Sin

Refer to our Sunday Experience pages to find different prayers to pray as a family sometime during the week as well as setting up a prayer space and other activities as a family.

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4. Read through and familiarize yourself with the sample script. 
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Relates to Jesus:  Jesus died for our sins. He knows that these choices harm our relationship with Him, but He loves us anyway and chooses to die to overcome these sins. It is because of sin that He came and died for us.

Relates to my Faith: We must know that we are forgiven for our bad choices (sins). We must then give that same forgiveness to others. We are called to be virtuous.

Sample Script: As human beings, we are blessed by God to be created with a free will, or to have the ability to make decisions in our everyday life. Our free will to make decisions each day allows us to either choose good choices or to choose bad choices. Good choices are those decisions that bring us closer to God and help us to be the sons and daughters we are supposed to be. Bad choices are those decisions that bring us farther away from God and others around us. These bad choices are called sins.

Sins harm our friendship with God and with other people. They make God sad for us. When we choose a bad thing (i.e., something that is sinful) that choice tells God that we love the bad thing more than we love God and other people. And while you and I and everyone we meet are important, we need to remember that our love for God needs to come first, our love for other people second, and my love for myself must come last. This order of love follows what God has asked of us, and how Jesus lived his life on earth for us. By living in this unselfish way, we are living the way God designed us to live in order to have the greatest joy inside our hearts. Because God created us, he knows best of all what will bring us joy and to Heaven one day, where there is always love and peace and people who love us.

One of the most beautiful things about God is that God is love. Think of your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and all those that love you for a moment. When you make a bad choice and do something purposefully wrong, they might very well be mad and disappointed in you and you might get punished.  After a time, and after you say you are sorry, they are quick to forgive you and let you know that they love you. God is the same way! He is sad and disappointed when we choose sin over Him, but He is quick to forgive us (read the Prodigal Son story for a tremendous example of the Father’s love for us: Luke 15:11-32). Like our parents, God never stops loving us, and in fact, because He is so perfect, He loves us completely as no other being can. Although  our sins make God very disappointed and sad for us, there is nothing that you and I can ever do to stop Him from loving us and offering us the chance to be forgiven. Jesus especially loves when we are sorry for our sins and ask him for forgiveness, and when we commit a sin, we should ask God for forgiveness immediately, and for the grace to be sorry (contrite of heart). When we do this, he gives us special graces which make us very happy and make our hearts feel filled with joy. We are so blessed to have such a loving God!

Being in right relationship with God is what is needed for you and me to be the son or daughter that God has called us to be. Part of being the best daughter or son we are called to be is to be a model of forgiveness for others around us. When someone makes a bad choice against us, we hope that they will say sorry to us, but regardless of whether they say they are sorry or not, Jesus says that if we forgive them it will make our hearts feel God’s joy and love and help us heal from the hurt that is caused against us. Also, being a model of forgiveness in our life will help others to see that forgiveness can bring them that same happiness and joy so that they also can be the sons or daughters that God is calling them to be.

By living a life centered in the love of God by doing our best to make good choices and not bad choices, and by modeling forgiveness in our life for our relationship with God and with others, we work on living what is called the virtuous life. A virtuous life is lived when we constantly seek to make good choices in our life and avoid bad choices. And when we make bad choices, we choose to do good by saying sorry and seek to repair the relationships with God and with others. What is the best way to live a virtuous life? We need to practice, every day, to make good choices and live how God wants us to live. We need to listen to our mom and dad, we need to treat one another with respect and care, we need to seek to come to know God through our prayers, and we need to be willing to say sorry and seek forgiveness when bad choices are made. When we practice these things as best as we can, we become the virtuous daughters and sons that God wants us to be.

Questions: 
The bad choices that take us further from God are called _____.

Does God stop loving us when we sin?

When we practice every day to make good choices, what type of life are we living?

How does saying I'm sorry make a difference?

Who do we need to put first in our lives?
 

Activities:
Think about a bad choice you have made that you have not asked forgiveness from God or from someone else.  Ask for that forgiveness.

Talk with your parents about why sometimes it can be difficult to make good choices.  Pray with them to ask for God's help.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus died to redeem us from our sins and enable us to be in friendship with God forever. He knows that sinful choices harm or completely cut off our relationship with Him, but He loves us anyway and because of his great mercy, he freely chose to die on the cross to overcome our sins and open a pathway back to God.

Relates to my Faith: Serious sin that I commit cuts me off from my relationship with God. Yet, I must know that God forgives for my bad choices (sins) when I turn back to him with a heart of sorrow for having offended Him. Because God forgives me, I must forgive others that hurt me. Instead of living in sin, God calls me to life of virtue.  

Sample Script:

In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve as mankind’s first parents. Adam and Eve were intended to live in harmonious relationship with God, needing only to obey God and not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. Tempted by the snake, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, eating from the tree and choosing to ignore this one command from God. This is the Original Sin of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-6).

Original Sin is passed on to each human in every generation. Original Sin disrupts our relationship with God and places our own desires ahead of His. We are freed from Original Sin (although not its effects – more to come below!) through the grace received at baptism, which cleanses us and claims us as a child of God and allows us to choose the good of relationship with God.

However, even with the grace of baptism, we are still affected by sin. While the damage to our relationship with God from Original Sin is restored through baptism, we are still imperfect and free to choose bad over good. When we choose to do wrong over that which is good, we are committing what is called personal sin. And just like the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, personal sin harms and damages our relationship with God. Our personal sin makes us disobedient to God and His loving plan for us. When we sin, we put ourselves ahead of God and others, saying that it is more about me than anyone else.

This desire to place ourselves ahead of God and others through an inclination to follow our own will and to sin is called concupiscence. Concupiscence is one of the effects that remains even after our baptism, being passed down from generation-to-generation. Unfortunately, concupiscence allows temptations to have greater appeal or to be more attractive, making it easier for you and I to fall into sin.

