Understanding the Seven Deadly Sins

So grateful for that. And grateful for all of you. It's just wonderful to see so many here today and willing to explore your Catholic faith more deeply. So thank you for that. Well listen, I want to share with you today a little reflection on the seven deadly sins. and the seven lively virtues. Now we're in the middle of Lent. It's our penitential season, a time when we do reflect on our interior lives and we take stock. What's going right? What's going wrong? So a classical way to do that is to look... look at these seven deadly sins and their antidotes, the seven lively virtues. You know, here's the first thing, everybody. We're very comfortable in our society talking about what's wrong with us physically. I mean, we'll very easily embrace, yeah, that's problematic physically. If you go to your doctor and you say, you know, I'm just not feeling right. And he says, well, you know, tell me about your lifestyle a little bit. And you say, well, you know, for breakfast I have pancakes, a lot of butter. I usually have a Big Mac. fries for lunch, I have pizza lasagna for dinner, I smoke, I never exercise. What's he going to say? Well, you're in a mortally dangerous situation here. You're doing things that are putting your body in mortal danger, right? And we're very at home with that. Read the health magazines. You know, I always think the descendants of the Puritans now edit health magazines, right? You know, those tell you all the things you shouldn't do, and if you do this, you'll have to be punished. And we're very at home with that. But by analogy... spiritual life are the things that we do are there are there practices we engage in that put our souls our spirits in a kind of mortal danger yes indeed the church has identified seven of these let me just name them first now just go through each one with some examples and hope to kind of guide you in a little spiritual meditation first one the most important one pride pride number one then envy then anger then sloth then avarice, and then gluttony, and then lust. Those are the seven deadly sins. Pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. So we'll go through them one by one as a little spiritual exercise. First of all, pride, pride, pride. It is the most deadly of the deadly sins. That's why it's number one. It's the capital sin from the Latin caput, meaning head. It's the head. sin from which everything else flows. Pride is the problem. You know, as Catholics, when you talk about sin or vice, what do we think of first? Probably sexual sin, right? Lust. When in fact, according to Dante, who was one of the great articulators of deadly sins, lust is the least significant of the seven. Mind you, it's a deadly sin, don't get me wrong, but it's the least significant, the most significant, and all the great masters agree with them. is pride, pride. What is pride? I want to look at it first under a theological aspect, and then if you want a more psychological aspect. What's pride theologically? It is arrogating to oneself the distinct prerogatives of God. Think now of the sin of Lucifer. Think of the sin of Adam and Eve. Arrogating to ourselves the unique prerogatives of God. prerogative of God. How is that expressed now in the beautiful language of Genesis? They grasp at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, see, who alone has this distinctive and grounding knowledge of good and evil? Well, that's God. When Adam and Eve seize that prerogative for themselves, they commit this great sin of pride. That's why it's St. Michael who battles Lucifer. His name, Michael, in Hebrew means, who is like God? His name is a taunt. Lucifer has grasped at divinity. I am God. Michael, who is like God? That, by the way, that's the battle of the angels. It was purely an intellectual battle. It was a taunting battle. daunting challenge. Who's like God? Not you, pal. See, that's the idea. Pride is grasping at divinity for ourselves. Now, you say, well, that all sounds very abstract and very distant. Let me read something to you. This is from the famous, or I'd say infamous, 1992 decision of our U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Casey v. Planned Parenthood. It was an abortion-related case, but the way the justice resolved it, listen to their language, is remarkable, even breathtaking. Listen, at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence. of meaning, of the universe, of the mystery of human life. Oh, is that all? That's all my freedom allows? You see how that is tantamount to a grasping at the knowledge of good and evil? I determine the meaning of life, universe, human life? Irrigating to oneself the unique prerogative of God, that's pride. Okay, so what's the real problem with pride? I'll put it now in one little phrase. It's boring. Now why? Why? See, we... When you arrogate to yourself the pride of God, you've turned in on yourself. St. Augustine defined it beautifully, curvatus in se. That means caved in around oneself. I determine the meaning of my life. life, my projects, my plans, my intentions. Ho-hum. My little world. I'm living in this little, clean, well-lighted space of my own egotistic plans. How wonderful, by the way, when you can break out of that into what Hans Urs von Balser calls the theodrama. What's the theodrama? That's the drama that God is producing, that God is writing, that God is... is directing. You've got a role in it, but God's the producer, the director, the writer. When you surrender to that and you find your role in the theodrama, now you begin to live. You know, I can't resist in this parish of St. Thomas More, one of my great heroes. How many have seen The Man for All Seasons, the great film about Thomas More, which is my favorite movie? I saw it when I was 16, I think for the first time. I've watched it every year of my life since then. Remember the scene, those who've seen it at the very beginning? beginning of the movie. There's a young guy called Richard Rich, who's a Cambridge graduate. He's about 20 years old, full of himself, full of ambition. He wants a big career. So he's hanging around Thomas More, who's a courtier of Henry VIII, and he's looking for a position. Moore resists him, but then finally he says, well, Rich, I've got a position for you. What? What? There's an opening in the local school. You could be a teacher. And Richard Rich is completely crestfallen. A teacher? And Moore says to him, You could be a great teacher. And the young man says, and if I were, who would know it? Now see, that's not the theodrama, that's the egodrama, right? The drama that I'm writing, I'm directing, I'm producing, and above all, I'm starring in it. It's my drama. Ho-hum, see. Moore says to him, your friends would know it. Your pupils would know it. You would know it. God would know it. Not a bad public, that. See, that's a turning point in that whole play. Moore is luring Richard Rich into the theodrama. See, this great, open, expansive space of what God intends for us. See, in the pride... Prideful person, all of us are prideful people. We lock ourselves into the little narrow space of what we want. Surrender to the theodrama, and now you really begin to live. You know, in Ephesians, Paul says this, There's a power already at work in you that can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine. I love that line. What's the power? It's the Holy Spirit. It's already at work in you, and it can do so much more than you can ask or imagine within the confines of your little egodrama. break out break out open yourself up to the holy spirit that's overcoming pride you see why pride is the fundamental sin that we get locked in curvato sensei now i mentioned there was a kind of a psychological side to pride here's what it is do a little thought experiment imagine now you're having a conversation with a friend and you're just following the rhythm of the conversation you're just together exploring the truth following where it leads. You're not preoccupied with yourself or the impression you're making or what he thinks of you. You're just following along. How wonderful, how exuberant that experience is. It's as though the conversation is playing you. Now contrast that to, you're having a conversation, but you're desperately interested in how you're appearing and what he thinks of you. And are you making the right impression? And are you, what's happened there is you're not lost in the beauty and rhythm of the conversation. You're not given over to the truth. You're turned in awkwardly and anxiously upon yourself. That's pride. That's pride. It's like a monkey on your back. You're going through your whole life and all you're worried about is the impression you're making, what they think of you. And it divorces you from reality. You see how I'm driving it? When you're lost in that conversation, you're into reality. The prideful person is locked in a little prison. Or shift that metaphor, the monkey on the back all the time. Here's a great line, I love this from one of the spiritual masters. He says, most of us go through life like we're on this bus. traveling through the most beautiful, breathtaking countryside imaginable. But we have the shades pulled down, and we're fighting about who gets first seat on the bus. Yes, that's life for many of us prideful people. Forget about first seat of the bus. Who cares? Open the window. You're in the last seat of the bus. Who cares? Open the window. Look. Let them fight about it. No? That's the ego drama versus the theodrama. Open the shade. Open the window. Look out. Now, this is why the antidote to pride, the lively virtue, is humility. Now, I know right away we get hung up here because we think of false humility. Oh, who am I? oh little me, I'm nothing. Well, that isn't it at all. Humilitas in Latin, right, is from the word humus, which means the earth, the ground. I love that. To be humble is not to be in a phony way self-deprecating. It means close to reality. That's why in Dante's Divine Comedy, you know, the seven-story mountain, that's Thomas Merton's book, but it's based on Dante's idea of the mountain of purgatory has seven levels because You've got to be purged of the seven deadly sins. So the first level of the mountain, pride. You know what the prideful have to do? They have to carry great boulders on their back. And you say, well, they're just being punished. No, no, think about it. The boulder pushes you. you down to the earth, to the ground. You get close to the reality of things. That's where the humble person hangs out. Stop worrying about the impression you're making and give yourself to reality. Stop worrying about what other people think of you. Stop worrying about your reputation and give yourself over to reality. That's humility. And that's the source of joy, you know. Here's some practical advice for you. In the remaining weeks of Lent, maybe we could all... practice some of this. If you struggle with pride, and we all do, it's the capital sin, purposely take the lower place. Look at that in the spiritual tradition, the monastic tradition. They'll recommend that a lot. Is it really? struggling to see who's first on the bus. Forget about it. Purposely take the lower place. Take the less important position. The one that won't get attention. Even when someone, when you think, hey, naturally, I deserve more attention, give the attention to somebody else. Draw attention away from yourself to somebody else. Learn to love simple things. You know, fellow sufferers from pride, every minute of every day, we have everything we need right in front of us to be happy. That's one of the great spiritual masters said that. Every minute of every day, every one of us has everything we need to be happy. Now, what does he mean by that? He means the simplest things, if we surrender to them, will give us joy. You know, watch little kids, because little kids are great. As Jesus, of course, said, unless you become like a little child, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven, right? Watch a little child who's discovering a bug for the first time. A bug crawling on the ground. A little kid, look at it. Fascinated. Watch it. We come along. Kill it. it. Step on it. Watch a little kid, though. Pick it up. And bugs are kind of fascinating if you look at them closely. Think of a, you know, it was a great, watch, the spiritual message is very interesting. Do this a lot. Animals. You know, the happiest beings I know, I'm serious about this, are dogs. My sister has a great dog. His name is Homer. I think my little nephew named him because of home runs, not Homer the poet. But anyway, he's called Homer. Homer's the happiest. happiest being I know. I'm not kidding at all when I say that. I know all kinds of people, myself included. Homer is by far the happiest being. Why? Because he's not hung up on reputation and what people think. I walk in and he just is overjoyed. The dog is so overjoyed he's bursting out of his skin. Well, see, so it would be if we turned and became again like little children, surrender to the simplest things and find joy in them. Stop worrying about who's first on the bus. Doesn't matter. Open the window, you know. Okay. There's some practical advice for humility. What's the second deadly sin? Envy. Envy. Envy. Here's a quote from Gore Vidal, you know, the American novelist who died just a couple years ago. Here's Gore Vidal. When a friend of mine succeeds, something in me dies. I love that because it's so honest, isn't it? It's so honest. Mind you, it's when a friend of mine, some enemy of mine, or some person I barely know, but especially when a friend of mine succeeds, something in me dies. Or turn that around, you've got what the Germans call schadenfreude, right? Which is when something bad happens, especially to a friend, and I flied up. I rejoice in that. Now, guilty as charged, fellow sinners, fellow envious. You know, when a friend of mine succeeds, when a friend of mine has trouble, I kind of get a kick out of it. That's envy. I would say, gosh, look at the Bible over and over again. Cain, jealous of Abel. Jacob, jealous of Esau. The brothers of Joseph, jealous of Joseph. Saul, jealous of David. The other disciples, jealous of James and John. Up and down the Bible. Envy is a driving force of the biblical narratives. Look at it in literature and film. Brutus and Cassius, envious of Caesar. Iago, envious of Othello. Macbeth, envious of Duncan. There's my high-level Shakespeare references. But. but look all through film how often the narrative is driven by envy. Look at our own little soap operas, right? I'm talking about our lives. How often they're driven by the engine of envy. Envy's a daughter of pride, isn't it? It's a daughter of pride. If I'm not worried about who's first in the bus, I don't get envious. If I just have the window open, I'm looking out and taking in the world. If I'm looking at that bug and finding delight in it, if I'm like Homer and the simplest thing makes me happy, me burst out of my skin with joy, then I'm not worried about what other people are doing or not