Being Good When Sinning Is So Easy

Cultivating Good Habits

A virtue is a habit that perfects the powers of the soul and disposes you to do good. Catholics believe that divine grace is offered to the soul because, without God’s help, humans can’t do good on their own due to Original Sin: the sin of Adam and Eve, the first human beings and the parents of the human race. Their disobedience wounded human nature, and we all inherit that sinful nature from them. Grace, which is God’s intervention, bolsters a person’s soul, providing the necessary oomph to do the right thing — that is, if the recipient recognizes grace’s value. Catholics believe that virtues prepare and dispose people so that when grace is offered, people readily recognize, accept, and cooperate with it. In other words, God’s grace is necessary, and virtues make it easier to work with.

Traditionally, the Catholic Church recognizes four cardinal virtues, but you don’t have to be a cardinal in the Catholic Church to possess them. The root meaning of cardinal is cardo, which is Latin for hinge. These four virtues are the hinges on which the rest of the moral life swings:

Prudence
Justice
Temperance
Fortitude

The four cardinal virtues are also called moral virtues to distinguish them from the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (charity), which are given to the soul at Baptism.

Taking virtuous actions doesn’t make you a virtuous person. A virtuous person is able to do what’s virtuous because he’s committed to doing the right thing for the right reason. Doing good merely because it’s the right thing to do — instead of for profit, fame, or esteem — is the motivation for a virtuous person to do virtuous acts.

Prudence: Knowing what, when, and how

Too many people today carelessly blurt out statements that, although true, aren’t spoken in charity and compassion but with cold, deliberate, and calculated harshness. That’s where prudence can help.

Prudence is basically practical common sense. It’s saying or doing the proper thing at the proper time and in the appropriate manner. It’s also the ability to know and judge whether to say something or nothing at all.

You don’t need a high IQ to be prudent. Prudence, like wisdom, isn’t measured by intelligence but by the willingness of a person to think, discern, and then act. For example, asking a friend for the $500 he owes you while you’re both at a funeral parlor for the viewing of his deceased brother isn’t prudent. Knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it is prudence.

As another example, prudence can help you find the right time to appropriately confront a family member or friend who has an eating disorder. With prudence, you’re not negligent saying nothing at all, but neither are you abrupt or rude saying something like, “Hey, you look like you’re starving yourself!” or, “You really need to lose weight!”

An alcoholic practices prudence when declining an invitation to lunch at a bar, even though the person doing the inviting assures the alcoholic that they won’t sit at the bar but merely eat at a table. Prudence tells the alcoholic that entering a room where the aroma of booze permeates the air, where old drinking buddies hang out, and where she has memories of getting plastered is too dangerous for her. Prudence tells the alcoholic to decline or offer an alternative — a restaurant with no bar or, better yet, one where no alcohol is served.

Prudence takes time and practice. In the olden days, when good manners were more important, noblemen and peasants alike strove to show respect for their fellow man through the practice of prudent speech. Today, manners often come in two extremes: Some people are politically correct, live in fear of offending anyone, and, as a result, say nothing controversial — even when someone is in danger; other people adopt the shock-jock approach, which is to bludgeon you over the head with the raw, unadulterated truth, hoping to hurt your feelings and get a violent reaction from you rather than help you. Prudence lies in the middle of these two extremes. Prudent people speak the truth when it’s needed and appropriate, in an inoffensive way, but they never lose their force and conviction.

Acting prudently requires mature deliberation, wise choice, and the right execution:

Mature deliberation: When you exercise mature deliberation, you think carefully before acting or not acting. Mature deliberation involves contemplating past experience, examining the current situation and circumstances, and considering the possible results or outcome of your decision. Mature deliberation means that you’re not content with just personal knowledge, either. You seek the good advice of others — the opinions of well-respected, good, and morally upright people whom you respect and admire. You consult with peers and colleagues, and research authoritative sources and documents. For Catholic Christians, these sources include both the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In any event, mature deliberation means not just depending on your own personal experience and opinion but also testing your knowledge and beliefs and getting good advice.
Wise choice: Making a wise choice involves determining which of the available options is most feasible and appropriate. Getting input is the first step, and deciding which course to take after examining all the possibilities is the second. This route may not be the quickest or easiest one, but prudence enables you to judge the most beneficial path to take.
The right execution: The right execution is one in which you don’t delay after you make a wise choice, but swiftly and thoroughly follow through on what you’ve decided to do. Procrastination and haste are the two foes to look out for. The right execution means that you’ve planned and prepared and now know what to do. You don’t hesitate; you follow through.