Thanks be to God, we are blessed to have the grace of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church! While baptism gives us the initial grace to erase Original Sin, the death and resurrection of Jesus on the Cross overcame sin and death and by sending the Holy Spirit to be with and guide the Church, we are given the tools necessary to live a good life that keeps sin in check. Jesus’ entire earthly life was the perfect model of obedience to God for all Christians to follow. Jesus shows us that personal sin is overcome by lovingly following God and by making His plan for you and me our plan. Following Jesus unites us in relationship with God and keeps us away from sin. When we do sin, Jesus gives us the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation to say sorry and to have our sin washed away, restoring our relationship with God and being given the grace of strength to overcome our temptations the next time around. We might still fall into the same sin time and again, but by continually reaching out to God and continually seeking His loving and merciful forgiveness, we will conquer that which seeks to pull us away.

It is important to remember that God never desires any one of us to go astray with our sins. His loving mercy seeks to walk with us each step of our life to be one with us and to guide us to the life of fulfillment He has had for every single human, including Adam and Eve. This is why God asks us to be close to Him in prayer, be close to the Church, receive Jesus in the Eucharist (He who conquered sin and death), go to regular Reconciliation (once a month if you can), and seek to make good choices and practice doing good things (living a life of virtue). Our relationship with God is the best thing that we can have and how blessed we are to know He wants the same for you and I!

Questions:
What is the Original Sin of Adam and Eve?

When are we given the initial grace to erase Original Sin?

Which Sacrament allows us the grace to have our sins washed away?

When we sin, who are we putting first in our life?

What should we practice every day to become closer to God?

Activities:
Think about a good choice that is difficult for you and work on making that choice every day.

Talk with your family about how they make good choices even when they don't want to.  

Relates to Jesus: Jesus conquers sin and death and so is our source of refuge when we are tempted to sin. We must develop a constant prayer life so that we know the Good Shepherd's voice over and above anything that would pull us away from Him.

Relates to my Faith: Just like practice makes perfect, so too the practice of our spiritual life (reading the Bible, praying, helping others) allows to become second natured in living holy lives.

Sample Script: We are human, and if there is one thing we know about being human, it is that we are not perfect. We make mistakes and sometimes, we make bad choices. We know that these bad choices can be sinful and thus harmful to our relationship with God and others.

Why aren’t we perfect? Why do we make bad choices, even knowing that these might be sinful? With the fall of Adam and Eve in the Original Sin, all of the created order was thrown off into a state of disorder. Created by love and order Himself, humanity turned from love and chose themselves over God. Here, we come to know one of the major effects of Original Sin, which is called concupiscence or the attraction that makes temptation and sin appealing (concupiscience can be explained like the desire to touch a red button when you are told not to touch it). The appeal of sin over love has been something that has been a struggle for humanity since the fall of Adam and Eve. Wanting to do good and avoid evil, men and women throughout the ages have given into the lure of temptation and fallen into sin, separating themselves from God. Concupiscence (our tendency to commit sin) has a stronghold on the human scene.

Now, this all sounds pretty bad. However, we are blessed to be members of the Catholic Church. Not only do we know that God loves us, which in and of itself is pretty amazing, but we know that it is the mission of His Son Jesus Christ and that of the Church to save us from our sins and bring us into right relationship with God. God knows humanity and He knows what we are dealing with. His love for us is undying and continually calls us each personally to be united with Him. God wants you and me to stand above temptation and sin and through His grace, He gives us the tools to be the holy people that He has called us to be.

The gift of God’s grace, His blessing of His presence with His people, is powerful and is received in a number of ways. There are a few that come to mind that are helpful for us here. First, in order to assist us in not giving into temptations, we must be people of prayer. Prayer needs to be a daily habit and become something that is very familiar to us. We should pray often – when we wake up in the morning, when we eat our lunch, before we go to bed. Prayer should become a top priority because it allows us to grow in our relationship with God, who holds us as the top priority. If we have our relationship with God in the right place, it becomes easier to say no to temptations as they arise.

Certainly connected to prayer is reading the Bible. We hear in the Bible the very words of God speaking to us and calling us to be what we are called to be; sons and daughters of God. By coming to know God we come to know that sin has such a negative effect on our relationships and ultimately only does damage to ourselves. The stories of the Bible help to remind us that the life well lived is lived in communion with God.

We need to be regular attendees with the Sacraments, receiving Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist every Sunday at Mass to strengthen us against anything that would keep us from God. We need to be regular visitors to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which restores us back to God after we have sinned and willfully made our bad, sinful choices. God’s grace through the Sacraments affords us life with Him and assists us greatly in staying away from sin and all that would seek to separate us from the love of God.

Questions:
Who is ultimately hurt when we sin?

What does the Sacrament of Reconciliation allow us to do?

How does daily prayer help us say no to temptations?

How did we come to have Original Sin?

What is concupiscence?


Activities:
Choose a new additional time for prayer this week. Use that prayer time to pray for God's grace to make good choices.

Think about what tempts you and how that takes you further away from God when you fall for that temptation. Ask for God's forgiveness.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus conquers sin and death and is, therefore, our source of strength when we are tempted to sin. We must develop a constant prayer life so that we know the Good Shepherd's voice over and above anything that would pull us away from Him.

Relates to my Faith: Just like practice makes perfect, so too the practice of our spiritual life (reading the Bible, praying, living virtuously, helping others) enables living a holy life to become second nature in our own lives.

Sample Script:

God created man and woman, Adam and Eve, and He created them out of His eternal self-giving love so that they might experience the life that God has and that they might live with Him forever. This was to be the destiny of all men and women after Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, sin and death entered the world through the Original Sin of Adam and Eve that separated them from God. Mankind now must struggle with sin and temptations each day only to endure death at the end, in which the soul separates from the body.

It is only through Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is both fully man and fully God, who comes to save us from our sins by taking on human flesh and sacrificing Himself so that man might atone for his sins by this Most Holy offering of Jesus. Jesus takes all the sins of humanity, and being man Himself, offers these sins to God the Father while being the perfect Son of God, defeats sin and death, rising from the dead, that most awful consequence of sin, and reunites the soul and body. We’ll all experience the reunification of our body and soul at the Second Coming when Jesus Christ returns at the end of time.

For you and me, right now in our lives, what does all that we have talked about mean? We need to do our best to stay away from sin. Sin literally destroys us by keeping us away from true life and true love that is found in relationship with God. We need to come to recognize the sins in our life and run to Jesus, ask for mercy and forgiveness, so that we can be brought back to the Source of life and love. To assist us in this, it is important to recognize some more details about sin.