doing. Envy is a daughter of pride. Something when I discuss this with priests, you know in the Middle Ages, the spiritual master said the worst type of envy is when you're in a relationship with a priest. envy is invidia clericalis. That means clerical envy. The priest world, and I know about that, you know, but I think in most of our worlds, envy is a pretty serious problem. What's the, oh, here's something in Dante I love. Oh, look, I see John Paul over there, beautiful, huh? Your statue of John Paul, that's lovely. We have a new chapel at Mundelein where I'm the rector, dedicated to John Paul, and I had the opportunity just yesterday to reverence a first... class relic, the little vial of his blood was brought to the chapel. So I'm just struck by seeing him there. What's the antidote to envy, everybody? What's the lively virtue? It's admiration. Admiration. Here's the theological truth behind all this. The nothing we have that we've not been given. St. Paul said that. What do you have, you people? What do you have that you've not been given? Your talents, a gift from God. Your body, your passions, your mind, your creativity, your energy. All of it is a gift from God. So why do you boast, Paul says? Why do you get hung up on what you've got, what he doesn't have, what he's got, what you don't have? All of it is a gift. Therefore, the proper response is to admire and give thanks for that gift, whether it comes to another or comes to you. The worst thing we do is somehow think, well, I got all this coming to me. I've earned it. Through my hard work. Yeah, but man, who gave you the capacity for hard work? Through my intellectual achievement. Yeah, but who gave you your mind? Who sustains your mind and animates it every second? God. Once you let that truth sink in, you stop playing the game of envy. He's getting more than he deserves. I'm not getting what I deserve, etc., etc. Think of the energy and time we waste on that, right? How much time we waste on that sort of thing. Instead, admire the good wherever you find it. Here's some practical advice now to get admiration in your life, get envy out of it. Go out of your way in the remainder of this Lent to praise somebody you're envious of. Now, I know everyone in this room, myself included, we can all name someone right now, right, that we're envious of. You know, put that person in your mind's eye right now. Before Lent is out, find some way to praise that person. Don't take schadenfreude, like when something goes bad, you rejoice. Don't let something in you die when he succeeds, but rather take the initiative and praise that person. Secondly, simply stop the completely unhelpful practice of comparison. Boy, the spiritual energy wasted on comparison. Just stop it. When you find yourself doing it, cut it out. Do something else. Stop it. This is in Dante, the envious are on the second level of the mountain. You know how they're punished? Middle Ages when they had these hawks that would do hunting, and they would sew the eyelids of the hawks shut. And it would, I don't know how all that worked, but they would sew their eyelids shut. That's how Dante punishes the envious, is their eyelids are sewn shut. Why? Because they would spend their whole life looking, looking, looking. Who's doing better than I am? Who's got more than I? Forget about that. Stop looking. Cut it out. Here's the Marian counterexample. So in Dante, every level has a Marian counterexample, where Mary exemplifies the virtue. I love this. It's the wedding feast at Cana. Now why? Well, Mary's there, and they're out of wine. she hears. Well, see, what do we sinners do with information like that? Oh, good, they're out of wine. My wedding was better than theirs. What a bunch of idiots. I'll spread the word around. They ran out of wine. But instead, what does Mary do? She says to her son, you know, Could you do whatever he tells you and help them? In other words, she responds positively, not taking advantage of their misfortune, but trying to address it. There's the antidote to envy. Okay. Third deadly sin. Oh, before I forget, I'm sure there are some in this room old enough. One of the ways to remember the deadly sins, who remembers Gilligan's Island? Anyone remember Gilligan's Island? A lot of you, the kids today probably don't, but when I was growing up, that was the big show. The seven... characters on Gilligan's Island are the deadly sins. So, the first one's a little bit of a stretch. Poor Mrs. Howell identified with pride because she was kind of preoccupied. Envy was Marianne. Remember, she's envious of Ginger. Anger is the professor, always gets angry at Gilligan. Sloth is Gilligan, who's always lazing around. Avarice, Mr. Howell, right, with all the money. Gluttony, the skipper. And Lust, Ginger. So if you want to remember them, think of the Gilligan's Island characters. That's the one thing you remember I know from my talk. That's okay. So the third deadly sin is anger. There's enough anger in this room to light up the, what do you call it here, the technical triangle, or what's it called? The research. triangle. There's enough anger in this room to light up the research. Now, I'm saying it not to go after you. I can say it to any gathering of human beings that I know. A lot of us are beset with the deadly sin of anger. A lot of us are... in the grip of anger. I know, you do too, family members that haven't spoken to their own family for 30 years or 40 years. I remember, this is heartbreaking still to me, this was many years ago. I was presiding at a funeral mass back home and I knew there was tension in this family. The mother had died and the kids were there. And we came to the handshake of peace and offer each other a sign of peace. I remember I came down to the family and I heard this. This is the... a brother turned to his sister and she said, peace be with you. And he said, that's the last time I'm going to talk to you. You know what I'm talking about. We all know these soap operas, right? Most of our families have these stories where anger has so taken hold of us. You know, just to clarify, I'm relying here on Thomas Aquinas. There is, of course, justifiable anger. We know about that. Jesus'anger in the temple. The anger of a Martin Luther King. The anger of the great battlers for social justice. So, nothing wrong with that. Think of Dorothy Day, angry at the violence of our society, etc. Nothing wrong with that, a sort of righteous indignation. In fact, that's a battle against sloth, which is good, to rouse some passion for righteousness. Nothing in the world wrong with that. What's anger in this bad sense, the sinful sense? Here's Thomas Aquinas. Anger is a passion for revenge that goes beyond the control of reason. That's a nice little pithy definition. Let me say it again. It's a passion for revenge that goes beyond the control of reason. So someone's hurt you. We all get hurt, you know. We all get hurt. We're all treated unjustly, a lot. I've now got a desire for vengeance to get back, which goes beyond all reason. That's anger in the sense of a deadly sin. It can happen at the personal level, yes indeed. It can happen at the geopolitical level. Don't we see it all the time? Think of nations that are holding grudges that last a thousand years. They hurt us a thousand years ago. We're still angry about it. We're still seeking vengeance. Or these families that are riven by decades-long struggles. That's anger in this deadly sense. That's why in Dante's Purgatorio, you know how the anger... are punished is smoke is sent to them. Smoke. And they breathe it in and it gets in their eyes and they're coughing. That's what anger does. It clouds our vision. It prevents us from speaking to each other. If you're in a fog of smoke, you can't speak, you can't see, you can't communicate. You sputter. That's what happens now in our anger. It separates us. What's the antidote to anger? Forgiveness. Forgiveness, everybody. Fellow sinners. Fellow victims of the deadly sin of anger. We're all there. How central to the teaching of Jesus was forgiveness? And I think you see why. It's right at the heart of it. his great prayer. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those. Over and over again, Jesus offering a word of forgiveness. Over and over again, the gesture of forgiveness. Most powerfully, from the cross comes from the cross. From that cross, I mean, think about it. It's not just a pious image. The dreadful, dreadful thing in the first century, that reality, that you were affixed to that instrument of torture, you were left to die over many hours in literally excruciating pain, right? Excruciate from the cross. From that place, he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Think of now the risen Jesus returned to his disciples. What does he say to them? Those who had abandoned him, who had denied him, betrayed him, run from him in his moment of desperate need. He says, shalom to them, peace. How central to our faith is this idea of forgiveness. What's forgiveness? Forgiveness is bearing another person's burden. Now here's what I mean. Two people become separated for whatever reason. Some alienation, some pain, separation. In justice, I do my part, you do your part, and we meet. We be reconciled. Let's say I do my part, but you keep running. I do my part, you keep running. Forgiveness is bearing that person's burden, going the extra mile that he won't go. They've never responded to my overtures. Yeah, I know, I know. That's justice. You do this, he does that. Forgiveness is that love that goes beyond justice. They don't deserve my attention. I know they don't. I know they don't. But do it anyway. I've done my part. They've never responded in kind. Yeah, I know, I know. But you do your part anyway. See, that's forgiveness. Here's a great story of forgiveness. It concerns an Amish couple, this was many years ago, maybe 25 years ago. An Amish couple with their teenage son, and they're in their horse-drawn carriage. They're going along the road. Behind them comes this car filled with teenage boys. And the kids are full of teenage energy and all this. And they're annoyed at the slow-moving carriage. So they honk their horn and all this. But then they rush around. Dust flies. They get... beyond the carriage and one of the kids had a rock or a brick or something and he wanted to throw it just at the horse but he throws the rock or the brick back and it hit the teenage boy and killed him it's true story killed him how the parents respond gosh he's an injustice you know get that kid make sure he goes to prison or hey wouldn't we wouldn't we praise them if they said look we'll just we'll just forget about this you know what they did Those parents went to court and they testified on behalf of the young man, begging the judge not to condemn him. He was condemned, was sent to prison. And then, I love this part of the story. Every month after that, they visited the young man in prison. See, that's forgiveness, everybody. Those of us who struggle with the deadly sin of anger, that's forgiveness. Talk about going the extra mile, going the extra ten miles. miles, going the extra hundred miles, pursuing that kid who had killed their own son. pursuing him, yes, even to the ends of the world, to seek him out. That's forgiveness. That's forgiveness. Practical advice in the remaining weeks of Lent, I'll say it to myself, too, as I'm saying it to you, because I know exactly the person I should do this with. Take a concrete step, everyone in this room, toward healing a broken relationship. Now, you all know what I mean. Get in your mind's eye right now. There's a person that you have fallen out of right relationship with, someone you hold a grudge against, someone you've been angry at maybe. maybe for decades, maybe it's a family member. Often it is. Hold that person right now in your mind's eye. I got mine right now. And in the remaining days of Lent, do something concrete to heal that relationship. It might be a note. It might be a phone call. It might be an email. It might be a direct visit. I don't know. Leave it up to you. But do something to pursue that relationship. Hey, she's never responded to me. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. That's what forgiveness is, is bearing her burden, see? Do something. Here's a second bit of real practical advice. It's from all the spiritual masters, too. When you're offended by someone, you're hurt by someone, forgive them quickly. grudges, remember the line from the scripture, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Don't give the devil a chance to work on you. Isn't it true, everybody? Is it when we're offended, we're hurt, and then we let it simmer, and we let it fester, and then it gets worse, and it gets infected. And before we know it, we're in utter alienation. Forgive quickly. Here's another practical thing, and I know this is hard. I know it's hard for me. Please refrain from gossip and talking about people behind their back. I know it's impossible, isn't it? It's like, what do you mean refrain from gossip? Are you kidding? But I know, I feel the same way. It's extremely difficult. See, talking behind people's backs, that's our favorite indoor pastime, right? Because, why did he hurt me? Am I going to go to him in a constructive way and seek reconciliation? No, no, no. It's much more fun and much easier to talk about him behind his back. Don't do that. Here's advice I got many years ago from a priest mentor of mine. He said, here's the rule, the airtight rule. Criticize somebody precisely in the measure that you are willing to help him or her. deal with the problem that you're raising. You see the point there of that thing? If you're 100% willing to commit yourself to helping the person deal with the problem you're raising, off you go. Critique till the cows come home, right? If you're totally unwilling to take even one little step to help the person deal with the problem, then keep your mouth shut. Don't say anything. If you're kind of, maybe a little bit of commitment to it, maybe a little bit of critique. That is never left. left my mind, that little piece of advice. When I feel the urge to criticize someone, alright, Barron, are you willing to commit yourself to helping him deal with this problem? If not, keep your mouth shut. Yeah, Father, forgive them. That's the last thing in my notes here, with the Lord on the cross behind me. I mean, that's the great model here. Keep that in your mind's eye. All right. We're almost there. We're at number four. If you're keeping score, we're at number four now in the Deadly Sins. It's cool that sloth, as you go up Mount Purgatory, it's at the dead center. So you've got three, and then you've got four, and then you've got three more. It's at the very, it's like the dead center. And the way Dante puts the divine comedy together, it's at the very center. of the entire poem. It's like the dead center on purpose. The fourth deadly sin, sloth. The medievals had a beautiful name for sloth. They called it the noonday devil. You know noonday? There's something kind of... sleepy