighbour it is mortal sin.
Envy is a sin because it goes against the 10th commandment: You shall not covet anything that is your neighbour’s.
Basically, envy is wanting something that others have but we don’t have. Greed is always wanting something more and never satisfied. Illustrate with ABCD_FGHI. Both are interconnected and are a sin of excess. Desire is good, but extreme desire to the extent of harming others I bad.
Greed is actually the root cause of other sins: lust, gluttony, envy, pride.
Greed and envy cause us to hate others: hate our superiors who excel better than us, hate our equal as they compete with us, hate our inferiors as they strive to equal us. All these make us sad, discontent to others and difficult to deal with people à no friends; torturing ourselves
From spiritual reading: Cain killed Abel because Cain was envious of Abel’s accepted sacrifices. Cain suffered great consequences for his sin, but God still loves him as he was prevented from being killed in foreign land.
Other examples: Gen 37: Brothers of Joseph sold him as a slave because they are envious of Jacob’s love for Joseph. They suffered consequences: famine, but our all-merciful God still love them as God used Joseph to give them wheat, allowing them to survive through the famine.
Opposite of Greed and Envy is Charity and Kindness:
1. Give to the poor. We try to be more generous in giving. Our time, talents, money and possessions are all precious gifts from God. Freely receive, freely give! True generosity doesn’t impoverish, but it enriches! God richly rewards those who give generously. We cannot outsmart God in generosity: look to God as our role model. By doing this we strive to live simply. Try to let go and give up things we do not really need. Train us to not desire excessive things. Philosopher: going shopping, sees many luxuriant things, don’t say I want them, but realise that I can still live without these things that I don’t have, so they are unnecessary.
2. Rejoice with other’s achievements: learn from others: be envious of the right things: sb who has a strong faith, who is faithful, who is charitable. Don’t desire a bigger house, a nicer car, a more prestigious position, higher salary, better looks, more fame prestige and power
3. Make a list of the blessings that we have received from god so far.
4. Believe that only God Himself can satisfy our thirst, desire, longing, wants. Desire is a gift from God, and we are made from God who is infinite. Therefore we are given an infinite longing so that we long for God and not for the finite things of the world because the infinite heart can only be satisfied with the infinite God. Ask for the grace to realise that God alone is enough for me. All that we have is from God. God has given us the necessary things that we need to survive, there is no need to be envy or greedy for more. Accept our own reality with trust in God. God knows better than we do: Rm 9:20-22: But who are you my friend to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?” After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, one for special occasion, one for ordinary use.
Ask the Lord to fill our hearts with a spirit of generosity and charity, and joy in sharing what we have with others.
7 Deadly Sins – Sloth by Ika
Pope John Paul II’s Magnificent 1998 Apostolic Letter “Dies Domini”
No to selfishness and spiritual sloth
81. At a time when we most need a missionary dynamism which will bring salt and light to the world, many lay people fear that they may be asked to undertake some apostolic work and they seek to avoid any responsibility that may take away from their free time. For example, it has become very difficult today to find trained parish catechists willing to persevere in this work for some years. Something similar is also happening with priests who are obsessed with protecting their free time. This is frequently due to the fact that people feel an overbearing need to guard their personal freedom, as though the task of evangelization was a dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to God’s love which summons us to mission and makes us fulfilled and productive. Some resist giving themselves over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis and acedia.
82. The problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather activity undertaken badly, without adequate motivation, without a spirituality which would permeate it and make it pleasurable. As a result, work becomes more tiring than necessary, even leading at times to illness. Far from a content and happy tiredness, this is a tense, burdensome, dissatisfying and, in the end, unbearable fatigue. This pastoral acedia can be caused by a number of things. Some fall into it because they throw themselves into unrealistic projects and are not satisfied simply to do what they reasonably can. Others, because they lack the patience to allow processes to mature; they want everything to fall from heaven. Others, because they are attached to a few projects or vain dreams of success. Others, because they have lost real contract with people and so depersonalize their work that they are more concerned with the road map than with the journey itself. Others fall into acedia because they are unable to wait; they want to dominate the rhythm of life. Today’s obsession with immediate results makes it hard for pastoral workers to tolerate anything that smacks of disagreement, possible failure, criticism, the cross.