Sin at its very basic level is intentionally doing something against the will and love of God. It is choosing something that is bad, lying for instance, over the truth that God calls us to live and proclaim with our lives. God is good and asks us to return to Him and to our brothers and sisters that which is good. When we don’t do this, we commit a sin. Sins not only hurt God, but they hurt others and ourselves. Sins are selfish in nature. They say, "I know what is best for me, and I don't care what anyone else says or thinks." If a person is acting rightly, that kind of independent thinking is a good and holy thing and shows courage, but if a person is acting wrongly, that thinking can lead to increasing misery in our own life and the death of our soul.

Because God created us, he knows what is best for us, what will help us and what will hurt us. God's laws are not there to inconvenience us or to make his his slaves in some ridiculous way. Rather, when we live the way God designed his human creation to live, we not only find peace in our own hearts, but joy, and not just joy, but abundant joy (John 10:10).

Sin is also found in omitting or not doing the things that we could do that are good and right. An example might be when we see someone at the grocery store put a candy bar in their pocket without paying for it. We might think that since it wasn’t me who took the candy bar or since I don’t work here, it isn’t my responsibility to worry about the situation. This is an omission of doing the right thing, in which we should tell someone that works there that stealing has occurred. This often takes courage, because the person who is stealing may try get revenge, but it is up to us to trust in God and ask for his protection if that were to occur.

Furthermore, sin is broken down into venial and mortal sins. Venial sins hurt our relationship with God for sure, but they do not destroy it. These are often thought to be smaller sins that while still wrong are more easily repairable. While this is true, if we continue to deliberately commit venial sins because we don't think they are that bad, we will be weakened against being able to stop ourselves from committing more serious sins, which can eventually enslave us in habits of sin that we cannot break, and thus destroy our relationship with God. Venial sins can be forgiven at the beginning of Mass during the Penitential Rite, in which we call to mind the sins of the week and ask God’s forgiveness. They can also be forgiven by saying an Act of Contrition, blessing ourselves with holy water, reception of Holy Communion, or simply telling God we are sorry in our hearts and making a firm resolution, with God's help, to stop sinning by telling God we are sorry for those sins. Lastly, the sacrament of Penance (Reconciliation.Confession) also, of course, heals us of all our venial sins. While venial sins do not have to be confessed, they should be. This will help us keep them in check. However, if we forget to confess a venial sin, our confession is still good, and it is not necessary to have to go back into the confessional to confess them. Rather, we can be assurred that God has forgiven us. If, at our next confession, when we make our examination of conscience (i.e., we reflect on what sins we have committed and make a mental or written checklist of our sins) if the Holy Spirit reminds us of a certain venial sin, we should then go ahead and confess it anyway, but again, if we honestly forget to confess it, our confession remains valid. Also, confessing these smaller sins strengthen us against committing more serious (mortal) sins.

Mortal sins are sins that break and destroy our relationship with God. Having full knowledge and full freedom to commit a mortal sin makes us guilty of committing a mortal sin. Intending to commit an act of disobedience against God cuts us off from the life of loving relationship with God and moves us away from His presence. All the merits of any good actions we committed in life are no longer credited to us. No future good that we do will help us, unless we first tell God we are truly sorry for our sins and ask his forgiveness. If we die not having told God we are sorry for having committed a mortal sin, we risk Hell which is a place of permanent separation from God. In the Gospels, Jesus says that Hell was "prepared by God for the Devil and his angels", and warns that those who do not do works of mercy will go there (Mt 25:41). It is important to understand that Hell is our choice. God does not desire that we go there. He does not send us there. We send ourselves there by freely choosing to separate ourselves from his love. He created us to share in the joy of his love. If we do his will, we can be assured that he will not let us go to Hell. This is also why Jesus gave the Church the power to forgive sins even as he did when he was on earth (John 20:21-23). Jesus's death on the cross is too precious in the sight of his Heavenly Father to want to waste one soul for whom Jesus died. So, God wants everyone saved, but he will not make us go to heaven or make us love him. That must be our free will choice, and God will respect our choice.

So, what kinds of sins are mortal? Breaking any one of the 10 Commandments is a mortal sin, but the degree of seriousness does factor in to whether certain sins are mortal. For instance, murder is always a mortal sin, but not necessarily killing. A soldier who has a duty to defend his country and has no choice but to stop someone from killing him or his fellow solders, and kills a person in that duty because that person would not surrender, would not be guilty of a sin at all. The book of Leviticus had a law that stated, "You shall not stand idly by when your neighbor's life is in danger." (Lev 19:16). Yet, doesn't the fifth commandment tell us, "Thou shalt not kill"? The law in Leviticus does not tell us to help our neighbor by killing him, but there may be no other practical way to stop him in time. The seventh commandment tells us, "Thou shalt not steal", but just as in human law there are degrees of theft (petty larceny vs. grand larceny), so, too, in divine law. A woman who steals an apple fallen from a tree on a neighbors' farm with scores of apple trees to feed her starving child or herself would be guilty only of a little venial sin, whereas someone who loots people's businesses or breaks into peoples' homes and steals from them is guilty of mortal sin. Using the excuse, "well, they have so much, they'll never miss it" does not excuse the sin, and can actually make our guilt worse because it is premeditated

As mentioned above, to repair our relationship with God after committing a mortal sin, we need to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and with true contrition or sorrow for our sins coupled with the intent to not sin anymore, and confessing our sins and doing penance, our relationship with God will be restored to the life of love and grace that God desires to have with us. In addition to being restored into a relationship of friendship with God, the restoration of our merits for the good we have done in life, and being forgiven our sins, an added grace of the sacrament is that we also will be given added strength to assist us in not falling into that similar sin again. And while we may still sin in this way, knowing that God is walking with us provides us great comfort on our journey and the grace of strength to help us avoid future sin.

 Questions:
What are two types of sins?

Does God forgive both types of sins?

How did we come to have Original Sin?

Why did God send Jesus?

Do we have to confess all sins to be forgiven or just the big ones?
 

Activities:
Think about a time when you asked a friend to keep secret about a bad choice you made. You are asking them to commit a sin by doing so. Ask for their forgiveness.