about noonday. You wake up and you do your morning work and you're kind of energetic and then you have lunch. It happened to me today because I left Chicago. I woke up at 4 30 to get the plane to come here and so we had a nice lunch and then after lunch I knew I had these two talks together. I went back to my room and I slept you know for a few minutes. The noonday devil. Here's Thomas Aquinas'definition of sloth. Again pithy and helpful. Sloth is sorrow for spiritual good. Good. Very interesting. Sorrow for spiritual good. See, you can be the most energetic person in the world. You can be Mr. Go-Getter. Your appointment calendar can be filled, and you can be filled with sloth at the same time. It's not the same as high energy. It's sorrow or depression in regard to spiritual things. Spiritual things leave me, huh, I guess, yeah, maybe. See, that's sloth. That's the deadly sin. It's a kind of boredom of the soul, if I can put it that way. Your mind might be engaged, your body engaged, and all that, relationships, but the level of soul, there's a torpor or a boredom. That's sloth. I love this from Karl Barth, the great Protestant theologian. Much revered, by the way, at, oh no, wait a minute, I was going to say Duke. I'm not in Duke country now. I'm in, right? Forget about Duke. Forget about, just forget about Duke. I didn't even mention Duke. mention Duke. I'll be there tomorrow so I can use my Duke example. Anyway, Karl Barth, forget about Duke, but Karl Barth said, the distinctive sin of our time, he says, is not pride, it's sloth. It's really insightful. It's our secularist time. Secularism, full of energy, building buildings and cities and technology and all of it, but when it comes to spiritual things, there's a kind of, eh, boredom, difference, who knows, who cares, you do what you want. You know, Benedict XVI was so strong on the danger of relativism, wasn't he? The dictatorship of relativism. What's relativism? It's what I call the, eh, culture. You ever see the kids? Whatever. Ever. Ever. See, that's at the popular level post-modernism. Whatever. You got your values, I got mine. It's true for you. It's not true for me. I'll tolerate you. tolerate me? See, but listen, would we ever accept that in any area of life that we take seriously? So we're trying to make the next, I just got this new fancy iPhone 6. I'm sure there's an iPhone 7 now that's already made this. But there's someone right now, probably in this, what do you call it again? The research, the research triangle. There's someone right now in the research triangle who is desperately trying to get a better iPhone. Could you imagine someone coming along and saying, who cares? Who cares about it? Yeah, that's one way to do it. it, but yeah, there's another way to do it. You know, they're really focused, right, on what's the best way to do this. They're full of purpose and energy when it comes to making iPhones. But when it comes to values, ultimate meaning, what's the purpose of my life, we tend to fall into a, whatever. See, and that's what causes the trouble in our society. You know, this image is from Cardinal Newman, one of my great heroes. Newman says, what gives a river energy? What's the river energy? river around here. It must be a famous river. Is it the Duke River? No, I know. It's not the Duke River. The Eno. The Eno. I never heard of that. So the Eno River, what gives it energy? Newman would say it's the firmness of its banks. If a river has firm banks, then it moves. It goes. It has a purpose. What happens if you knock down the banks? Just get rid of them. Just knock them down. Well, the river will then move. open up into this big, lazy lake, right? What's happened to our society spiritually, Karl Barth would have said, and I say it now, is the river, we've knocked down the banks of what's good, what's true, what's beautiful. Eh, whatever. And what's happened is the river's opened up in this big, lazy lake. And we're all floating on the lake on our own little private air mattresses, tolerating each other. You know, I'll tolerate you, tolerate me. You do what you want. what I want. But see, there's no energy, there's no life, there's no purpose, there's no oomph in that kind of society. That's sloth at the grander level, but it happens on the inside too. What's the antidote to sloth? It's zeal for the mission. Zeal for the mission. Mission is a word that's been revived in a lot of recent theology. I'm happy it has. It's from the Latin word mitere, which means to send. Jesus calls himself the one who's been sent. He refers to the Father as the one that sent me. Some old enough in the room to remember in the old Mass, ite misa est. The Mass has ended, but what that means is just go. It's been sent. It's been sent. Go out on mission. Mission. In the Bible, everybody, in the Bible, no one is ever given an experience of God without being at the same time sent. There's no exception to it. No one ever sees God or hears from God without being at the same time sent. Whether we're talking about Abraham, we're talking about Jacob, about Moses, about Joshua, about David, about Samuel, about Saul. Peter, James, and John. There's no exception. Everyone that is addressed by God is sent on mission. In fact, Balthazar, whom I mentioned earlier, said, you don't really know who you are until you've found your mission. Mission is tied to person, which is why it's only when Saul sees the risen Jesus that he becomes Paul. It's only when Simon is addressed by Jesus that he becomes Peter. It's only when Simon is addressed by Jesus that he becomes Peter. when Jacob wrestles with the angel that he becomes Israel, we know who we are in the measure that we've been sent on mission. The whatever culture is inimical to this. Oh, mission, I'll make up what I want to do. I'll decide. You tolerate me, I'll tolerate you. Ho hum. You see how we're the big lazy lake? We need to be a church full of missionary disciples, as Pope Francis has said beautifully. Disciples who've been sent. Here's some practical advice. In the remaining weeks of Lent, everybody, work on discerning and refining your sense of mission. Now, probably most of us in this room have a sense of mission, of how we... been sent by God? And mind you, far more important than our families, more important than our jobs, more important than our status in society, more important than any of that, is this question. How have I been sent by God? Every better baptized person, a mission was placed in you. You might have been a little baby, but a mission was placed in you. You know the acorn theory? Did you ever hear of that? It's a cool theory in psychology and spirituality that every one of us has planted in the heart like an acorn that's meant to grow into this oak tree of our identity. And what happens is at key points in life, that acorn is stirred. And we know, yes, yes, that's it. That's it. That's it. I remember I was maybe 15 or so. I was a sophomore in high school, and we had an assignment in English class. We all had to pick a famous speech and get up and deliver it in front of the class. Well, no one had ever given a speech to 15-year-olds. We were all terrified. I took a session of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, I remember. And there I was, and I was nervously reading this speech. But as I was reading it, I remember the sort of cadence. You know, JFK's speeches had that cadence. and that rhythm, and that poetry. As I was reading that speech in front of my goofball classmates in high school, but something stirred in me. And as I'm standing before you now, most of my life I've been a public speaker. Most of my life I've been in front of crowds talking. It was like that moment the acorn was stirring. It was like, yes, that's what you're supposed to do. Now, I didn't really know what form that would take exactly, but I spent most of my life doing what I'm doing right now. Well, I think that happens to all of us. is that acorn gets stirred. That's mission. Take some time during the remainder of Lent to discern and refine your sense of mission. Here's another bit of advice, real practical. Dorothy Day, one of my heroes, said, everything a baptized person does every day, everything, every day, should be related to the corporal or spiritual works of mercy. Again, this may be something old enough to remember. Remember the list of the corporal works of mercy? Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, bury the dead, etc. Remember? Or the spiritual works of mercy, counsel the doubtful, bear patiently the troublesome, etc. Look those up. Maybe younger people. Go online, you'll find them. Look them up. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Your mission, your mission, will be tied somehow to those. Everyone's mission. Somehow. Which one of them stirs the... the acorn in you? Might be a cool question. Which one of those, that's it. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. Take a look at the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Oh, here's the Mary encounter example, which I love. So as the slothful are being punished on purgatory, they're made to run. It's like a health club. They're made to run because they've been sitting around. But the Mary encounter example is the angel says, she proceeded in haste. Remember where that's from? It's after the Annunciation. and she gets her mission and she knows, I've got to go see my cousin Elizabeth. And it says, she went in haste into the hill country. Good. She knew exactly who she was, exactly what she was about, and man, there wasn't an ounce of sloth in her. Can we say that? Boy, I know what I'm doing. I proceed in haste. All right. We come now to Avarice, the fifth deadly sin, the sin of Mr. Howell, right? Everest. Here's Thomas Aquinas describing Everest. It's the unreasonable or immoderate desire for riches. Okay? The unreasonable or immoderate desire for riches. We're allowed to own private property. In the Catholic Church's social teaching, we are allowed to own private property. Nothing wrong with wealth in itself. But when it becomes unreasonable or immoderate, we have the deadly sin of avarice. You might say, the greedy attachment to material things, that's avarice. There's an old term in the spiritual masters, concupiscence, concupiscencia. It means errant or twisted desire. We can have a concupiscent desire for material things. See, here's an image I want you to play with. Most of us think we're unhappy because we're missing something. Mind you, we're all unhappy, everyone in this room. I don't mean depressed. What I mean is we're all hungry, right? What did Bruce Springsteen say? Everyone's got a hungry heart. That's echoing St. Augustine, right? Lord, my heart is restless till it rests in thee. That means I'm always yearning. C.S. Lewis saw the same thing. He called it joy, this deep searching, yearning for a good that I know only inchoately but don't yet possess. I can't get no satisfaction, said Mick Jagger. The same thing. There's a very great wisdom in that. I try and I try and I try and I try and I try. And when he wrote that song, he was what, 25? He was at the top of the world, one of the most famous, richest person going. All the sex, pleasure, money, power you could want, right? And yet he... he said, I can't get no satisfaction. Good, good. See, most of us think the reason we're unhappy is there's something missing I've got to fill up. So, I don't have enough wealth. That's my problem. I don't have enough pleasure. That's my problem. Enough power, enough honor. I've got to fill up the empty cage of the ego, and then I'll be happy. Right? Now, fellow sinners, fellow addicts, it's all a type of addiction, isn't it? We all know it's false, don't we? What alone fills you? This is the supreme paradox upon which all of Christianity rests at the end of the day. What fills you is not throwing things in the empty cage, but rather giving your life away in love. That's what fills you. Now why? Because see, that is the divine life. That's who God is. Augustine, right? My heart's restless until it rests in you. Well, who are you? You are love. Right through, that's all God is. God gives himself away. Therefore, when we give ourselves away in imitation, we get filled up with the divine life. That's how it works. That's the formula. I've staked my life on it. I'll bet you a million dollars it's true. I've staked my life on it. John Paul called it, John Paul, the law of the gift. That you're being increased. in the measure that you give it away. Now take that to the bank, spiritually. Take Gilligan's Island away and take that away today from my talk. Your being increases in the measure that you give it away. Avarice, and it might be avarice for wealth or for pleasure or for power or for honor, will make you miserable and not happy. Let those things flow through you as a gift to others, and you'll be filled with a divine life. That's the point here. What's the antidote, the lively virtue? It's generosity. God is the opposite of avaricious. God is the one who gives. That's all he does. The Father gives away. That's the Son. The Son gives back. The mutual giving of Father and Son, we call that the Holy Spirit. God is a community of self-giving love. The world is meant to imitate him. So generosity is the lively virtue here. Some practical advice. This is hard stuff. I find it hard. But I'll encourage you and I'll encourage myself at the same time. Especially now during Lent, the remaining weeks of Lent where we talk about almsgiving as one of the practices of Lent. Give something away now in each of the remaining days of Lent. You know what it is. I can't tell you what it is. but go into your closet, into your home, into whatever. Give something away now every day for the rest of Lent. One thing that's a really good spiritual exercise, by the way, clean out your closet on a regular basis. I don't mean dust it. I mean, go through your closet. Gosh, when's the last time I wore that shirt? When's the last time I wore those? Do I really need all these pants and shirts and sweaters? I've got, priests get a lot of sweaters for some reason. We get, is that true? We get gifted with sweaters all the time. I've got, I've got, I think about 30 sweaters in my closet. Well, I mean, and I like four. five of them that I tend to wear. But there they all are. Gathering dust. Give them away. You know the line from John Chrysostom? Still takes my breath away. If you've got two shirts in your closet, John Chrysostom said, one belongs to you. The other belongs to the man who has no shirt. Let that sink in sometime. Here's Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, the founding document of the church's social teaching. He said, once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met in your life, everything else you own belongs to the poor. Now let that sink in. It's stated broadly enough, you know. Once the demands of necessity... and propriety have been met in your life? Do I have really what I need? And even to have kind of a proper life. Okay, once that's set, everything else you have belongs