Justice: Treating others fairly

Justice is the virtue that seeks to promote fair play. It’s the desire and resolve to give each person his due. It demands that you reward goodness and punish evil. Justice can be one of three different types: commutative, distributive, and social.

Quid pro quo: Commutative justice

Commutative justice concerns the relationship between individuals — between two people, such as a customer and a merchant. Commutative justice demands, for example, that the customer be asked to pay a fair price for a product and that the merchant be honest about the condition and history of the item, so the buyer can know whether the price is indeed fair. So if a merchant tries to sell a coin that allegedly belonged to Abraham Lincoln, the consumer needs some proof to verify the claim. It’s unfair to charge an enormous amount of money for something that can’t be authenticated or, worse yet, isn’t really as old as or in as good condition as advertised.

Commutative justice is based on the principle quid pro quo, which is Latin for this for that. I’m willing to pay you the price that you ask for this item, and you’re willing to sell it to me at that price. But the item must actually be what it’s advertised to be. If the advertised price isn’t correct or facts about the item are wrong, then commutative justice is violated.

Cheating the consumer and cheating the merchant are both ways of violating commutative justice.

Another situation in which commutative justice comes into play is when you’re robbed. Commutative justice demands that the thief make restitution by giving back the stolen money or property or, if that’s impossible, recompensing you in another way, such as giving you something equal in value or providing services. So when you were a kid and smashed your next-door-neighbor’s window, your mom or dad rightfully enforced commutative justice. And after apologizing to Mr. Wilson, you had to save your allowance until you could pay for the replacement window.

All for one and one for all: Distributive justice

Distributive justice involves the relationship between one and many — between an individual and a group. This kind of justice is most obvious in the relationship between a citizen and her government. The city, state, and federal governments are required by distributive justice to levy fair taxes to pay for services provided. Charging excess taxes is a violation of distributive justice, as is not charging enough taxes to pay for services, resulting in cuts to essential services. A flip-side violation is when a citizen refuses to pay her fair share of taxes and yet often benefits from the government’s services.

Distributive justice means that taxpayers have a right to know where their money goes, who spends it, and on what. The government has a right to ask citizens to financially support police, ambulance, firefighter, national defense, and other social services.

Here’s another example of how distributive justice comes into play. Suppose that Fred and Barney belong to the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, a private club. They pay their annual dues, and in return they get a monthly newsletter, an annual membership card made of bedrock, and an invitation to the annual convention. Distributive justice demands that members pay their dues and that the board of directors be responsible for the monies collected, giving an accounting each year so that everyone knows where the loot went. If Mr. Slate skims some money off the top for personal use or if favoritism or nepotism creep in, this type of justice has been violated. All members should be treated fairly and equally.

Fair play from Dan to Beersheba: Social justice

Social justice concerns the relationship of both individuals and groups between one another and everyone. The bottom line is the common good — the public welfare of all. Social justice is concerned with the environment, the economy, private property, civil rights, and church-state relations.

Although businesses have the right to make a profit by manufacturing and selling goods and services, increasing profit share at the harmful expense of others is unacceptable. For example, polluting the local water system just to make a greater profit is a violation of social justice. At the same time, environmental extremists violate social justice when they take the law into their own hands and perpetrate property damage or seek to close a business, which results in many lost jobs that families depend on for survival. Cooperating and communicating in order to balance the needs of the community and the needs of the business are better for both sides.

Note that neither the right to profit nor the right to property is absolute. So if a community is suffering from a severe drought, for example, a company that has access to drinkable water is obliged to share with those who are dying of thirst.

Social justice demands that everyone be treated fairly and equally under the law. It also recognizes the inalienable right and duty of every human being to work and receive a fair and just wage for that work. This type of justice defends the right of workers to form unions, guilds, and societies. And it defends the right of managers to expect reasonable and fair requests that won’t put them out of business or make them lose money rather than make it.

Treating all citizens — regardless of gender, color, ethnicity, or religion — with the same dignity and human rights is a mandate of social justice to all governments. For their part, citizens are expected to support their governments and nations in return for the protection and services they provide.

Temperance: Moderating pleasure

Feast or famine. Many people live at extremes — too much or too little. Some party hearty, and some are party poopers. From Puritans to Hedonists, the practices of self-deprivation and self-indulgence run the gamut, but the choice doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. Having some fun, enjoying your leisure time, taking pleasure, and relaxing aren’t sinful, immoral, illicit, or juvenile. Really!