Review the 10 Commandments and think about any sins you have committed. Go to Reconciliation and ask for God's forgiveness.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When we turn our hearts towards another, we are less fulfilled, less happy, and ultimately incomplete. Sin pulls us away towards this incompletion; Jesus offers life in the full.

Relates to my Faith: Unfortunately, we are going to sin in our life. By frequenting the Sacrament of Reconciliation, maintaining a life of prayer, reading the bible, reading abot and imitating the lives of the Saints, going to Mass regularly, making personal sacrifices, and helping our brothers and sisters, we can dramatically lessen the sins of our life and lead virtuous lives which will lead us to become saints of God.

Sample Script: Every human heart has a desire to be loved and to love. We receive this desire from God, who is Love and loves His creation with total and perfect perfection. Since our creation, God has desired all humans to experience the same love that exists within the Trinity, a perfect gift of love from one person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to the other for all eternity. God wants us to love Him in the same way and to love one another with the same sense of selfless love.

Because of Original Sin, everything was thrown out of order. It made us incapable of giving love in a way where we put others first. Instead, it made our love self-seeking---"me first". "Love me." "Look at me." Instead of first asking, "How can I serve others?" I ask, "What about me and my needs?" Certainly, there are times when our needs must be met in order that we may serve others more effectively, but the example, for instance, of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, who took the place of execution of a man with a wife and family certainly did not put his need for life above that of the man with the wife and family. Original Sin made the doing of our will over God's common place for all of humanity; being born into the Original Sin of Adam and Eve wired us with an unhealthy disposition to be attracted to and choose sin over the good (called concupiscence). Sin always seeks the things that are not of God and is the intentional choice against the good that is due to God, to the other, and to the self.

One way of looking at and considering sin is to see it as “missing the mark,” a phrase from which the root word for sin comes from. This makes a lot of sense for us in that by following our own design for our life, in choosing to sin over choosing the good, we miss the mark on what our life is intended for. If we are the archer and our life choices are the arrow, the bulls-eye would be the life of love offered to us by God. Anything else on the target board is a miss. Thank goodness God is always inviting us to take another shot to hit the bulls-eye…

Another way to understand sin is to see it as choosing a lesser good or a good that is not a good at all, but that we wrongly perceive to be. Again, the goal of our life is relationship with God. We are created for such a relationship, but our sinful disorder can shift our focus away from God. Our desire is still to be fulfilled, to seek the good, and quite often the things we focus on participate in some form of good that might actually fill us up for a time. It is only for a time,though, because these particular things are not God, the One who can truly fill us up. So, it becomes common for sinful man to choose the lesser goods of the world, make them god-like, and cling to these instead of God Himself. A good example here is sports. Sports are good and fun and bring about good health and community and work habits. It is easy to be involved with sports all the time, including on Sundays, pulling us away from Sunday Mass and ever thinking of God on Sunday. The god of sports can only satisfy for so long; the God of the universe satisfies for eternity.

Sin can also be understood as a twisting around of what God actually has intended for us. Satan, the author of sin and death, is also known as the great deceiver. In the garden, in Genesis 3, we hear how Satan tricked Eve into thinking that God didn’t really mean what He said. This deception from Satan has been one of his tricks ever since, getting men and women to think one way while really tricking us and misleading us from what God actually intends for us. This reality of Satan and sin tells us the importance of staying close to God in prayer and reading His Word in the Bible. When we come to understand and know the voice of God through these particular spiritual tools, we recognize the voice of love that belongs to the Lord. When Satan comes to deceive and twist the words of God around, we’ll have greater clarity in recognizing this as not being the voice of God and that this is a time to run far away from what is being whispered to us. Praying often to the Holy Spirit for his guidance will also assist us and help us know right from wrong.

Understanding what sin is helps us in our spiritual journey to cling close to God and to stay away from anything that would lead us away. Following the peace that surrounds us when living in God’s love will help us to maintain the life of grace that God desires for each of us and allow us to best hit our mark of life with God.

Questions:
What does it mean that only God can truly fulfill our lives?
How does sin harm your relationship with God?
What is concupiscence?
What is one way we can learn the truth of what God asks of us?
Why does God give us more than one opportunity?
 

Activities:
Think about the temptations in your life and make a list about how they hurt your relationship with God.

Is there someone in your life that you did not give a second chance?  Can you find room to forgive them the way God forgives you?
 

Relates to Jesus: Jesus came to set all people free from their enslavement to sin and self. When we seek to live a virtuous and balanced life, and run away from excessiveness and deficiency, we model our life after our Loving Shepherd.

Relates to my Faith: Doing good and avoiding evil keeps us in friendship with our brothers and sisters. We help ourselves to be free from sin by participating in the life of the Church through the grace of the Sacraments.

Sample Script: Our lives are meant to be lived in balance. This balance is to order us and lead us to a life that is fulfilled. This is how God created us and has intended for us to live this life. Unfortunately, sin has thrown our life off in so many ways, including what we seek to bring us fulfillment and the ways that we attempt to find this fulfillment in our life. Coming to understand the balance, and the imbalance, that life offers is helpful for us in our quest to find our life of fulfillment, happiness, and peace.

Our first consideration is looking at the life of vice. Vice is a lock in a world that is out of order, often trapping a person in one or a multitude of sins. These sins are to the person a god, but not a loving and caring god; rather the particular sin drains the person, demanding more and more so the person can feel fulfilled but only for a time before needing to return again for more of whatever the sin is. The person is imprisoned in the particular sin, unable to escape the hold this false god has on one’s life.

Vice thus offers the soul, much like sin itself, a very unbalanced approach to life. The person caught in the sin of vice is often excessive and/or deficient in the life one is called to live. The imbalance of one’s life is often seen as a tornado, spinning uncontrollably in many different directions very quickly or on the contrary, idling and seemingly stuck with no signs of movement, leaving one feeling hopeless and without direction.

Our next consideration is looking at the life of virtue. Virtue is a way of freedom that exists in one’s life lived with order and control, living a life that is doing one’s best to steer away from sin. Far from being perfect, the virtuous person is keenly aware of sin, actively avoids sin and the near occasion of sin, and clings close to the loving and caring God. The person is balanced in his or her approach in life and operates freely living under the rule of a loving God who offers direction that leads towards fulfillment and holiness.