to the poor. That's Leo XIII. Echoed by all the popes, including John Paul II. How about for the rest of Lent, every time you leave the house, have a little poor box by your door. Every time you leave, you put something in it. Dime, dollar, ten, I don't know what it is, it's up to you. But every time you leave, put something in it to remind you of the poor. Father Scott will be happy to hear this one, but tithing, you know, is an ancient biblical practice. To tithe is to give ten... percent of your income to now the church to father scott to a charity whatever you want but figure your income i don't know you make 75 000 a year make 100 000 a year 200 000 whatever it is take 10 give that away hard yeah yeah it's meant to be you Deadly sin number six is gluttony. Now I want you to know something. As we're moving up the seven-story mountain, we start with pride. The more serious of the deadly sins are the more spiritual ones. See how I'm driving it? They're more... tied to the spirit in a way the higher you go the more they're tied to the body the church kind of recognizes these are weaknesses of the flesh and see everest is kind of like that so is sloth but now especially as you're getting higher on the mountain it's where the the bodily sins have taken over. They're less serious. Deadly, don't belittle them, but they're less deadly. Gluttony. Are we an overfed country? Yeah, I think it's fair to say we are. I just saw my doctor and my physical, and I'm in good shape, thank God. But you know that thing where you actually get on the scale at the doctor's office? I used to have a scale in my room. I got rid of it a while ago. You get on the scale in the doctor's office, and you actually hear the nurse say what you weigh. You're like, oh, my gosh. And so I saw the doctor, and I said, oh, gosh, doctor, I'm heavier than I want to be. And he goes, well, you're eating when you're not hungry. That's true, isn't it? A lot of us eat when we're not hungry. We eat just for pleasure. We eat for whatever. Is it a psychological issue? Yes, to some degree. A physical issue sometimes, sure. But here we're talking about it as a spiritual issue. Here's Aquinas again. What's gluttony? It's an immoderate or unreasonable pleasure in food and drink. Gluttony is taking an immoderate or unreasonable pleasure in food and drink. As such, it's related to avarice. It's a kind of concupiscence. It's trying to fill up this emptiness which only God can fill. It's a type of pleasure. If I just get enough pleasure, I'll be happy. I'm missing pleasure in my life. That's my problem. So I will drink too much. I'll eat too much. Now, mind you, Catholics aren't Puritans. Don't misconstrue me on this point. We have nothing against the pleasure of food and drink and sex and so on. You know the great line from Hilaire Belloc, which I'm sure you've heard, but wherever the Catholics... sun does shine, there's music and laughter and good red wine. Good. That's right. We're not Puritans. In fact, I think Puritanism is a form of corruption, of spiritual corruption. So we like the pleasures of the body. Nothing in the world wrong with them. But it's this inordinate, immoderate, or unreasonable pleasure in these things that's a problem. Augustine's dictum comes to mind very much, Lord, you made us for yourself. It's the, think of all desire as a kind of sacrament of this fundamental restlessness of the soul. Here's Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual masters of the last century. Merton said, the desires of the flesh are a bit like children. Parents know about this, when kids want what they want when they want it. Mommy, I want this, I want this, I want this. now now and if you indulge the kids every desire what's going to happen in time they're going to run your whole life and i've seen especially young parents fall into this trap is do you realize how the kids are utterly dominating this entire house because you're indulging everyone of their desires. So Merton said the desire for food and drink and sensual pleasure can be like that. I want it, I want it, I want it, now, now, now. And if you don't discipline them, they will soon be running the house. See, that's the trouble with gluttony in all its forms, is now sensual desire so runs the house that I've forgotten about mission, I've forgotten about purpose, I've forgotten about prayer, I've forgotten about rightly ordering my life. That's the trouble with gluttony. Think of the devil's temptation here to the Lord. Turn these stones into bread. It's a temptation to gluttony, to make pleasure, sensual pleasure, the center of your life. And the Lord's great rejoinder is still an important one for us. We don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. See, gluttony is a deadly sin. It's trying to live by bread alone, by pleasure alone. It can't work. What's the antidote to gluttony? The classic term here is asceticism. Asceticism. Denying oneself food and drink and sensual pleasure for the sake of focusing the soul. So not Puritanism, not that. These are terrible things, I have to just flee from them. Or I have to escape from them to a pure spiritual life. realm. That ain't it. We look forward to the resurrection of the body, right? The body is good, meant for salvation. But, for a time, we limit sensual pleasure so as to awaken and focus. spiritual desire that's why john henry newman talks about asceticism as a basic principle of catholicism when we forget that see my generation tended to forget it after vatican ii i came of age right after the council is we were so so down in that i mean that seemed puritanical it seemed world denying body denying so we didn't emphasize asceticism but it's a sign of a healthy catholicism i think he's quite right about that here's a story our, Scott I think your time, you guys went to the Holy Land didn't you? Our third year men at Mundelein go for a long sojourn in the Holy Land. And they're there for ten weeks. Well one year a class arrived and their arrival coincided with Ramadan, you know the Muslim month of prayer and fasting. What struck our students when they got home and told me this was, you knew the minute you got off the plane that it was Ramadan. It was just in the rhythm of people's lives. It was in their way of relating. It was in their behavior. You knew something was going to happen. of spiritual significance was going on. And then it prompted in my mind this question. If someone arrived let's say from the Middle East to Chicago during Lent, you know, largely Catholic Chicago during Lent, what would they notice? My guess is they wouldn't know as much at all different. We're not very good at asceticism. But spiritual people from time immemorial and across the religious lines have seen the significance and purpose of it. And so, practical advice. Fast. One of the great practices of Lent is fasting. I'm not good at fasting. I'll confess that to you. It's a spiritual practice I have a hard time with, which is why I should do it more. And I mean, not some wimpy... be a little fast, but I mean a real serious fast. Skip a meal, perhaps on the Fridays during lunch, maybe skip lunch altogether. Spend the hour in prayer instead of eating. Maybe give the money you would have spent to the poor. Don't go out drinking some night you wanted to and pray the rosary instead that night. Go away from the table during Lent feeling hungry. Good advice medically. Yeah, every doctor says it. It's also good advice spiritually. Go away from a meal regularly during Lent feeling hungry. All right, I'm going over a little bit. I'm sorry. One more, though. One more. The sin you've all been waiting for, the sin of lust. Years ago, this friend of mine said, I suffer from glust, which is a combination of gluttony and lust. Glust. Now, again, here, you know, it's difficult to talk about this in a Catholic context because we tend, you know, we have the reputation of being obsessed with sex, obsessed with sexual sin. I'm Irish. I'm all Irish, both sides of my family. And there's something in the Irish formation that became maybe a little too preoccupied with this. But once again, we should not fall into Puritanism. The Catholic tradition reverences sex, including sexual pleasure. Nothing in the world wrong with it. In fact, that's why we protect it so carefully. You know, it's funny, this thought occurred to me a couple years ago. Usually once a year I go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. I mean, God help me, I'm a Cub fan. Talk about a spiritual asceticism for many years. But I got to Wrigley Field, and, you know, Wrigley Field is one of the great gems of baseball, beautiful old stadium. And, man, is it protected. You know, when you arrive at Wrigley Field, you can't just walk in. You know, of course you give them your ticket, but there's all sorts of ways. It's like getting on an airplane. I mean, you have to go through metal detectors, and they check your bags and all this stuff. But why are there so many rules around Wrigley Field? Because it's so beautiful and so precious because we love it so much. Of course we're surrounded by rules. You Catholics are hung up. All these rules. out sex. Well, yeah, of course there are. Because we love it. And we reverence it so much. You know, that's the right way to look at it. What does lust mean? It doesn't mean sexual pleasure. Lust is a distortion of the sexual desire. I can define it very simply. Using another human being as a means to your sexual pleasure. It's the use of another human being as a means to your own sexual occasion. That's a principle, by the way, that John Paul used a lot in his moral writings. It's this principle that goes back to Immanuel Kant. One of the forms of what Kant called the categorical imperative is never use a human being as a means, but always try to use it as a means. treat a human being as an end. That means someone to be reverenced in him or herself and can never be reduced to the level of a means to your pleasure. See, that's lust. That's lust. Go to to Times Square sometime, when you go to New York and you walk into Times Square, and you look up, and I always think if an ancient person came back in a time machine, they'd think, these are our gods. Because up in lights, these giant figures of semi-nude men and women. What is that? But it's just this sort of hymn of praise to sexual pleasure for its own sake. How it dominates our society. You don't need me to tell you this, but pornography is a rampant spiritual problem in our society. I know what dealing now with these young guys, people in their 20s, in a way that my generation never was, but the Internet happened. Now, you know what the average age, I got this from an expert who deals with sexual dysfunction stuff, you know what the average age for the first exposure to Internet pornography is in our country? Eleven. I'm not kidding. And I see it confirmed all the time. Eleven. Most of our, mostly young men, of course, have a greater proclivity, but women too. 11 is the average age of the first exposure. And you give that to an 11-year-old, what happens? Almost immediate addiction. And we've done studies of how the brain gets changed and wired by this exposure to pornography. You well know this, that way beyond AT&T and McDonald's and name the biggest corporations, is the pornography industry. Multi, multi-billion dollar industry. in America. What is that but now an institutionalized lust, which is deeply perverting the minds and spirits and hearts, especially of our young kids? And will that have radiating effects throughout the rest of their lives? Yes. Don't think, oh, it's a little minor problem. I can compartmentalize it. That is not a minor problem. That's a deadly sin. And the deadly sins have a way of radiating out and causing trouble everywhere. Remember C.S. Lewis's image of the convoy of ships? moving along together, and they're all to one purpose. Even get one ship off kilter, what happens? The whole convoy gets messed up. One ship off kilter, they're all going to crash together eventually. If this side of life is not under control, it'll cause trouble. What's the antidote to lust? Well, chastity is the classical term. What's chastity but an upright expression of one's sexuality? No matter what your form of life is, you're married, you're single, you're a celibate, etc. It's an upright expression, a morally correct expression of sexuality. One that always involves the profound respect for the personhood of the other. That's what's at the heart of chastity and all of its expressions. Practical advice? You know, mind you, John Paul kind of haunted me over there in the corner. When John Paul famously said that lust can take place within marriage, he was roundly criticized. But that's perfectly right, it seems to me. Perfectly right. That even married couples can treat each other as means and not as an end. Can treat each other with disrespect sexually. Nothing surprising to me about that. Here's a practical advice. If you have pornography in any form, get rid of it. Now. And, you know, I say it, I know as I say this, I'm addressing most people in our society. It's not some little minor thing off on the side. It's impacting... a lot of people. If you have any pornography in your life, get rid of it. If the computer is a problem, get rid of it. It's better to be thrown into Gehenna with one leg than to go with both legs into heaven. I mean, if this thing is causing such a problem, get rid of it. Don't cooperate with the pornography industry. And it's across the board, isn't it? All sorts of ways it draws us in. Stop cooperating with it. If you're involved in any kind of manipulative sexual relationship, and you know what I'm talking about, I mean, we're all in danger of this, cut it out. If you're involved in some kind of manipulative sexual relationship where you're using another person for your own sexual pleasure, stop it. Cut it out. It's a deadly sin. Eliminate it. Okay, let me just close. I'm sorry I went on a little bit too long. Let me just remind you of the seven sins. and lively virtues. So, the first one, the worst one, the most serious, pride. Pride. What's the antidote? Humility. Stay close to the humus, the earth. Second one, envy. You know, a friend of mine... succeed, something in me dies. That's bad. Overcome it through admiration. Learn to admire in yourself and others. Third sin, anger. You all know you're angry at somebody right now. Antidote, do something this Lent to forgive. Heal the relationship. Fourth, sloth, laziness of the soul. Overcome it by zeal for the mission. Find out what God wants you to do. Do it. Next, avarice. It's overcome through generosity. Give something away, this Lent. Get in a habit of generosity. Gluttony, the unreasonable desire for food and drink. Overcome through a healthy asceticism. And finally, lust is overcome through chastity. Get our sexual lives, everybody, in order. Be aware of the seven deadly sins. Practice the seven lively virtues. Good Lenten stuff and helps us to be spiritually healthy. God bless you all. Thanks for listening today.