83. And so the biggest threat of all gradually takes shape: “the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness”.[63] A tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum. Disillusioned with reality, with the Church and with themselves, they experience a constant temptation to cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in hope, which seizes the heart like “the most precious of the devil’s potions”.[64] Called to radiate light and communicate life, in the end they are caught up in things that generate only darkness and inner weariness, and slowly consume all zeal for the apostolate. For all this, I repeat: Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of evangelization!
7 Deadly Sins – Sloth by Novenia Oerip
When many of us think of sloth, we probably conjure up images of an ugly South American animal that eats shoots and actually hangs around. Or maybe we think of unshaven Joe Sixpack lying on the sofa all weekend, not lifting a finger except to open another cold one.
The latter is a fairly apt image of the vice of sloth or its synonyms such as boredom, acedia, and laziness. Boredom refers to a certain emptiness of soul or lack of passion; acedia refers to the sadness that comes from our unwillingness to tackle the difficulties involved in attaining something good; laziness more generally refers to the torpor and idleness of one who is not inclined to exert himself.
The virtues of diligence and industriousness are deeply ingrained in our nation’s Protestant work ethic. Our youth learn early on that the way to get ahead—at least for those who don’t win the lottery—is by working hard. The early bird catches the worm. Early to bed, early to rise. In a competitive, dog-eat-dog business world, everyone is looking for an “edge,” and that typically comes from outworking the competition.
And even apart from an employment context, when we want to communicate that our lives have been normal and healthy, we report that we’ve been “keeping busy.”
Surely the Church has always championed the intrinsic goodness of human work, through which we become “co-creators” with God and exercise legitimate stewardship over creation. In his 1981 encyclical letter on human work (Laborem Exercens), Pope John Paul II writes: “Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being’” (9).
Mightier than the Minotaur
Yet sloth is a sin against God, and not against the time clock or productivity. The fact is that it’s possible to work too much, in a way that’s not in keeping with our dignity and ultimate good. The essence of sloth is a failure to fulfill one’s basic duties. Surely one such duty is the human vocation to work. Yet another such duty is the enjoyment of leisure, to take time for worship. The gentleman lying on the sofa may be a more popular image of sloth, but the workaholic, who’s on the job 24-7 and in the process neglects God and family, is the more typical manifestation of sloth in our culture.
Pope John Paul II, in his 1995 encyclical on the Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), identified “the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man” (21). He noted that “when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life” (21). The Holy Father was speaking to us: We in the west have largely lost the sense of God, leading to a loss of our own sense of purpose or mission. This has inexorably led to the societal emptiness and lack of passion that Solzhenitsyn saw so clearly decades ago. A striking correlation exists between the rise of secular atheism and boredom, as the reduction of human existence to the merely material divests it of its intended richness and meaning. This can only lead to the worldly sadness that leads to despair and ultimately death (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10).
Amusing Ourselves to Death
The most typical way of dealing with this tragedy is by not dealing with it, so as a society we tend to flock to entertainments. Certainly, these things are not bad in themselves, but excessive recourse to them reveals a flight from the depths of the human condition to the comfort of shallow pastimes. These pursuits are rightly called diversions, because they divert us from facing a life from which the living God has been excluded. For some, these diversions may be sports, television, or the Internet, among other possibilities. For others, work or study becomes a diversion, an escape. When it does, it ceases to be a manifestation of virtue and instead feeds the vice of sloth.
In addition, modern man tends to define himself by what he does and what he has. Yet, leisure isn’t about producing and owning, but about being—in other words, resting in God’s presence. We often fail to recognize the immense God-given dignity and value we have simply by being who we are, which is prior to anything we might accomplish in life. In Augustinian terms, without allowing for leisure, our hearts are forever restless, and our sense of worth gets tied to what we’re able to produce. This utilitarian mindset not only drives us to overwork, but it also negatively affects how we value others. That’s one reason why our society has such a difficult time valuing the elderly and the infirm in our midst.
Further, as the pursuit of success, acclaim, or riches becomes the source of our personal worth, these human goods in essence take the place of God in our lives. Few of us probably set out to become idolaters, but that’s what we’ve become if our choices and work habits are ordered toward serving mammon, not God (Matt. 6:24; CCC 2113).
In response to all this, I offer a three-part plan for battling and overcoming the vice of sloth.