Virtue thus offers the soul a holy and balanced approach to life. The virtuous person is neither excessive nor deficient in life, following the middle way that exhibits graces of peace, joy, and tranquility. The balance of one’s life is compared to a boat on calm waters, gently and steadily navigating the sea with control and comfort. When troubles come their way, they confidently follow the path before them, knowing that God is walking with them to lead and guide. The person of virtue recognizes the voice of God in his or her life and knowing the ways of God, is able to properly discern the way that they are to go.

Also important to understand, is that when we talk about balance, we are not saying that we have to balance our relationship with God as just one more part of our life that is of no more significance than any other part of our life. Far from that very wrong idea, we must understand that God is the central point of our lives upon which everything else is balanced. In other words, unless God is first, and is the foundation of our lives, it is not possible to balance anything else. Our lives should be on fire for Christ (St. Catherine of Siena). "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, than all these things will be given unto you" (Mt 6:33).

The question for each of us to always reflect on is: how do I maintain a life of virtue? Undoubtedly, life in our 21^st century makes living the virtuous life difficult. We seemingly live in a culture that promotes and often celebrates the great vices of human history: pleasure, power, prestige, and wealth. We see it advertised, we see it in our entertainment, and we see it in the news. Because of this "in-your-face" publicity, we see it lived at our school, with our friends, and sometimes even in our families. We come to desire it, even as our loved and trusted ones promote this lifestyle and even end up encouraging you and me to take it on. Now, it is worth pointing out that there are undoubtedly good things about pleasure, power, prestige, and wealth, but the issue becomes when we hold these things up solely as gods and seek them as ends in and of themselves. We learn from Jesus, very ironically, that, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first", and "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth". What should this tell us about our priorities in life? That service for the love of God and love of other and not self-seeking pleasure, power, prestige and wealth should be our priority. Modern philosophers who criticize the Church because they don't believe in God or want you to either will tell you that life is about seeking self-fulfillment and getting as much pleasure out of life as possible (because there's nothing after this). But created realities around us and the miracles and lives of the Saints tell us otherwise. I don't need proof of God's existence because I see it daily in my life when I open my heart to Him. When I live a life of virtue, I feel God's joy within me. When I miss the mark because I engage in vice, I feel the loss of God within me, and I feel miserable.

Virtue, again, is so important in navigating the waters of life. The virtuous life allows us to seek things in their proper order. We need to be people that place God at the center of all things and when we accomplish this, we achieve a level of detachment that says I am OK with some things, but I am also OK without those things; God is my sole possession and it is He who ultimately fills me up (Matthew 19:23-30 speaks well of this). As mentioned, vice and sin are majorly problematic because they eventually possess and enslave us. Virtue keeps the good things of this world in their proper order and allow us to be free in pursuing the life that God has for us; one centered in love and fulfillment that orders us as we were created.

Questions: 
How does living a virtuous life lead us away from sin?
What is a vice?
Does being balanced in life meaning there is a limit to what you can have?
What are two actions you can take to help you live a virtuous life?
Name at least 3 virtues.
 

Activities:
How have technological advances affected temptations in your life?  Think about how many things in society have become acceptable but are actually sins.  

Write a letter to your future self about the temptations in your life and how you are turning to God to assist you in grace.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus' mission involves saving us from our sins, so that we can be free to be the children of God in this life and to experience eternal bliss with God forever in Heaven.

Relates to my Faith: The importance of living lives of holiness, lives that seek to be as free from sin as much as possible, brings with it the grace of peace and joy found necessary to be a Saint in Heaven.

Sample Script: Sin, as defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “an offense against God as well as a fault against reason, truth, and right conscience. Sin is a deliberate thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the eternal law of God.” Sin is the fruit of the Evil One, Satan, who introduced sin to Adam and Eve in the Garden by tempting them to disobey God. Because of this Original Sin, sin has been and always will be a plague against man.

The first sin of Adam and Eve helps us to understand sin as we experience it today. Sin is a disobedient action against God and humanity’s parents first sin was no exception here. This first disobedience against God affected a number of things against humanity which is created by His love and for His love. Immediately, created in original holiness, the disobedience of Adam and Eve caused them to fall from the grace given by this holiness, separating them from the love of God and eliminating the friendship they had experienced.

The harmony that existed between God and Adam and Eve, thanks to what is called original justice, was thrown into disorder. No longer were Adam and Eve guided by virtue and balance; rather their body and soul were no longer in-sync, giving rise to their appetites and passions taking control over and above their reason. The peaceful union that existed between woman and man was now disjointed, with sin now allowing the two sexes to view one another with lust and a spirit of domination, deceit, infidelity, and mutual abuse (cf. CCC 400).

Further, harmony between man and creation became broken, with both sides warring against one another. Creation or nature is now hostile to humanity while humanity seeks to control and dominate nature in destructive ways. Man’s desire is no longer primarily for union with God, others, and creation; rather he became attracted to the disordered desire to seek that which is less good and sinful, which is called concupiscence.

Finally, the fruit of disobedience for Adam and Eve, and for the entire human race, is death. By denying the life and love of God, the only consequence of their actions was death. Pride, perhaps the root cause of the disobedience against God, turns one in on one’s self and does not allow for you to lovingly look out towards God and towards the other.

This final fruit of sin is most devastating. While the temporal consequences are terrible enough, the eternal consequences are far greater and without the hope of reunion with God, can bring us to a point of deepest misery. Sin equals death. We die a physical death, yes, but we also endure a spiritual death. This spiritual death separates us from our relationship with God, severing the grace and love afforded to us by the Creator of the world. God is love and only love can exist with God and when we actively and deliberately disobey God we reject that love, causing our own separation and giving us exactly what we choose. Because of this spiritual death, we are also closed off to the reward of Heaven, which gives us eternal separation from love, from God. Sin truly destroys everything.

Original Sin certainly threw everything off from what was intended for you and me from the beginning. Today, we see the effects of Original Sin through our own personal sins. Our desire for that which is less good, for that which is sinful, keeps us locked in a search for something that doesn’t fulfill and leaves us ultimately empty. We miss the mark and fall short and feel the same shame as Adam and Eve realizing that our lives are not what they are supposed to be.