and the seven lively virtues. Now we're in the middle of Lent. It's our penitential season, a time when we do reflect on our interior lives and we take stock.

What's going right? What's going wrong? So a classical way to do that is to look...

look at these seven deadly sins and their antidotes, the seven lively virtues. You know, here's the first thing, everybody. We're very comfortable in our society talking about what's wrong with us physically.

I mean, we'll very easily embrace, yeah, that's problematic physically. If you go to your doctor and you say, you know, I'm just not feeling right. And he says, well, you know, tell me about your lifestyle a little bit.

And you say, well, you know, for breakfast I have pancakes, a lot of butter. I usually have a Big Mac. fries for lunch, I have pizza lasagna for dinner, I smoke, I never exercise.

What's he going to say? Well, you're in a mortally dangerous situation here. You're doing things that are putting your body in mortal danger, right? And we're very at home with that. Read the health magazines.

You know, I always think the descendants of the Puritans now edit health magazines, right? You know, those tell you all the things you shouldn't do, and if you do this, you'll have to be punished. And we're very at home with that.

But by analogy... spiritual life are the things that we do are there are there practices we engage in that put our souls our spirits in a kind of mortal danger yes indeed the church has identified seven of these let me just name them first now just go through each one with some examples and hope to kind of guide you in a little spiritual meditation first one the most important one pride pride number one then envy then anger then sloth then avarice, and then gluttony, and then lust. Those are the seven deadly sins. Pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust.

So we'll go through them one by one as a little spiritual exercise. First of all, pride, pride, pride. It is the most deadly of the deadly sins.

That's why it's number one. It's the capital sin from the Latin caput, meaning head. It's the head.

sin from which everything else flows. Pride is the problem. You know, as Catholics, when you talk about sin or vice, what do we think of first? Probably sexual sin, right? Lust.

When in fact, according to Dante, who was one of the great articulators of deadly sins, lust is the least significant of the seven. Mind you, it's a deadly sin, don't get me wrong, but it's the least significant, the most significant, and all the great masters agree with them. is pride, pride.

What is pride? I want to look at it first under a theological aspect, and then if you want a more psychological aspect. What's pride theologically?

It is arrogating to oneself the distinct prerogatives of God. Think now of the sin of Lucifer. Think of the sin of Adam and Eve. Arrogating to ourselves the unique prerogatives of God.

prerogative of God. How is that expressed now in the beautiful language of Genesis? They grasp at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Well, see, who alone has this distinctive and grounding knowledge of good and evil? Well, that's God. When Adam and Eve seize that prerogative for themselves, they commit this great sin of pride. That's why it's St. Michael who battles Lucifer. His name, Michael, in Hebrew means, who is like God?

His name is a taunt. Lucifer has grasped at divinity. I am God.

Michael, who is like God? That, by the way, that's the battle of the angels. It was purely an intellectual battle. It was a taunting battle.

daunting challenge. Who's like God? Not you, pal. See, that's the idea.

Pride is grasping at divinity for ourselves. Now, you say, well, that all sounds very abstract and very distant. Let me read something to you. This is from the famous, or I'd say infamous, 1992 decision of our U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

It was an abortion-related case, but the way the justice resolved it, listen to their language, is remarkable, even breathtaking. Listen, at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence. of meaning, of the universe, of the mystery of human life.

Oh, is that all? That's all my freedom allows? You see how that is tantamount to a grasping at the knowledge of good and evil? I determine the meaning of life, universe, human life?

Irrigating to oneself the unique prerogative of God, that's pride. Okay, so what's the real problem with pride? I'll put it now in one little phrase.

It's boring. Now why? Why?

See, we... When you arrogate to yourself the pride of God, you've turned in on yourself. St. Augustine defined it beautifully, curvatus in se. That means caved in around oneself.

I determine the meaning of my life. life, my projects, my plans, my intentions. Ho-hum. My little world.

I'm living in this little, clean, well-lighted space of my own egotistic plans. How wonderful, by the way, when you can break out of that into what Hans Urs von Balser calls the theodrama. What's the theodrama?

That's the drama that God is producing, that God is writing, that God is... is directing. You've got a role in it, but God's the producer, the director, the writer.

When you surrender to that and you find your role in the theodrama, now you begin to live. You know, I can't resist in this parish of St. Thomas More, one of my great heroes. How many have seen The Man for All Seasons, the great film about Thomas More, which is my favorite movie? I saw it when I was 16, I think for the first time.

I've watched it every year of my life since then. Remember the scene, those who've seen it at the very beginning? beginning of the movie. There's a young guy called Richard Rich, who's a Cambridge graduate. He's about 20 years old, full of himself, full of ambition.

He wants a big career. So he's hanging around Thomas More, who's a courtier of Henry VIII, and he's looking for a position. Moore resists him, but then finally he says, well, Rich, I've got a position for you.

What? What? There's an opening in the local school. You could be a teacher. And Richard Rich is completely crestfallen.

A teacher? And Moore says to him, You could be a great teacher. And the young man says, and if I were, who would know it? Now see, that's not the theodrama, that's the egodrama, right? The drama that I'm writing, I'm directing, I'm producing, and above all, I'm starring in it.