1: Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
One passage of Dies Domini really struck me: “[The Sabbath is] rooted in the depths of God’s plan. This is why, unlike many other precepts, it is not set within the context of strictly cultic stipulations but within the Decalogue, the ‘ten words’ which represents the very pillars of the moral life inscribed on the human heart” (DD 13).
Sunday Mass is not simply another requirement imposed on us by a Church that’s obsessed with “rules.” Rather, the obligation to remember to keep the day holy is prefigured and rooted in the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, which in turn is rooted in the very act of creation. And by creation I mean both God’s creation of the world, from which he took his rest on the seventh day, and God’s creation of us. This call to worship, to rest from servile labor, to take stock of all that God has given us, is inscribed in who we are, and we are acting against our own good when we fail to remember to keep Sunday holy. As our Lord noted, the Sabbath is made for man, and not the other way around.
On top of all that, we are commanded to “remember” to keep the day holy, which suggests that we might tend to “forget.”
When it comes to tithing our money, assuming that we even make an effort to support the Church financially, we look for the minimum we can get by with. Nobody ever says, “Is it okay to give more than 10 percent?” or tries to imitate the widow in the Gospel (Luke 21:1-4). Instead, we tend to give a mere pittance of what we’re able to give—certainly not enough to affect our overall spending habits. God asks for our first fruits and we give him our spare change.
In a similar sense, God asks us to tithe our time, to give him one day per week. We’ve reduced the Lord’s Day to Sunday Mass, and even then we run away if it lasts more than 45 minutes. We can’t get out of Church fast enough once we’ve “done our time.”
But as long as we view the Sunday obligation minimally and as a burden, we’re missing the point. While Sunday Mass is the source and summit of our Christian life for the week, the entire Lord’s Day should be set aside for God and family—in other words, for leisure and for freedom from servile labor. Surely there must be some flexibility in application especially given our diverse, secular culture, but I daresay just as we can probably do a better job of tithing our money, we can do a better job of remembering to observe the Lord’s Day.
2: Take stock of our schedule.
Time is one of our most valued commodities, and we should spend it in a way that reflects our values and priorities. Getting the Lord’s Day right is the first and most important step, but we still have six other days to order correctly. Faith, family, work, and other pursuits are like ingredients that need to be added at the right time and in the right measure to make a tasty dish. If we don’t take the time to read and follow the recipe, the ingredients won’t come together in the way we’d like.
That’s why it’s so important for individuals, couples, families, and communities to take the time to identify their priorities and commitments and schedule their days and weeks accordingly. For those of us who tend to be lazy “under-achievers,” a schedule will keep us on task to make sure we meet our obligations. For those of us who tend toward workaholism and to be driven by the tyranny of the urgent, a schedule will make sure that we make time for prayer, reading to the kids, or other priorities that might get shoved aside if we’re not vigilant.
3: Cultivate virtue.
If we’re not actively engaged in cultivating virtue, then our lives will start looking like a garden. There are some patches of grass, but each day there are also more weeds. Overcoming vice and developing virtue go together, just as it’s not enough to pull weeds without also planting and fertilizing the new grass.
When it comes to sloth, the corresponding virtues are justice, charity, and magnanimity. Sloth is about fulfilling our obligations to God and neighbor, which brings into play the various manifestations of justice. However, the motivation for fulfilling these obligations should be supernatural charity, which moves us out of our small, self-serving world so that we might live for others.
When the spiritual laxity of sloth overtakes us, we are like a football team that has lost its momentum. We are set back on our spiritual heels and feel ill-prepared to do what is necessary to turn the tide. From this perspective, we can see how the “end game” of sloth is despair, as eventually the negative momentum snowballs, and we lose the will to compete.
Magnanimity, however, literally means being “great-souled”; it is the virtue that gives us the confidence that we can do all things in Him who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13), that we can truly run so as to win (1 Cor. 9:24).
Each time we act against our disinclination to pray, as well as work into our day habits of prayer (e.g., saying a Hail Mary when we’re stopped in traffic) and sacrifice, we are replacing sloth with virtues that will help us become saints.
7 Deadly Sins – Pride by Gerald Kong
What is the opposite of pride? The virtue of Humility.