Our personal sins are made up of intentional thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions (not doing the good that we are called to do). There are many different sins, but all sins can find their foundation in the 10 Commandments. We should come to know the Commandments, understand the sins that we struggle with, and ask God for the grace to return to and properly love God and love neighbor as God desires for you and I.

Questions:
What guide have we been given by God to follow so we are free from sin?
How do virtues help us to find a balanced life?
What is one of the root causes of sins against God?
What are personal sins made up of?
What is Original Justice?
 

Activities:
Make a list of the Ten Commandments and choose 5 to focus on for a week. What you can you change in your daily life to live the Commandments more effectively as Jesus gave them to us?

Write out the virtues.  Which virtues are easy for you to live by and which are more difficult?

 Relates to Jesus: Because the sin of our first parents (Adam and Eve) cut us off from eternal life with God, Jesus died to restore us in a relationship of love with the Father (redemption), and to give us the graces (spiritual tools) we need to be saved (salvation).

Relates to my Faith: I can be sure that I will fall into sin in my life, but Jesus’s death on the cross opened my pathway to eternal life. It also gave me the spiritual tools (graces) necessary to be saved from my sins. Salvation is my cooperation with God’s grace to live in accordance with his will, but I must make the effort. I can also be sure I can overcome sin by living habits of virtue, prayer, and the reception of the sacraments.  
 
Sample Script:
The story of humanity’s sin against God is a sad tale indeed. Ruining the graces and love that God freely gave us so as to experience life as God intended is the most tragic tale in our history. Furthermore, the effects of sin in the personal lives of every human that has ever existed has caused much pain and suffering for our lives that should have been filled with harmony, justice, and holiness.

Thanks be to God, we have hope! Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, who came to save us from our sin. His mission, while taking place at a certain place and time within history, was a mission that God the Father knew of from the beginning. When Jesus came to Israel some 2,000 plus years ago, His life and teachings and works and death and resurrection was intended for every single human soul, from Adam all that way to the last human at the end of time, whoever that will be. The same Word that spoke over the dark, formless void in Genesis 1 and the same Lamb that is adored and glorified in Revelation is the One who God intended and sent on His redemptive mission to conquer the holds of sin and death over humanity.

Jesus, being the eternal Son of God, always is. While He has a set time in history in which He takes on flesh at the Incarnation, there never was a time when Jesus wasn’t nor will there ever be a time that He isn’t. Jesus is the eternal Word of God that speaks to humanity presently in every time and every age. Jesus is active and speaks to us personally, speaking relevantly to you and me specifically about the situations and dealings we are facing in our life, especially in the worst moments and events in our lives if we are willing and open to his mercy and love when all seems darkest and firmly place our trust in him. Rather than blaming God in those moments blame sin, because it is sin, freely chosen by us or others that brings all misery into our lives, and it is often not even our own. This is why no sin is private. All sin has disastrous consequences on all of humanity, even what we think is the most private of our sins, has at least a spiritual effect on all of us. That is the first lesson of the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve. They were in a garden. Alone. 

So, we come to understand that Jesus walks with you and me specifically to help us remedy our sins. If we allow Him to, Jesus Himself will encounter you and me right where we are at, much like the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) and the man possessed by the unclean spirit (Mark 5:1-20). He will engage you as you are, speaking to you with love and compassion, and if we listen and allow Him to, He will heal you from that with which you struggle, giving you the grace to convert and follow after Him. In these moment, as in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), God runs out to meet you and rejoices in the return of one of His precious children (cf. Luke 15:4-7).By openly and honestly offering ourselves to Jesus Christ, we avail ourselves to the graces of reconciliation to and restoration of our relationship with God.

However, the question that might still exist is how can I experience this encounter with Jesus when He isn’t physically with me like He is in the Scriptures? While it is difficult, especially if we are struggling with serious sin, we need to avail ourselves to Jesus in prayer and beg Him for His love and mercy. Turning from our sin with intention and submitting ourselves to God, opening our heart to Him and inviting Him in, will open us to the grace to soften our heart and seek Him in the gift of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We should also remember that Jesus’ real presence is in me when I receive Holy Communion in a worthy manner (with proper disposition[1]), and when I visit him in Adoration or in his silent presence in the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament.  

The grace to come to the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the voice of Jesus Christ calling your name and leading you to encounter Him in a very real way to receive the mercy of God in your life. Approaching Reconciliation, we recognize our need for forgiveness for our sins. We recognize the harm we have caused God, our desire to say sorry, and the need we have to seek conversion and to do penance to receive forgiveness for the wrong we have participated in against God. Reconciliation heals us from our sins, restores our relationship with God, and opens us up to receive His love and mercy. Jesus, through His saving mission on the Cross, washes our sins away so thoroughly that they no longer exist before His eyes. We will not even be judged on them if we remain in the state of grace. All He sees in the repentant sinner is the beloved son or daughter that was so lovingly created by God.
 
Reconciliation not only heals us from our sins, restores us in relationship to God, and re-opens the pathway to salvation, but strengthens against committing future sin, even those which are habitual, though this will still take effort on our part to defeat entirely. Grace builds upon nature, and our nature has strong psychological and somatic (bodily) elements to it by way of habit, and habit can enslave us to sin. Think of the addicted gambler or the alcoholic or the person addicted in some way to pornography or sexual sins against oneself or another. Will these sins go away with one confession and one firm resolution not to commit them again? While it is certainly possible (because all things are possible with God), it will not occur without a great deal of work and sacrfice on our part and full cooperation with God's grace because of the psychological dependency we develop when we engage in physically and mentally addicting habits. Another important reason is that we can be sure the devil is well aware of our weak spots and spiritual wounds, and he will tempt us where he knows we are most vulnerable. We must not forget the spiritual forces that are actively working against us, even in people who we may consider our friends, and especially in the culture around us that has no belief in God or even cares whether he exists or not despite the fact they, too, owe their very existence to Him. Like a physical wound that takes time to heal and remains vulnerable for a long time, so it is with spiritual wounds. Just like a physical injury, if we don't protect and nurse it, and rehabilitate them with full care, our spiritual wounds, too, will not heal and will remain vulnerable to permanent injury. 