It's my drama. Ho-hum, see. Moore says to him, your friends would know it. Your pupils would know it.

You would know it. God would know it. Not a bad public, that. See, that's a turning point in that whole play. Moore is luring Richard Rich into the theodrama.

See, this great, open, expansive space of what God intends for us. See, in the pride... Prideful person, all of us are prideful people.

We lock ourselves into the little narrow space of what we want. Surrender to the theodrama, and now you really begin to live. You know, in Ephesians, Paul says this, There's a power already at work in you that can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine.

I love that line. What's the power? It's the Holy Spirit. It's already at work in you, and it can do so much more than you can ask or imagine within the confines of your little egodrama. break out break out open yourself up to the holy spirit that's overcoming pride you see why pride is the fundamental sin that we get locked in curvato sensei now i mentioned there was a kind of a psychological side to pride here's what it is do a little thought experiment imagine now you're having a conversation with a friend and you're just following the rhythm of the conversation you're just together exploring the truth following where it leads.

You're not preoccupied with yourself or the impression you're making or what he thinks of you. You're just following along. How wonderful, how exuberant that experience is.

It's as though the conversation is playing you. Now contrast that to, you're having a conversation, but you're desperately interested in how you're appearing and what he thinks of you. And are you making the right impression?

And are you, what's happened there is you're not lost in the beauty and rhythm of the conversation. You're not given over to the truth. You're turned in awkwardly and anxiously upon yourself. That's pride. That's pride.

It's like a monkey on your back. You're going through your whole life and all you're worried about is the impression you're making, what they think of you. And it divorces you from reality.

You see how I'm driving it? When you're lost in that conversation, you're into reality. The prideful person is locked in a little prison. Or shift that metaphor, the monkey on the back all the time.

Here's a great line, I love this from one of the spiritual masters. He says, most of us go through life like we're on this bus. traveling through the most beautiful, breathtaking countryside imaginable.

But we have the shades pulled down, and we're fighting about who gets first seat on the bus. Yes, that's life for many of us prideful people. Forget about first seat of the bus. Who cares?

Open the window. You're in the last seat of the bus. Who cares?

Open the window. Look. Let them fight about it.

No? That's the ego drama versus the theodrama. Open the shade.

Open the window. Look out. Now, this is why the antidote to pride, the lively virtue, is humility.

Now, I know right away we get hung up here because we think of false humility. Oh, who am I? oh little me, I'm nothing. Well, that isn't it at all.

Humilitas in Latin, right, is from the word humus, which means the earth, the ground. I love that. To be humble is not to be in a phony way self-deprecating. It means close to reality. That's why in Dante's Divine Comedy, you know, the seven-story mountain, that's Thomas Merton's book, but it's based on Dante's idea of the mountain of purgatory has seven levels because You've got to be purged of the seven deadly sins.

So the first level of the mountain, pride. You know what the prideful have to do? They have to carry great boulders on their back. And you say, well, they're just being punished. No, no, think about it.

The boulder pushes you. you down to the earth, to the ground. You get close to the reality of things. That's where the humble person hangs out. Stop worrying about the impression you're making and give yourself to reality.

Stop worrying about what other people think of you. Stop worrying about your reputation and give yourself over to reality. That's humility. And that's the source of joy, you know.

Here's some practical advice for you. In the remaining weeks of Lent, maybe we could all... practice some of this. If you struggle with pride, and we all do, it's the capital sin, purposely take the lower place. Look at that in the spiritual tradition, the monastic tradition.

They'll recommend that a lot. Is it really? struggling to see who's first on the bus. Forget about it.

Purposely take the lower place. Take the less important position. The one that won't get attention.

Even when someone, when you think, hey, naturally, I deserve more attention, give the attention to somebody else. Draw attention away from yourself to somebody else. Learn to love simple things.

You know, fellow sufferers from pride, every minute of every day, we have everything we need right in front of us to be happy. That's one of the great spiritual masters said that. Every minute of every day, every one of us has everything we need to be happy. Now, what does he mean by that?

He means the simplest things, if we surrender to them, will give us joy. You know, watch little kids, because little kids are great. As Jesus, of course, said, unless you become like a little child, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven, right?

Watch a little child who's discovering a bug for the first time. A bug crawling on the ground. A little kid, look at it.

Fascinated. Watch it. We come along.

Kill it. it. Step on it.

Watch a little kid, though. Pick it up. And bugs are kind of fascinating if you look at them closely.

Think of a, you know, it was a great, watch, the spiritual message is very interesting. Do this a lot. Animals.

You know, the happiest beings I know, I'm serious about this, are dogs. My sister has a great dog. His name is Homer.

I think my little nephew named him because of home runs, not Homer the poet. But anyway, he's called Homer. Homer's the happiest.

happiest being I know. I'm not kidding at all when I say that. I know all kinds of people, myself included.

Homer is by far the happiest being. Why? Because he's not hung up on reputation and what people think. I walk in and he just is overjoyed. The dog is so overjoyed he's bursting out of his skin.

Well, see, so it would be if we turned and became again like little children, surrender to the simplest things and find joy in them. Stop worrying about who's first on the bus. Doesn't matter.

Open the window, you know. Okay. There's some practical advice for humility.

What's the second deadly sin? Envy. Envy.

Envy. Here's a quote from Gore Vidal, you know, the American novelist who died just a couple years ago. Here's Gore Vidal.

When a friend of mine succeeds, something in me dies. I love that because it's so honest, isn't it? It's so honest.

Mind you, it's when a friend of mine, some enemy of mine, or some person I barely know, but especially when a friend of mine succeeds, something in me dies. Or turn that around, you've got what the Germans call schadenfreude, right? Which is when something bad happens, especially to a friend, and I flied up. I rejoice in that. Now, guilty as charged, fellow sinners, fellow envious.

You know, when a friend of mine succeeds, when a friend of mine has trouble, I kind of get a kick out of it. That's envy. I would say, gosh, look at the Bible over and over again.

Cain, jealous of Abel. Jacob, jealous of Esau. The brothers of Joseph, jealous of Joseph.

Saul, jealous of David. The other disciples, jealous of James and John. Up and down the Bible.

Envy is a driving force of the biblical narratives. Look at it in literature and film. Brutus and Cassius, envious of Caesar.

Iago, envious of Othello. Macbeth, envious of Duncan. There's my high-level Shakespeare references.

But. but look all through film how often the narrative is driven by envy. Look at our own little soap operas, right?

I'm talking about our lives. How often they're driven by the engine of envy. Envy's a daughter of pride, isn't it? It's a daughter of pride.

If I'm not worried about who's first in the bus, I don't get envious. If I just have the window open, I'm looking out and taking in the world. If I'm looking at that bug and finding delight in it, if I'm like Homer and the simplest thing makes me happy, me burst out of my skin with joy, then I'm not worried about what other people are doing or not doing. Envy is a daughter of pride. Something when I discuss this with priests, you know in the Middle Ages, the spiritual master said the worst type of envy is when you're in a relationship with a priest.

envy is invidia clericalis. That means clerical envy. The priest world, and I know about that, you know, but I think in most of our worlds, envy is a pretty serious problem. What's the, oh, here's something in Dante I love.

Oh, look, I see John Paul over there, beautiful, huh? Your statue of John Paul, that's lovely. We have a new chapel at Mundelein where I'm the rector, dedicated to John Paul, and I had the opportunity just yesterday to reverence a first... class relic, the little vial of his blood was brought to the chapel.

So I'm just struck by seeing him there. What's the antidote to envy, everybody? What's the lively virtue?

It's admiration. Admiration. Here's the theological truth behind all this. The nothing we have that we've not been given.

St. Paul said that. What do you have, you people? What do you have that you've not been given? Your talents, a gift from God.

Your body, your passions, your mind, your creativity, your energy. All of it is a gift from God. So why do you boast, Paul says? Why do you get hung up on what you've got, what he doesn't have, what he's got, what you don't have? All of it is a gift.

Therefore, the proper response is to admire and give thanks for that gift, whether it comes to another or comes to you. The worst thing we do is somehow think, well, I got all this coming to me. I've earned it. Through my hard work. Yeah, but man, who gave you the capacity for hard work?

Through my intellectual achievement. Yeah, but who gave you your mind? Who sustains your mind and animates it every second?

God. Once you let that truth sink in, you stop playing the game of envy. He's getting more than he deserves. I'm not getting what I deserve, etc., etc. Think of the energy and time we waste on that, right?

How much time we waste on that sort of thing. Instead, admire the good wherever you find it. Here's some practical advice now to get admiration in your life, get envy out of it.

Go out of your way in the remainder of this Lent to praise somebody you're envious of. Now, I know everyone in this room, myself included, we can all name someone right now, right, that we're envious of. You know, put that person in your mind's eye right now. Before Lent is out, find some way to praise that person.

Don't take schadenfreude, like when something goes bad, you rejoice. Don't let something in you die when he succeeds, but rather take the initiative and praise that person. Secondly, simply stop the completely unhelpful practice of comparison.

Boy, the spiritual energy wasted on comparison. Just stop it. When you find yourself doing it, cut it out.

Do something else. Stop it. This is in Dante, the envious are on the second level of the mountain.

You know how they're punished? Middle Ages when they had these hawks that would do hunting, and they would sew the eyelids of the hawks shut. And it would, I don't know how all that worked, but they would sew their eyelids shut. That's how Dante punishes the envious, is their eyelids are sewn shut. Why?

Because they would spend their whole life looking, looking, looking. Who's doing better than I am? Who's got more than I?

Forget about that. Stop looking. Cut it out. Here's the Marian counterexample. So in Dante, every level has a Marian counterexample, where Mary exemplifies the virtue.

I love this. It's the wedding feast at Cana. Now why?

Well, Mary's there, and they're out of wine. she hears. Well, see, what do we sinners do with information like that? Oh, good, they're out of wine. My wedding was better than theirs.

What a bunch of idiots. I'll spread the word around. They ran out of wine.

But instead, what does Mary do? She says to her son, you know, Could you do whatever he tells you and help them? In other words, she responds positively, not taking advantage of their misfortune, but trying to address it.

There's the antidote to envy. Okay. Third deadly sin.

Oh, before I forget, I'm sure there are some in this room old enough. One of the ways to remember the deadly sins, who remembers Gilligan's Island? Anyone remember Gilligan's Island? A lot of you, the kids today probably don't, but when I was growing up, that was the big show. The seven...

characters on Gilligan's Island are the deadly sins. So, the first one's a little bit of a stretch. Poor Mrs. Howell identified with pride because she was kind of preoccupied.

Envy was Marianne. Remember, she's envious of Ginger. Anger is the professor, always gets angry at Gilligan. Sloth is Gilligan, who's always lazing around.

