From "A Catholic Dictionary", Attwater. 1954
"SIN, MORTAL.
"SIN, VENIAL.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Deliberate Venial Sin
From the point of view of perfection there is a great difference between venial faults of surprise and those committed with full deliberation, with full consent of the will.
FAULTS OF SURPRISE.
The Malice of Deliberate Venial Sin
Deliberate venial sin is a moral evil. In reality, it is, mortal sin excepted, the greatest evil. It does not actually turn us from our end, but it checks our progress robs us of time beyond price, and constitutes an OFFENSE AGAINST GOD. It is in this that its malice consists.
It is AN ACT OF DISOBEDIENCE TO GOD, in a slight matter it is true, but willed after reflection. Regarded in the light of faith, it is something truly hateful, since it challenges the infinite majesty of God.
A) It is a wrong, an indignity offered to God; for placing God and His glory over against our whims, our pleasure, and our vanity, we dare to choose the latter. What an outrage! A will infinitely wise and righteous sacrificed to our own, the slave of error and caprice! "It is," says St. Theresa, "as if we said: 'Lord, I know full well this action displeases you, yet I shall do it none the less. I am not unaware that your eyes see it, I know perfectly well you do not want it, but I will rather follow my bent and fancy than your will. Can this be of little consequence? As for myself, no matter how slight the fault might be in itself, I find on the contrary that it is grave and very grave.'"
C) This, of itself, is an act of INGRATITUDE. Loaded by God with numberless favors, raised to friendship with Him, and knowing that in return He claims our love and gratitude, we begrudge Him a small sacrifice. Instead of striving to please, Him, we dare to displease Him. Hence, inevitably, a certain coolness in God's friendship towards us. God loves us without stint and asks us in return that we love Him with all our soul: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind." Now, we do not make the entire gift of ourselves to Him, we hold something back, and the while we want to keep His friendship, we are niggardly with ours, offering Him but a divided heart. This is evidently inconsiderate; it shows a lack of generosity, a smallness that cannot but alter our intimate relations with God.
The Effects of Deliberate Venial Sin
IN THIS LIFE.
a) OUR TENDENCIES TOWARD FORBIDDEN PLEASURES GATHER STRENGTH; the more we yield to this treacherous, and insatiable enemy, the more it demands.
Today sloth makes us shorten our meditation by a few brief minutes; tomorrow it demands twice as many. Today sensuality but asks for some slight gratifications; tomorrow it becomes bold and asks for more. Where shall we stop on this downward grade? We try to reassure ourselves by saying that such faults are only venial, but alas, step by step they come nearer and nearer to grievous sins; imprudences recur and stir the imagination and the senses more deeply than before. This is the fire that lies smoldering beneath the ashes, and which may at any given moment be the source of threatening flames; this is the reptile that we warm in our bosom and which makes ready to bite and poison us. The danger is all the more imminent since familiarity has partly dispelled our fear; we let fall one after the other the barriers that guarded the stronghold of the heart and an hour comes when with added fury in the assault, the enemy gains entry into the citadel of the soul.
b) This is the more to be dreaded, as God's GRACES are as a rule REDUCED in proportion to our infidelities.
A) There they endure the most unbearable of sufferings, the PRIVATION OF THE VISION OF GOD. This torture, it is true, will not last forever, differing in this from the pains of hell; nevertheless, for a time measured by the number and seriousness of their faults, these souls who love God and who, now removed from the pleasures and distractions of earth, think of Him constantly and long to see His face, are prevented from seeing and possessing Him, and therefore suffer indescribable anguish. They, now realize that outside of God there is no solace and no bliss; and still before them looms, like insurmountable barriers, that host of venial sins they have not as yet sufficiently expiated. They are, moreover, so alive to the necessity of the purity required to contemplate the Almighty face to face, that their very shame would not allow them to appear before Him as they are, nor would they ever consent to enter Heaven as long as there remains upon them the least stain of venial sin. 2 They find themselves, therefore, in a state of TORTURE the more excruciating as they realize that it is fully deserved.
"Seeing," says St. Catherine of Genoa, "that purgatory is designed to cleanse them of their stains, souls throw themselves into it, deeming it an unspeakable token of mercy that they are offered a place wherein they can rid themselves of what prevents their union with God." Such willing acceptance, however, does not do away with their great sufferings: "This resignation of the souls in purgatory does not relieve them of one whit of their torments; far from it, love pent-up causes their woe, and their woe increases in proportion to that perfection of love of which God has made them capable."
A transgression of the moral law in a serious matter, committed with clear advertence to the grievous nature of the act and with full deliberation and consent on the part of the will. It is called mortal since it deprives the soul of its supernatural life of sanctifying grace (q.v.). It deserves eternal punishment, since the offence is a deliberate act of rebellion against the infinite majesty of God."
An offence against the law of God less grievous than mortal sin, not depriving the soul of sanctifying grace. A sin is venial either when the matter is not grave, or when, given grave matter, either full advertence to its gravity on the part of the intellect or full consent on the part of the will is wanting. Venial sins can be remitted by prayer or other good works."
From "The Spiritual Life", Very Reverend A. Tanquery, S.S., D.D. 1923
[Bold and italicized words in the original have been capitalized here.]
The Saints themselves at times commit such by allowing themselves to be momentarily betrayed though thoughtlessness or weakness of will into some carelessness in prayer, into imprudences, rash judgments, words against charity, or little lies to cover up a fault. No doubt, these faults are to be deplored, and fervent souls do deplore them sincerely; however, such faults are not an obstacle to perfection. Almighty God, Who knows our weakness, readily condones them. Besides, almost invariably fervent souls make amends on the spot through acts of contrition, of humility, of love - acts that endure longer and are more voluntary than are their sins of frailty.