Because of this broken human nature of ours, sin has a nagging tendency to return, and while it is equally as likely that a particular sin you have struggled with can be completely eradicated from your life by going to Reconciliation, prayer, reading Scripture, and actively working with perseverance to defeat it, we can never expect to defeat sin on our own. However, through God's grace, like the Saints, we, too can become perfected and attain heaven directly. 

The Good News is that the grace of the Sacrament provides us the strength necessary to encounter temptation with greater courage and to choose the good in ways that would not have been done before. This is the grace of God working in your life. Reconciliation also brings peace. There are many stories of people who have struggled with a particular sin for a while, years, and after having prayed and gone to confession, they have felt the grace of great peace, knowing that this sin and the burden that goes along with sin has been lifted from them and destroyed in the abyss of God’s love and mercy. Jesus’ salvation from sin and His desire to walk alongside us, brings us grace that keeps us in His loving relationship.
 
Questions and Activities (continued on next page)

1. What are at least three reasons why Jesus had to die for us?

2. According to the lesson above, what is the difference between redemption and salvation?

3. According to the reason, how did sin enter the world?
    

1. List as many reasons as you can for why Jesus came to earth (list at least five—use the Gospels or internet to assist you if needed).

2. List as many effects that you can think of that sin brought into the world

3. Think of a sin which most affects you. Without writing down the sin, write out a realistic strategy to help you overcome it.

Extra Material (For Further Study)

Relates to Jesus: Sin overcame the world and through sin death entered the world, but  Jesus conquered sin and death through his obedient death on the cross.  

Relates to My Faith: Sin can bring me eternal death, but in Christ Jesus, I can overcome sin and live in God’s love and happiness. 

Catechism References: CCC Nos. 385-421

Scriptural References: Gen 3:1-4:16; Ex 20:2-17; Dt. 5:6-21; Rom 5:8-21; 7:7-25; 6:23; Gal 5:13-21; 1 Jn 5:16-19

Videos:
Fr. Mike Schmitz (Ascension Presents) on “What is Sin”. What makes a sin a sin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3iOar7VIeU (5 mins 22 sec)

Fr. Mike Schmitz (Ascension Presents) talks about the “Heart of Sin”.  (6 mins 48 sec) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYo7oNWhkSo

Fr. Mike Schmitz (Ascension Presents) on Mortal vs. Venial Sin. (6 min 40 sec)

Bishop Barron on the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Lively Virtues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG4VF0jU568 (1 hr 8 mins)

Extra Narrative (For Further Study)

Everyone can expect to sin in their lives. God loves us so much he always desires us to come back to him with all our heart. There is nothing he will not readily forgive, but we must ask as he will respect our free will choice to choose or reject him. Heaven or Hell is our choice. The saint is the sinner who gets back up one more time than he fell.

What is sin? Sin is a free will choice of an action, word, deed in which we reject or neglect God’s love and choose a moral evil or an omission in which we neglect to do a good that we are obligated to do.

The Scriptures use the word, “hamartia” which means a missing of the mark, like the person who shoots an arrow which does not hit its intended target. Our target is to do the will of God in all things. When we freely choose not to do what is right before God or neglect to do good out of a habit of thoughtlessness, we miss the mark. We commit sin. 

All sins are based on what moral theologians call Positive Divine Law. This law is first given by God to Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments as we read in the story of the Exodus and again in Deuteronomy (Ex 20:2-17; Dt. 5:6-21). In the Gospels, Jesus taught us that it is not so much the letter of the law that is important when we are considering these commandments, but the spirit of the law. That is, the heart of the commandments. We will note that the Ten Commandments are basically broken down into these two parts where the first three commandments deal with loving God, and the other six deal with loving our neighbor. 

Jesus summed them up in one law: “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” In our nation and culture, the word, “love” is used in many different ways. It is even used by many non-Catholic communities to justify sinful and disordered behavior. “God loves everyone” (which is true) and “God loves everyone just the way they are” are taken to mean there is no need to stop whatever sinful behavior in which we may be engaged. In our current historical context, this false notion about God’s love is even used to justify illicit or disordered sexual behavior and contributes to those who may be confused about their own sexuality. So, rather than seeking the highest good that God desires for us, the suffering are affirmed in the darkness of their disorders as what God wills for them--as the way He created them. Nothing can be further from the truth of God’s love. God loves us too much to leave us in a state of doubt, darkness, or confusion. Rather, we are called to seek healing, forgiveness, faithfulness and fullness of life--Jesus says, abundance of life (Jn 10:10), which cannot be found in selfish or disordered desires.      

Rather, the Greek word Jesus uses for love is “agape”, which is the highest form of sacrificial love. It is the complete, unselfish giving of oneself for the sake of the other. This rules out any notion of self-seeking desires as love’s cheap substitute.

It is recommended to memorize the Ten commandments. This was a requirement of all Jewish children so that they could always keep God’s law before them. Knowledge of the commandments by heart keeps the roadmap of living a saintly life directly in front of us so that we won’t take a wrong turn and “miss the mark”.

Did you ever stop to consider why it is so easy for us to commit sin? Why it is so much easier to do what is wrong and displeasing to God rather than what is right and good?

To answer this, we have to go back to the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve chose to be disobedient to God by eating of the fruit of the tree from which they were forbidden by God to eat, they set into motion a radical disharmony in the universe that began with the separation of mankind from God and all that he created for us as good.

While our separation from God was the first and most devastating effect of Original Sin, our unity with God was restored by Christ’s suffering and death and shown by his Resurrection. However, this first sin also brought many other effects including a loss of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, illness, death, human disorder, disharmony with each other and every ill that we experience on earth. 

One the major consequences of Original Sin is the reason we sin so easily. It brought about a  disordering of our desires and weakened our wills with an easy inclination to enter into sin. This inclination and orientation towards sin is called “concupiscence”.  St. Paul talks about this in his letter to the Romans when he says, “For I do not do the good that I ought, but the evil that I should not.” (Rom 7:19).

Here’s an example: Let’s say there is a big red button that says, “Do not touch”. What is it that we automatically want to do? Touch it, of course! The person of good reason will think about the possible consequences and not touch it. The immature person may or may not consider the consequences, but touch it anyway. In either case, both have a desire to touch it. It is just that one is stronger in their willpower against sin than the other. So, concupiscence is not the action, but the desire or temptation to do what is wrong.