Christians can and ought to have fun without it degenerating into depravity and debauchery. That’s where temperance comes in.

Temperance is the virtue by which a person uses balance. It’s the good habit that allows a person to relax and have fun without crossing the line and committing sin.

The Catholic Church believes that human beings are permitted to participate in legitimate pleasures but that, often, society and culture lure people into excesses in the direction of either extreme. For example, enjoying a good meal is a good thing, but if you continually eat more than you need and become obese, that’s gluttony. On the other hand, if you deprive yourself of food until your health suffers, all for the sake of looking good, well, that’s vanity.

Temperance is nothing more than moderation and balance in using lawful pleasures. Temperance is having an alcoholic beverage without abusing it. Drinking to get drunk and drinking and driving are violations of the virtue of temperance. So are eating, sleeping, or recreating to excess.

Temperance is the habit of using prudence and restraint and doesn’t require total abstinence unless someone has a problem. For example, an alcoholic can never have one or two social drinks. An alcoholic must forever abstain from booze, but she can still have a good time at parties with soft drinks instead.

Practicing temperance isn’t about Carrie Nation and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a bunch of old ladies banging a drum and decrying the evils of gin and rum. Rather, practicing temperance means knowing when to say when. It’s knowing your limits and sticking to them. For example, a kiss and a hug don’t have to end in passionate sex, and an argument doesn’t have to deteriorate into a fistfight. Temperance is establishing, respecting, and enforcing boundaries. Self-control is the key. Having a good time without it becoming an occasion of sin or a sinful act is what temperance is all about.

Fortitude: Doing what’s right come hell or high water

Fortitude isn’t about physical strength or mental intelligence, nor is it about being macho or bullying people around. Instead, this cardinal virtue centers on strength of character.

Fortitude is the ability to persevere in times of trial and tribulation — the strength to hang in there when the going gets tough. It’s having the courage to do the right thing no matter what the cost.

It’s not enough to be fair, use self-control, and be prudent. The virtue of fortitude gives you the strength to fulfill your commitments to God, family, and friends. This virtue enables

You to keep your promise and your word even when the world and everyone else is telling you to forget it
Teenagers to combat peer pressure, avoiding drugs and sex
Adults to remain chaste, abstaining from sexual relations until marriage despite the social pressures to have premarital relations
People of conscience to speak up and out when injustice occurs at work or in society

When practiced faithfully and consistently, fortitude empowers people to remain courageous and overcome even the fear of death in order to help others and/or do the right thing for the right reason.

The Seven Deadly Sins

As you may have guessed, along with cultivating good habits, you need to avoid some bad habits. The Church maintains that seven vices in particular lead to breaking one or more of the Ten Commandments. These particular bad habits are called the seven deadly sins because, according to Catholicism, they’re mortal sins — sins that kill the life of sanctifying grace. The Church believes that if you commit a mortal sin, you forfeit heaven and opt for hell by your own free will and actions. (See Chapter 9 for more on mortal sin.) Remember, too, that the Catholic Church teaches that God can and will forgive any sin if the person is truly repentant (through the Sacrament of Penance, Baptism, and Anointing of the Sick, or a perfect act of contrition in extreme necessity). Don’t commit the vices described in this section. But you can always seek God’s grace and mercy (read more in Chapter 9).

A mortal sin is any act or thought of a human being that turns away from God (aversio a Deo in Latin) and turns toward a created thing instead (conversio ad creaturam in Latin). In other words, mortal sin is completely turning away from God and embracing something else in His place. It’s deadly to the life of grace because it insults the honor of God and injures the soul of the sinner himself. Mortal sin is like a malignant tumor or a critical injury that’s lethal to the spiritual life. Three conditions are necessary for mortal sin to exist:

Grave matter: The act itself is intrinsically evil and immoral. For example, murder, rape, incest, perjury, adultery, and so on are grave matters. These actions are in and of themselves deadly to the life of grace.
Full knowledge: The person must know that what he’s doing or planning to do is evil and immoral. For example, say someone steals a postage stamp, thinking that it’s worth only 50 cents. She knows that it’s sinful, but if she’s unaware that the stamp is rare and actually worth $1,000, she’s not guilty of mortal sin but of venial sin (more on that is coming up in this section).
Deliberate consent: The person must freely choose to commit the act or plan to do it. Someone who’s forced against his will doesn’t commit a mortal sin. For example, a man who is drugged and brainwashed to assassinate a leader hasn’t done so of his own free will; therefore, he’s not guilty of mortal sin.