All we have to do as regards these faults is to lessen their number and ward off discouragement.
a) We diminish their number through VIGILANCE, by striving to reach and suppress their causes. This we do without anxiety or overeagerness, relying more on the grace of God than on our efforts. We must, above all, endeavor to destroy all attachment to venial sin; for as St. Francis de Sales remarks, "if the heart clings thereto devotion loses for us its sweetness, and all devotion vanishes."
b) We must carefully avoid DISCOURAGEMENT, the vexation of those who "are angry for having been angry, and vexed to see themselves vexed." Such feelings proceed from self-love; one is cast down and troubled at seeing oneself so imperfect. To escape this defect, we must look upon our faults with the same eye of tolerance with which we behold those of others; indeed, we must detest our faults and our failings, but with a calm hatred, highly conscious of our own weakness and misery, and firmly determined to make them an occasion of giving glory to God by bringing more love and more fidelity to the fulfilment of our present duties.
It is otherwise with deliberate venial sins, which are a very great hindrance to our spiritual progress, and which must be vigorously combated.
B) Hence, there results through our own fault, a DIMINUTION OF GOD'S EXTERNAL GLORY; for we have been created in order that by a perfect and loving obedience to His law we may procure His glory. Now, by refusing to obey even in slight matter, we withhold from Him a measure of that glory; instead of proclaiming with Mary our readiness to exalt Him in all our acts, "My soul doth magnify the Lord", we positively refuse to glorify Him in this or that particular.
Frequent deliberate venial sin deprives the soul OF MANY GRACES, gradually LESSENS ITS FERVOR, and PREDISPOSES IT TO MORTAL SIN.
A) Venial sin does not, indeed, take from the soul sanctifying grace or divine love, but it deprives it of the new graces, the increase of divine love and of the corresponding degree of glory that it could have acquired and that God meant to give. Is not this an enormous loss, the loss of a treasure worth far more than the entire world?
B) It causes a DIMINUTION OF FERVOR, that is to say, a waning of that generosity whereby we give ourselves without reserve to God. This generosity presupposes a HIGH IDEAL and an UNRELENTING EFFORT to pursue it; but these two dispositions are incompatible with habitual venial sin.
a) Nothing so LOWERS OUR IDEAL as attachment to sin: instead of being ever ready to serve God in all things and to aspire to the highest, we purposely halt half-way along the road to relish some forbidden pleasure. We thus waste precious moments, turning away our gaze
from the lofty peaks to linger and gather a few flowers that are soon to wither. We feel then the weariness of the way, and heights of perfection that God wants us to reach seem far too remote and too forbidding. We say to ourselves that it is not necessary to aim so high; that we can obtain our salvation on more reasonable terms; and the ideal which once shone before our eyes no longer moves us. We say to ourselves that after all this little self-complacency, these trifling sensual gratifications, these sentimental friendships, these uncharitable words are unavoidable.
b) This lowering of our ideals necessarily paralyzes effort towards perfection. Before, we marched joyously on, sustained by the hope of reaching the goal; now, we begin to feel the heat and the burden of the day, and when we want to resume our ascent, our attachment to venial sin holds us back. Even as the bird held by cords to the ground tries in vain to take its flight and falls back bruised, so our souls, held by ties we will not break, fall very soon, harmed in some degree by the fruitless attempt to rise. At times, indeed, it seems as if we were to regain our strength, but alas! other ties hold us and we lack the steady purpose that would tear them asunder. Hence, there ensues a cooling of charity that becomes alarming.
C) The GREAT DANGER that confronts us then is that of GRADUALLY DRIFTING INTO MORTAL SIN. Our tendencies toward forbidden pleasure gather strength, our will becomes weaker and God's graces are reduced. Then a moment comes when any surrender may be feared.
1) It is the law of Divine Providence that graces are given us according to our own dispositions and our own co-operation. This is the sense of the Gospel words: "For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but to him that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath." By our attachment to venial sin we offer resistance to grace, we hamper its action in our soul and therefore receive it in smaller measure. If, then, even with a greater abundance of grace we failed to make a stand against the disordered tendencies of our nature, shall we succeed in restraining them now with less grace and less strength?
2) Besides, a soul lacking recollection and generosity hardly feels the promptings of the graces it receives, these are soon stifled by the turmoil of awakening passions. 3) Lastly, grace cannot sanctify us except through the sacrifices it demands of us, whilst the habits of pleasure we have acquired by our attachment to venial faults render such sacrifices all the more difficult.
We can, therefore, conclude with Father Lallemant: "The multiplication of venial sins is the destruction of souls, causing the diminution of those divine lights and inspirations, those interior consolations, that fervor and courage, which are needed to resist the assaults of the enemy. Hence follow blindness, weakness, frequent falls, an acquired habit of insensibility of heart; because, when once an affection to these faults is contracted, we sin without feeling that we are sinning."
The effects of venial sin in the NEXT WORLD show us how much we should dread it. It is in order to expiate venial sin that many souls spend a long time in purgatory.
B) Moreover, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, a subtle fire hinders their activity and makes them experience physical sufferings whereby they may expiate the guilty pleasures to which they gave consent. This trial, no doubt, they most willingly accept as they realize the need of it in order to effect their union with God.
And yet, God is not only just but merciful as well! He bears those souls a love that is real, tender, fatherly; He longs to give Himself to them for all eternity. If He does not do so, it is because there can be no possible fellowship between His infinite holiness and the least venial sin. Therefore, we can never hate venial sin too much, we can never undergo enough in order to avoid it, and we can never endure enough to repair it.