Avarice, Mr. Howell, right, with all the money. Gluttony, the skipper. And Lust, Ginger. So if you want to remember them, think of the Gilligan's Island characters.

That's the one thing you remember I know from my talk. That's okay. So the third deadly sin is anger. There's enough anger in this room to light up the, what do you call it here, the technical triangle, or what's it called?

The research. triangle. There's enough anger in this room to light up the research. Now, I'm saying it not to go after you. I can say it to any gathering of human beings that I know.

A lot of us are beset with the deadly sin of anger. A lot of us are... in the grip of anger. I know, you do too, family members that haven't spoken to their own family for 30 years or 40 years. I remember, this is heartbreaking still to me, this was many years ago.

I was presiding at a funeral mass back home and I knew there was tension in this family. The mother had died and the kids were there. And we came to the handshake of peace and offer each other a sign of peace. I remember I came down to the family and I heard this. This is the...

a brother turned to his sister and she said, peace be with you. And he said, that's the last time I'm going to talk to you. You know what I'm talking about.

We all know these soap operas, right? Most of our families have these stories where anger has so taken hold of us. You know, just to clarify, I'm relying here on Thomas Aquinas. There is, of course, justifiable anger. We know about that.

Jesus'anger in the temple. The anger of a Martin Luther King. The anger of the great battlers for social justice.

So, nothing wrong with that. Think of Dorothy Day, angry at the violence of our society, etc. Nothing wrong with that, a sort of righteous indignation.

In fact, that's a battle against sloth, which is good, to rouse some passion for righteousness. Nothing in the world wrong with that. What's anger in this bad sense, the sinful sense?

Here's Thomas Aquinas. Anger is a passion for revenge that goes beyond the control of reason. That's a nice little pithy definition. Let me say it again.

It's a passion for revenge that goes beyond the control of reason. So someone's hurt you. We all get hurt, you know.

We all get hurt. We're all treated unjustly, a lot. I've now got a desire for vengeance to get back, which goes beyond all reason.

That's anger in the sense of a deadly sin. It can happen at the personal level, yes indeed. It can happen at the geopolitical level. Don't we see it all the time?

Think of nations that are holding grudges that last a thousand years. They hurt us a thousand years ago. We're still angry about it. We're still seeking vengeance.

Or these families that are riven by decades-long struggles. That's anger in this deadly sense. That's why in Dante's Purgatorio, you know how the anger... are punished is smoke is sent to them.

Smoke. And they breathe it in and it gets in their eyes and they're coughing. That's what anger does. It clouds our vision. It prevents us from speaking to each other.

If you're in a fog of smoke, you can't speak, you can't see, you can't communicate. You sputter. That's what happens now in our anger. It separates us. What's the antidote to anger?

Forgiveness. Forgiveness, everybody. Fellow sinners.

Fellow victims of the deadly sin of anger. We're all there. How central to the teaching of Jesus was forgiveness? And I think you see why. It's right at the heart of it.

his great prayer. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those. Over and over again, Jesus offering a word of forgiveness.

Over and over again, the gesture of forgiveness. Most powerfully, from the cross comes from the cross. From that cross, I mean, think about it. It's not just a pious image. The dreadful, dreadful thing in the first century, that reality, that you were affixed to that instrument of torture, you were left to die over many hours in literally excruciating pain, right?

Excruciate from the cross. From that place, he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

Think of now the risen Jesus returned to his disciples. What does he say to them? Those who had abandoned him, who had denied him, betrayed him, run from him in his moment of desperate need. He says, shalom to them, peace.

How central to our faith is this idea of forgiveness. What's forgiveness? Forgiveness is bearing another person's burden.

Now here's what I mean. Two people become separated for whatever reason. Some alienation, some pain, separation. In justice, I do my part, you do your part, and we meet. We be reconciled.

Let's say I do my part, but you keep running. I do my part, you keep running. Forgiveness is bearing that person's burden, going the extra mile that he won't go. They've never responded to my overtures. Yeah, I know, I know.

That's justice. You do this, he does that. Forgiveness is that love that goes beyond justice. They don't deserve my attention. I know they don't.

I know they don't. But do it anyway. I've done my part. They've never responded in kind. Yeah, I know, I know.

But you do your part anyway. See, that's forgiveness. Here's a great story of forgiveness.

It concerns an Amish couple, this was many years ago, maybe 25 years ago. An Amish couple with their teenage son, and they're in their horse-drawn carriage. They're going along the road. Behind them comes this car filled with teenage boys.

And the kids are full of teenage energy and all this. And they're annoyed at the slow-moving carriage. So they honk their horn and all this. But then they rush around. Dust flies.

They get... beyond the carriage and one of the kids had a rock or a brick or something and he wanted to throw it just at the horse but he throws the rock or the brick back and it hit the teenage boy and killed him it's true story killed him how the parents respond gosh he's an injustice you know get that kid make sure he goes to prison or hey wouldn't we wouldn't we praise them if they said look we'll just we'll just forget about this you know what they did Those parents went to court and they testified on behalf of the young man, begging the judge not to condemn him. He was condemned, was sent to prison. And then, I love this part of the story.

Every month after that, they visited the young man in prison. See, that's forgiveness, everybody. Those of us who struggle with the deadly sin of anger, that's forgiveness. Talk about going the extra mile, going the extra ten miles.

miles, going the extra hundred miles, pursuing that kid who had killed their own son. pursuing him, yes, even to the ends of the world, to seek him out. That's forgiveness.

That's forgiveness. Practical advice in the remaining weeks of Lent, I'll say it to myself, too, as I'm saying it to you, because I know exactly the person I should do this with. Take a concrete step, everyone in this room, toward healing a broken relationship. Now, you all know what I mean. Get in your mind's eye right now.

There's a person that you have fallen out of right relationship with, someone you hold a grudge against, someone you've been angry at maybe. maybe for decades, maybe it's a family member. Often it is.

Hold that person right now in your mind's eye. I got mine right now. And in the remaining days of Lent, do something concrete to heal that relationship. It might be a note. It might be a phone call.

It might be an email. It might be a direct visit. I don't know.

Leave it up to you. But do something to pursue that relationship. Hey, she's never responded to me.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. That's what forgiveness is, is bearing her burden, see? Do something.

Here's a second bit of real practical advice. It's from all the spiritual masters, too. When you're offended by someone, you're hurt by someone, forgive them quickly.

grudges, remember the line from the scripture, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Don't give the devil a chance to work on you. Isn't it true, everybody? Is it when we're offended, we're hurt, and then we let it simmer, and we let it fester, and then it gets worse, and it gets infected. And before we know it, we're in utter alienation.

Forgive quickly. Here's another practical thing, and I know this is hard. I know it's hard for me. Please refrain from gossip and talking about people behind their back.

I know it's impossible, isn't it? It's like, what do you mean refrain from gossip? Are you kidding?

But I know, I feel the same way. It's extremely difficult. See, talking behind people's backs, that's our favorite indoor pastime, right?

Because, why did he hurt me? Am I going to go to him in a constructive way and seek reconciliation? No, no, no. It's much more fun and much easier to talk about him behind his back. Don't do that.

Here's advice I got many years ago from a priest mentor of mine. He said, here's the rule, the airtight rule. Criticize somebody precisely in the measure that you are willing to help him or her. deal with the problem that you're raising.

You see the point there of that thing? If you're 100% willing to commit yourself to helping the person deal with the problem you're raising, off you go. Critique till the cows come home, right?

If you're totally unwilling to take even one little step to help the person deal with the problem, then keep your mouth shut. Don't say anything. If you're kind of, maybe a little bit of commitment to it, maybe a little bit of critique. That is never left. left my mind, that little piece of advice.

When I feel the urge to criticize someone, alright, Barron, are you willing to commit yourself to helping him deal with this problem? If not, keep your mouth shut. Yeah, Father, forgive them.

That's the last thing in my notes here, with the Lord on the cross behind me. I mean, that's the great model here. Keep that in your mind's eye.

All right. We're almost there. We're at number four.

If you're keeping score, we're at number four now in the Deadly Sins. It's cool that sloth, as you go up Mount Purgatory, it's at the dead center. So you've got three, and then you've got four, and then you've got three more.

It's at the very, it's like the dead center. And the way Dante puts the divine comedy together, it's at the very center. of the entire poem. It's like the dead center on purpose.

The fourth deadly sin, sloth. The medievals had a beautiful name for sloth. They called it the noonday devil.

You know noonday? There's something kind of... sleepy about noonday.

You wake up and you do your morning work and you're kind of energetic and then you have lunch. It happened to me today because I left Chicago. I woke up at 4 30 to get the plane to come here and so we had a nice lunch and then after lunch I knew I had these two talks together.

I went back to my room and I slept you know for a few minutes. The noonday devil. Here's Thomas Aquinas'definition of sloth.

Again pithy and helpful. Sloth is sorrow for spiritual good. Good. Very interesting.

Sorrow for spiritual good. See, you can be the most energetic person in the world. You can be Mr. Go-Getter. Your appointment calendar can be filled, and you can be filled with sloth at the same time. It's not the same as high energy.

It's sorrow or depression in regard to spiritual things. Spiritual things leave me, huh, I guess, yeah, maybe. See, that's sloth. That's the deadly sin. It's a kind of boredom of the soul, if I can put it that way.

Your mind might be engaged, your body engaged, and all that, relationships, but the level of soul, there's a torpor or a boredom. That's sloth. I love this from Karl Barth, the great Protestant theologian. Much revered, by the way, at, oh no, wait a minute, I was going to say Duke.

I'm not in Duke country now. I'm in, right? Forget about Duke.

Forget about, just forget about Duke. I didn't even mention Duke. mention Duke. I'll be there tomorrow so I can use my Duke example.

Anyway, Karl Barth, forget about Duke, but Karl Barth said, the distinctive sin of our time, he says, is not pride, it's sloth. It's really insightful. It's our secularist time.

Secularism, full of energy, building buildings and cities and technology and all of it, but when it comes to spiritual things, there's a kind of, eh, boredom, difference, who knows, who cares, you do what you want. You know, Benedict XVI was so strong on the danger of relativism, wasn't he? The dictatorship of relativism.

What's relativism? It's what I call the, eh, culture. You ever see the kids? Whatever. Ever.

Ever. See, that's at the popular level post-modernism. Whatever.

You got your values, I got mine. It's true for you. It's not true for me. I'll tolerate you. tolerate me?

See, but listen, would we ever accept that in any area of life that we take seriously? So we're trying to make the next, I just got this new fancy iPhone 6. I'm sure there's an iPhone 7 now that's already made this. But there's someone right now, probably in this, what do you call it again?