Venial sins are any sins that meet only one or two of the conditions needed for a mortal sin but do not fulfill all three at the same time, or are minor violations of the moral law, such as giving an obscene gesture to another driver while in traffic. Venial sin is less serious than mortal sin. Like a benign tumor or a minor infection, venial sin only weakens the soul with sickness; it doesn’t kill the grace within. Venial sins aren’t deadly to the life of grace, but like minor infections in the body, if casually ignored and left untended, they may deteriorate into a more serious condition. For example, someone who tells so-called “white lies” commits venial sin, but if he does it long enough, he’ll be much more easily tempted to tell a big lie later on that would, in fact, be a mortal sin, such as cheating on a test or on his income tax return.

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great made up the list of the seven deadly sins, which are pride, envy, lust, anger, gluttony, greed, and sloth. Later, in the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer popularized these sins in his Canterbury Tales.

In this section, we cover the seven deadly sins. As a bonus, we tell you about the remedies. Yep, remedies. Some specific virtues, lesser known than the four cardinal virtues, have traditionally been linked with a particular deadly sin. These virtues (listed in Table 13-1) help to defeat their counterparts.

TABLE 13-1 The Seven Deadly Sins and the Virtues That Defeat Them

Deadly Sin	Conquering Virtue
Pride	Humility
Envy	Kindness or meekness
Lust	Chastity
Anger	Patience
Gluttony	Periodic fasting and abstinence
Greed (avarice)	Generosity
Sloth (acedia)	Diligence

Pride goeth before the fall

Parents and teachers say to be proud of yourself, so why is pride considered a deadly sin? In the context they’re talking about, it’s not a sin. Parents and teachers are talking about healthy pride, such as taking joy from belonging to a family, a church, or a nation. Being proud to be an American, a Canadian, a good student, a hard worker, and so on isn’t sinful.

The sin of pride is an inordinate love of self — a super-confidence and high esteem in your own abilities. It’s also known as vanity. It exaggerates your abilities, gifts, and talents, and ignores your weaknesses, frailties, and imperfections.

In Catholicism, sinful pride is the deviation or distortion of the legitimate need of self-affirmation. Liking yourself isn’t sinful; in fact, it’s healthy and necessary. But when the self-perception no longer conforms to reality, and you begin to think that you’re more important than you actually are, the sin of pride is rearing its ugly head.

The sin of pride gives you a fat head. You think you’re better and more important than anyone else. It leads to resenting others whom you consider inferior, and you become impatient with others because you think they’re not perfect like you.

Pride is the key to all other sins because after you believe that you’re more important than you actually are, you compensate for it when others don’t agree with your judgment. You rationalize your behavior and make excuses for lying, cheating, stealing, insulting, ignoring, and such, because no one understands you like you do. In your mind, you’re underestimated by the world.

That’s the extreme expression of pride. A subtler example is when you refuse to accept the authority of someone else over you, be it a parent, teacher, employer, pastor, bishop, or pope. The refusal to obey others is a by-product of pride. Showing disrespect for those in authority is pride as well. The ego can’t stomach someone else having more power, intelligence, influence, or authority, so it rebels against the lawful superiors.

Pride also prevents you from seeking, listening to, or applying advice from others. Do you ever wonder why it is that most men refuse to ask for directions when they’re lost? Pride prevents them from admitting that they can’t read a map or follow directions properly. They can’t let their wives, girlfriends, or mothers know the truth, so they drive on and on, hoping that something familiar appears before it gets too dark or too late.

The Catholic Church teaches that humility is the best remedy for pride. It’s not a false self-deprecation, where you beat yourself up verbally only so others can say otherwise. It’s not denying the truth. If you have a good singing voice, for example, responding to a compliment with “Oh, no, I can’t carry a tune” isn’t humility. Catholicism regards humility as recognizing that the talent is really a gift from God and responding with, “Thank you — I’ve been blessed by the good Lord.” Pride would say, “You’re darn right I have a good voice. It’s about time you realized it.”

In other words, although acknowledging your talents is good, humility reminds you that your talents come from God. Pride fools you into thinking that you’re the source of your own greatness.