Which of the 8 beatitudes in Mt 5:3-11 do you think speak of this virtue? In my opinion, most of them – 1st (poor in spirit), 2nd (gentle), 3rd (mourn), 5th (merciful), 6th (pure in heart), 7th (peacemakers), 8th (persecuted in the cause of uprightness). (Have Legionaries explain.) So there are many dimensions of humility actually.
Do you recall this famous passage, Mt 11:28-29?
“Come to me, all your labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Should my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Can we say that Jesus is prideful in saying that? Humble people don’t say they are humble right? No, because He is God on whom we are called to model our lives. He is Truth and the personification of humility in its fullness. What if any of us were to say “learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart”??? Would that be permissible? Eg. one of the easiest way to test whether we are proud or not is to examine ourselves as to how we handle humiliations! Like when someone puts us down. Eg. Wilson sending whatsapp message “No, you are lying” and my reaction of wanting revenge. The reality is that we will have to battle with pride all the time; it is a lifelong struggle.
Can a person be proud of something and not sinful or not be sinning? Is there a good kind of pride? Yes, when one is positively confident of oneself. Eg. Declaring I am good at designing posters; I can sing well; I play badminton expertly; I am proud of my country, my family, my work; I can sleep anywhere, anytime, hahaha 😛
Important questions to ask: what is pride? when is pride a sin or what kind of pride is sinful?
CCC 1866 describes pride as one of the seven capital sins. (“capital” because these seven sins engender other sins, other vices).
Pride is undue self-esteem or self-love, which seeks attention and honour and sets oneself in competition with God.
Let’s break that down… in order to grow in holiness, we need to grow in self-knowledge. The Holy Father, St. Pope John Paul II wrote this in his book, The Acting Person:
Self-knowledge is when we have a realistic view of ourselves and an idea of what our weaknesses and strengths are. We need awareness of these areas in order to have a healthy concept of ourselves. Now, the opposite of that healthy self-knowledge is found in pride. So, to determine what is good and what is sinful, let’s examine some specific examples and see what we learn.
Firstly, let’s say we are good at something. If we are good at something, and we are aware that we are good at it, it is not prideful to acknowledge that fact. That is speaking the truth. Some example were already given earlier.
St. Francis of Assisi said before: “True humility begins with our ability to recognise our weaknesses as well as our strengths.”
Conversely, if we know we are good at something and then say we aren’t good at it, that is lying. This is called false humility. This is when we refuse compliments and deny our goodness at certain things. Eg. shying away from responsibilities, claiming/pretending one is not good enough, I do not have this talent, I’m not as good as so and so…I cannot, when one actually can… pretending not to be good at a subject and unable to help a classmate and then scoring a “A” eventually!
We may even claim that we are too sinful and that God who loves us unconditionally cannot love us — that actually “sets oneself in competition with God.”
If it is hard for you to take compliments, try this: the next time people praise you, consider it a prayer. That person praising you is thanking God through you for the gift you manifest. One other way is to credit God rightaway with a smile and say “may all praise be unto God’s, I am only his servant” ie. lower oneself. Eg. St. Bernadette Soubirous
You might be thinking, “how ever am I going to be as humble as St. Bernadette? That is so hard to attain.”
Here are some tips:
One of the greatest weaknesses among Catholics is that we are very quick to criticize others but slow to compliment. If only, we can exercise complimenting others, recognising their gifts and talents rather than their weaknesses and faults. If we keep on criticizing, it is because we are prideful and think we are superior to others. So try complimenting others generously and sincerely this week. This will help us all to be more humble.
To attain a much higher level of holiness one way is to actively seek humiliations to chip away at one’s pride, to pray to God, “Lord, grant me humilitations…whether it be a failure, a difficulty/trial/tribulation, etc.” This is to say that we are not simply “victims” or “passive receipients” of humiliations! Again, this may sound impossible. Eg. When I proposed something to my boss I believed to be good in a meeting knowing that he would oppose it: in fact he did, and I was humiliated before those present! Oftentimes we are afraid to speak up/give our best suggestions because we are afraid they will not be accepted. If they will not be accepted, we have something wonderful to offer up to God!
Let us strive this week to work on our pride and nurture the virtue of humility with the above suggestions so that this allocution may not just come to pass. We can share about our experiences at the next Legion meeting! J