The temptation to sin is not a sin. Even Jesus and Mary could be tempted to sin. If they didn’t they would not have been fully human. Jesus had to experience everything we did, except committing the sins themselves, in order to redeem us.

To be guilty of sin, we must actually give in to the temptation. This is the difference between Jesus and Mary and us. While they could be tempted to sin, as we see in the three temptations of Jesus in the desert by Satan, Jesus did not give into those temptations.

Temptations can come from within us or from outside of us. We are also subject to bad suggestions by the fallen angels as well as to good suggestions by the good angels. The angels, both good and bad, can hear us and sense our thoughts and moods well enough to anticipate what we might do next. When we consider that our guardian angel and whatever bad angel Satan sends to trip us up have probably been with us all our lives, they can guess how we are going to react in a given situation, and we can bet that our Guardian Angel will assist us to do good, while the bad angels will take advantage of our weaknesses to make our situation worse. This is why it is important to have a strong relationship with our Guardian Angels. 

Sin, for which we do not repent, and which is not confessed, will lead to Hell, but “God so loved the world, that he gave us his only Son that he who believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The “good news” is that Jesus’s death on the cross opens the path to heaven (redemption), but we still must live a life of good choices and actions to be saved (salvation).

While all sin is evil and are choices against God, some sin is less serious than others (See 1 Jn 5:15-16). 

Sin that is less serious is called venial sin. Venial sin does not fully cut us off from the life of grace (i.e., sanctifying grace), but all venial sin weakens our ability to resist more serious sin. While venial sins do not need to be confessed, they should be. Any sin that comes to mind during our preparation for confession should be confessed.

If we leave our venial sins unchecked, they can become patterns of behavior that can weaken our relationship with God so much that we have no willpower to avoid mortal sins, or worse, we can dull or ignore our consciences such that we no longer think that mortal sins are all that serious. If we reject God’s grace to repent enough times, he may stop offering that grace by our own wishes!

Serious or grave sin is called mortal sin or, as St. John calls it, deadly sin. Mortal sin cuts a baptized person off from sanctifying grace. That is from the divine life in which God shares with us once we are baptized. Jesus’ death on the cross makes it possible for us to be restored in this life of grace, but to actually be reconciled with God requires several conditions:

 First, We must be truly sorry for our sins. Secondly, we must have a “firm purpose of amendment”, that is we must give our best and honest efforts to overcome all future sins understanding that we will likely sin again, but we will make honest efforts to avoid them.  (Remember, St. Paul teaches that “All things are possible with God). Thirdly, as baptized Catholics we must confess our sins in sacramental reconciliation (also called the sacrament of penance or confession). And lastly, we must make up or atone for that sin. We also call this penance or making satisfaction, or atonement.

By the first two conditions, God forgives us for our sins, but making up for our sins requires us to share in the cross of Christ. Just as Christ had to suffer and die to make up for our sins. So, we must share in Christ’s suffering by doing penance and unite that suffering to his cross to make up for our personal sins. This is our justice due to God. St. Paul teaches in Colossians 1:24, “I make up in my flesh, the sufferings that are lacking in the cross of Christ.”

Three Conditions Necessary to be Guilty of Mortal Sin

There are three conditions necessary for a person to be guilty of mortal sin: first the sin must be objectively mortal by its nature. Secondly, you must know that the sin is mortal in nature, and thirdly, you must commit the sin freely without force or fear.

What do we mean, by objectively mortal? By objectively mortal, we mean the sin by its nature is very serious, such as the taking of another human life, like murder or abortion. Just as in secular law, there are different degrees of crimes, some more serious than others. The same is true when it pertains to sins. You can think of mortal sins as felonies and venial sins as misdemeanors or minor traffic violations. But even some traffic violations can land us in jail. For instance, stealing may or may not be a mortal sin. It depends on the relative value of what was stolen. For instance, a poor person stealing a piece of bread out of desperation to feed one’s child would be a venial sin, but stealing the last few dollars out of a poor old woman’s purse leaving her nothing to buy food with is likely mortal in nature.

When we speak of a sin as subjectively mortal, we are talking about whether a person who committed an objectively mortal sin is actually guilty of that mortal sin. Subjectivity answers the question, “How do I know if I committed a mortal sin?”  The answer goes back to the three conditions of a mortal sin. 1. The sin must be objectively mortal 2. I must understand that it is mortal, and 3. I must have committed the sin without force or fear.

If you have to ask yourself if a sin is mortal, then confess it as a mortal sin. We must remember that Jesus is our judge, not us. Only the Holy Spirit truly understands what is in our hearts. For our part, we must confess our sins with humility and sorrow that we have offended God and not try to justify our actions.

We must be careful that what is most important is our relationship with God and neighbor, and not fall into the trap of quibbling with ourselves about particulars. If you find yourself debating with yourself and your conscience is not letting you rest about something you did, it’s probably mortal in nature. So, confess it as such. You can also consult the priest in the confessional and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Furthermore, all sins have a “double” consequence. That is, they have both temporal (earthly) consequences and spiritual consequences. For example, drunkenness can lead to many earthly consequences (DUI, hurtful relationships, accidentally hurting or killing someone or oneself, etc.), and spiritual consequences (loss of focus on God and faith, failure to attend Mass, depression, etc.)

Living the life of holiness to which we are called, however, is not simply about avoiding sin. In fact, the failure to do good is a sin of omission or neglect. Remember the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The Rich Man was unable to go to heaven because he failed to even look at Lazarus let alone help feed him with the scraps from his table.

 While bad habits which lead to regular sin, neglect, or are sinful in and of themselves are called, “vices”. Each vice can be overcome by exercising its opposite good habit which is called “virtue”. The regular exercise of our vices or virtues determines our “character”. Character determines the essence of who we become—for better or worse.

 Habits of sin can be overcome by practicing the virtue that opposes our habit of sin, staying close to God in prayer, going to confession regularly, and receiving Holy Communion in the state of grace as often as possible. These practices will contribute to a life that leads us away from sin and toward a life of holiness to which God calls us. The Saints are proof that holiness in regular people is possible if we make a sincere effort to strive for it.