Envying what others have or enjoy

Envy, another deadly sin, is the resentment of another person’s good fortune or joy. Catholicism distinguishes between two kinds of envy:

Material envy is when you resent others who have more money, talent, strength, beauty, friends, and so on, than you do.
Spiritual envy is resenting others who progress in holiness, preferring that they stay at or below your level instead of being joyful and happy that they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Spiritual envy is far worse and more evil than material envy.

Note that spiritual writers and moralists make a distinction between envy and jealousy. Envy is the resentment of what others have, such as possessions, talent, fame, and so on, whereas jealousy is the fear of losing what you already have. So a jealous husband fears that he may or will lose his wife to another man. If he happens to think Julia Roberts is the most beautiful woman in the world, then that same husband may also be envious of Julia Roberts’s husband. Jealousy is considered to be as much a sin as envy because it closely resembles that deadly sin.

Jealousy among professional people is common, because they often fear losing their own status, position, notoriety, or esteem to rival colleagues. Jealous people are insecure, apprehensive, and fearful of peers taking what they have, surpassing them, or leaving them behind with less than they started out with. The same fears exist among students. A student ranked with the best grades in his class is jealous when he fears losing that ranking to another student who’s getting better grades day by day and is moving up the list faster and faster. On the other hand, a B student is envious when he resents a straight-A student.

The Church maintains that meekness or kindness can counter envy. For example, Genesis 37–47 tells the story of Joseph’s brothers, who were envious of Joseph because he was the favorite son of their father, Jacob. They sold Joseph into slavery, but Joseph rose through the ranks from slave to personal advisor to pharaoh. Later, when he met his brothers again, instead of seeking revenge, Joseph showed them kindness and brought them and their father into Egypt.

Lusting after fruit that’s forbidden

The Catholic Church believes that being attracted to and appreciating the opposite sex is normal and healthy. That’s not lust, and it’s not considered a sin.

Lust is looking at, imagining, and even treating others as mere sex objects to serve your own physical pleasures, rather than as individuals made in the image and likeness of God. Lust is having someone become something merely to please you, in fantasy or reality.

The Church says that lust depersonalizes the other person and the one having the lustful thoughts. It makes both parties nothing more than instruments of enjoyment instead of enabling them to focus on the unique gift of personhood. And it seeks to separate, divide, and isolate what God intended to be united — love and life, the unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage.

The pleasure that lustful thoughts provide is only a sign of the human condition and its wounded nature from Original Sin, which is concupiscence, the proclivity to sin, especially the tendency toward sins of the flesh. The fact that you’re entertained by impure thoughts isn’t sinful; rather, sin comes into play when you entertain them — you engage in the conscious and deliberate act of having lustful thoughts. The sin occurs when you initiate, consent to, and/or continue fantasizing about sexual activity with another person, because all sin involves a free act of the will. Spontaneous thoughts — especially during puberty and adolescence — are primarily involuntary and aren’t considered sinful. Such thoughts become sinful when the person recognizes them and has the ability to dismiss and reject them as soon as possible, yet doesn’t do so.

Chastity, the virtue that moderates sexual desire, is the best remedy for lust. Chastity falls under temperance and can help to keep physical pleasure in moderation.

Without chastity, men and women become like animals that copulate when in heat. Animals have sex driven by instinct, but men and women have the gift of reason and can choose when and with whom to be intimate. Desirous of chastity, men and women can freely abstain from sexual activity until the wedding night. If they allow lust to drive their actions, however, they sin and commit fornication (sex between two unmarried people) or they commit adultery (having sex with someone else’s spouse or cheating on your own spouse). Cultivating and clinging to chastity separate them from the animals.

Anger to the point of seeking revenge

You have no control over what angers you, but you do have control over what you do after you become angry. The deadly sin of anger is the sudden outburst of emotion — namely hostility — and sustaining thoughts about the desire for revenge. The key here is that the wrath persists for more than a moment. You want harm to come to someone else. In the worst case, anger can lead to willfully inflicting suffering on others.

If someone sticks you with a needle or pin, for example, or slaps you in the face, your initial reaction is probably one of anger. You resent what was done to you. The sin of anger occurs when you react by swearing, cursing, shouting, ranting, or raving. (Don’t confuse these last three reactions with the shouting, ranting, and raving that occur at a typical Italian meal. Everyone screams and yells at those.) In the same vein, if you brood over injuries and insults others have heaped on you and begin to yearn for revenge, the Church asserts that you’re committing the sin of anger. Inordinate, violent, and hateful anger is always a mortal sin. Bloodthirsty revenge also comes from anger.

But what if, say, someone robs you? In that case, wouldn’t those feelings be merited? No. Being upset that someone robbed you is normal and is properly called righteous indignation, but seeking revenge and desiring to see the culprit suffer isn’t. Instead, with the virtue of justice, you can desire for the police to catch the thief and for a court to sentence her to a fair punishment.

Patience, the virtue that allows you to adapt and endure evil without harboring any destructive feelings, is the best countermeasure for anger. When you give yourself the time and opportunity to cool off, anger dissipates and more practical concerns come to the front line.

Gluttony: Too much food or firewater

Gluttony is immoderate, excessive eating, and/or drinking too much alcohol. Enjoying a delightful dinner isn’t sinful, but intentionally overeating to the point where you literally get sick to your stomach is. So, too, having an alcoholic beverage now and then (provided that you don’t suffer from alcoholism) is not sinful in the eyes of the Church. Responsible consumption of alcohol is allowed. Making a champagne toast to a bride and groom or having a mixed drink with friends at a dinner party is all fine and well — that is, as long as you aren’t a recovering alcoholic. But drinking to the point of drunkenness is a sin. Abusing alcohol is sinful, and it doesn’t necessarily mean only getting drunk. People who use alcohol to lessen their own (or others’) inhibitions are committing sin. Driving under the influence or while intoxicated or impaired is a grave matter and can be a mortal sin (if you meet all three conditions for a mortal sin we talk about in the section “The Seven Deadly Sins”), because you endanger your own life and the lives of others. Underage drinking is also considered a serious sin.

Legitimate eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, aren’t gluttony; they’re medical conditions that require treatment and care. The sin of gluttony is freely choosing to overconsume.

Like lust, gluttony focuses on pleasure. Gluttony finds it in food and drink, whereas lust finds it in sexual activity. Both enslave the soul to the body, even though the soul — being superior to the body — should be in charge. Gluttons don’t eat out of necessity or for social reasons, but merely to consume and experience the pleasure of taste.

Gorging yourself on appetizers, several courses, desserts, and so on — with no concern for the possibility of getting sick or the reality that millions of people are starving around the world — is the ugliness and evil of gluttony. In addition, gluttony endangers your life by jeopardizing the health of your body.

Periodic fasting, restricting the amount of food you eat, and abstinence, avoiding meat or some favorite food, are the best defenses against gluttony. Unlike dieting where the goal is to lose weight, fasting and abstinence purify the soul by controlling the desires of the body. Occasionally giving up favorite foods and beverages promotes self-control and temperance. In addition, deciding ahead of time what and how much to eat and drink is considered prudent and helpful.

Greed: The desire for more and more

Greed is the inordinate love of and desire for earthly possessions. Greed entails cherishing things above people and relationships. Amassing a fortune and foolishly trying to accumulate the most stuff is greed, which is sometimes called avarice. “It’s never enough. I have to have more.” That’s the battle cry of greed.

Greed is also a sign of mistrust. “I doubt that God will take care of me, so I try to gather as much as possible now in case no more is left later.” The Gospel relates the parable about such a greedy man. He had so much grain that he tore down his bin to hold more — only to die that very night (Luke 12:16–21). But you can’t take it with you. That saying was true then, and it’s true now. Some time ago, a rich woman stipulated in her will that she be buried in her Rolls Royce. Where’s she going to drive that thing?

Greed, the apex of selfishness, has ruined marriages, families, and friendships. Generosity, however, is the best weapon against greed. Freely giving some of your possessions away, especially to those less fortunate, is considered the perfect antithesis to greed and avarice. Generosity promotes detachment from material things that come and go. Things can be broken, stolen, destroyed, or lost. They can be replaced, but people can’t.

Sloth: Lazy as a lotus-eater

Sloth (sometimes called acedia) is laziness — particularly when it concerns prayer and spiritual life. It centers on doing nothing or doing just trivial things. A slothful person always wants to rest and relax, with no desire or intention of making a sacrifice or doing something for others. It’s an aversion to work — physical, mental, and spiritual. Sloth inevitably leads to lukewarmness and tepidity and then deteriorates into disinterest, discouragement, and finally despair. Sloth breeds indifference, which prevents joy from ever being experienced.

The Church says that the evil habit of being inattentive at religious worship services — being physically present but not consciously participating — or being careless in fulfilling your religious duties is a sin of sloth. Other examples include never getting to church on time, before Mass starts; just sitting in church but not singing, praying, kneeling, or standing; never reading the Bible or the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and not praying before eating a meal or going to bed.