The research, the research triangle. There's someone right now in the research triangle who is desperately trying to get a better iPhone. Could you imagine someone coming along and saying, who cares?

Who cares about it? Yeah, that's one way to do it. it, but yeah, there's another way to do it.

You know, they're really focused, right, on what's the best way to do this. They're full of purpose and energy when it comes to making iPhones. But when it comes to values, ultimate meaning, what's the purpose of my life, we tend to fall into a, whatever. See, and that's what causes the trouble in our society. You know, this image is from Cardinal Newman, one of my great heroes.

Newman says, what gives a river energy? What's the river energy? river around here. It must be a famous river.

Is it the Duke River? No, I know. It's not the Duke River. The Eno.

The Eno. I never heard of that. So the Eno River, what gives it energy? Newman would say it's the firmness of its banks. If a river has firm banks, then it moves.

It goes. It has a purpose. What happens if you knock down the banks?

Just get rid of them. Just knock them down. Well, the river will then move. open up into this big, lazy lake, right?

What's happened to our society spiritually, Karl Barth would have said, and I say it now, is the river, we've knocked down the banks of what's good, what's true, what's beautiful. Eh, whatever. And what's happened is the river's opened up in this big, lazy lake.

And we're all floating on the lake on our own little private air mattresses, tolerating each other. You know, I'll tolerate you, tolerate me. You do what you want.

what I want. But see, there's no energy, there's no life, there's no purpose, there's no oomph in that kind of society. That's sloth at the grander level, but it happens on the inside too.

What's the antidote to sloth? It's zeal for the mission. Zeal for the mission.

Mission is a word that's been revived in a lot of recent theology. I'm happy it has. It's from the Latin word mitere, which means to send.

Jesus calls himself the one who's been sent. He refers to the Father as the one that sent me. Some old enough in the room to remember in the old Mass, ite misa est.

The Mass has ended, but what that means is just go. It's been sent. It's been sent.

Go out on mission. Mission. In the Bible, everybody, in the Bible, no one is ever given an experience of God without being at the same time sent.

There's no exception to it. No one ever sees God or hears from God without being at the same time sent. Whether we're talking about Abraham, we're talking about Jacob, about Moses, about Joshua, about David, about Samuel, about Saul.

Peter, James, and John. There's no exception. Everyone that is addressed by God is sent on mission. In fact, Balthazar, whom I mentioned earlier, said, you don't really know who you are until you've found your mission.

Mission is tied to person, which is why it's only when Saul sees the risen Jesus that he becomes Paul. It's only when Simon is addressed by Jesus that he becomes Peter. It's only when Simon is addressed by Jesus that he becomes Peter. when Jacob wrestles with the angel that he becomes Israel, we know who we are in the measure that we've been sent on mission.

The whatever culture is inimical to this. Oh, mission, I'll make up what I want to do. I'll decide. You tolerate me, I'll tolerate you. Ho hum.

You see how we're the big lazy lake? We need to be a church full of missionary disciples, as Pope Francis has said beautifully. Disciples who've been sent.

Here's some practical advice. In the remaining weeks of Lent, everybody, work on discerning and refining your sense of mission. Now, probably most of us in this room have a sense of mission, of how we... been sent by God? And mind you, far more important than our families, more important than our jobs, more important than our status in society, more important than any of that, is this question.

How have I been sent by God? Every better baptized person, a mission was placed in you. You might have been a little baby, but a mission was placed in you. You know the acorn theory? Did you ever hear of that?

It's a cool theory in psychology and spirituality that every one of us has planted in the heart like an acorn that's meant to grow into this oak tree of our identity. And what happens is at key points in life, that acorn is stirred. And we know, yes, yes, that's it.

That's it. That's it. I remember I was maybe 15 or so. I was a sophomore in high school, and we had an assignment in English class.

We all had to pick a famous speech and get up and deliver it in front of the class. Well, no one had ever given a speech to 15-year-olds. We were all terrified.

I took a session of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, I remember. And there I was, and I was nervously reading this speech. But as I was reading it, I remember the sort of cadence.

You know, JFK's speeches had that cadence. and that rhythm, and that poetry. As I was reading that speech in front of my goofball classmates in high school, but something stirred in me. And as I'm standing before you now, most of my life I've been a public speaker.

Most of my life I've been in front of crowds talking. It was like that moment the acorn was stirring. It was like, yes, that's what you're supposed to do.

Now, I didn't really know what form that would take exactly, but I spent most of my life doing what I'm doing right now. Well, I think that happens to all of us. is that acorn gets stirred. That's mission. Take some time during the remainder of Lent to discern and refine your sense of mission.

Here's another bit of advice, real practical. Dorothy Day, one of my heroes, said, everything a baptized person does every day, everything, every day, should be related to the corporal or spiritual works of mercy. Again, this may be something old enough to remember.

Remember the list of the corporal works of mercy? Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, bury the dead, etc. Remember? Or the spiritual works of mercy, counsel the doubtful, bear patiently the troublesome, etc.

Look those up. Maybe younger people. Go online, you'll find them. Look them up.

The corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Your mission, your mission, will be tied somehow to those. Everyone's mission. Somehow.

Which one of them stirs the... the acorn in you? Might be a cool question.

Which one of those, that's it. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. Take a look at the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Oh, here's the Mary encounter example, which I love.

So as the slothful are being punished on purgatory, they're made to run. It's like a health club. They're made to run because they've been sitting around. But the Mary encounter example is the angel says, she proceeded in haste.

Remember where that's from? It's after the Annunciation. and she gets her mission and she knows, I've got to go see my cousin Elizabeth. And it says, she went in haste into the hill country.

Good. She knew exactly who she was, exactly what she was about, and man, there wasn't an ounce of sloth in her. Can we say that?

Boy, I know what I'm doing. I proceed in haste. All right.

We come now to Avarice, the fifth deadly sin, the sin of Mr. Howell, right? Everest. Here's Thomas Aquinas describing Everest.

It's the unreasonable or immoderate desire for riches. Okay? The unreasonable or immoderate desire for riches.

We're allowed to own private property. In the Catholic Church's social teaching, we are allowed to own private property. Nothing wrong with wealth in itself. But when it becomes unreasonable or immoderate, we have the deadly sin of avarice. You might say, the greedy attachment to material things, that's avarice.

There's an old term in the spiritual masters, concupiscence, concupiscencia. It means errant or twisted desire. We can have a concupiscent desire for material things. See, here's an image I want you to play with.

Most of us think we're unhappy because we're missing something. Mind you, we're all unhappy, everyone in this room. I don't mean depressed.

What I mean is we're all hungry, right? What did Bruce Springsteen say? Everyone's got a hungry heart.

That's echoing St. Augustine, right? Lord, my heart is restless till it rests in thee. That means I'm always yearning. C.S. Lewis saw the same thing.

He called it joy, this deep searching, yearning for a good that I know only inchoately but don't yet possess. I can't get no satisfaction, said Mick Jagger. The same thing.

There's a very great wisdom in that. I try and I try and I try and I try and I try. And when he wrote that song, he was what, 25? He was at the top of the world, one of the most famous, richest person going. All the sex, pleasure, money, power you could want, right?

And yet he... he said, I can't get no satisfaction. Good, good.

See, most of us think the reason we're unhappy is there's something missing I've got to fill up. So, I don't have enough wealth. That's my problem.

I don't have enough pleasure. That's my problem. Enough power, enough honor. I've got to fill up the empty cage of the ego, and then I'll be happy. Right?

Now, fellow sinners, fellow addicts, it's all a type of addiction, isn't it? We all know it's false, don't we? What alone fills you? This is the supreme paradox upon which all of Christianity rests at the end of the day.

What fills you is not throwing things in the empty cage, but rather giving your life away in love. That's what fills you. Now why? Because see, that is the divine life. That's who God is.

Augustine, right? My heart's restless until it rests in you. Well, who are you? You are love. Right through, that's all God is.

God gives himself away. Therefore, when we give ourselves away in imitation, we get filled up with the divine life. That's how it works. That's the formula.

I've staked my life on it. I'll bet you a million dollars it's true. I've staked my life on it.

John Paul called it, John Paul, the law of the gift. That you're being increased. in the measure that you give it away.

Now take that to the bank, spiritually. Take Gilligan's Island away and take that away today from my talk. Your being increases in the measure that you give it away. Avarice, and it might be avarice for wealth or for pleasure or for power or for honor, will make you miserable and not happy. Let those things flow through you as a gift to others, and you'll be filled with a divine life.

That's the point here. What's the antidote, the lively virtue? It's generosity.

God is the opposite of avaricious. God is the one who gives. That's all he does. The Father gives away. That's the Son.

The Son gives back. The mutual giving of Father and Son, we call that the Holy Spirit. God is a community of self-giving love.

The world is meant to imitate him. So generosity is the lively virtue here. Some practical advice.

This is hard stuff. I find it hard. But I'll encourage you and I'll encourage myself at the same time.

Especially now during Lent, the remaining weeks of Lent where we talk about almsgiving as one of the practices of Lent. Give something away now in each of the remaining days of Lent. You know what it is.

I can't tell you what it is. but go into your closet, into your home, into whatever. Give something away now every day for the rest of Lent. One thing that's a really good spiritual exercise, by the way, clean out your closet on a regular basis.

I don't mean dust it. I mean, go through your closet. Gosh, when's the last time I wore that shirt?

When's the last time I wore those? Do I really need all these pants and shirts and sweaters? I've got, priests get a lot of sweaters for some reason.

We get, is that true? We get gifted with sweaters all the time. I've got, I've got, I think about 30 sweaters in my closet. Well, I mean, and I like four. five of them that I tend to wear.

But there they all are. Gathering dust. Give them away.

You know the line from John Chrysostom? Still takes my breath away. If you've got two shirts in your closet, John Chrysostom said, one belongs to you. The other belongs to the man who has no shirt. Let that sink in sometime.

Here's Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, the founding document of the church's social teaching. He said, once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met in your life, everything else you own belongs to the poor. Now let that sink in. It's stated broadly enough, you know.

Once the demands of necessity... and propriety have been met in your life? Do I have really what I need?

And even to have kind of a proper life. Okay, once that's set, everything else you have belongs to the poor. That's Leo XIII.

Echoed by all the popes, including John Paul II. How about for the rest of Lent, every time you leave the house, have a little poor box by your door. Every time you leave, you put something in it. Dime, dollar, ten, I don't know what it is, it's up to you.

But every time you leave, put something in it to remind you of the poor. Father Scott will be happy to hear this one, but tithing, you know, is an ancient biblical practice. To tithe is to give ten... percent of your income to now the church to father scott to a charity whatever you want but figure your income i don't know you make 75 000 a year make 100 000 a year 200 000 whatever it is take 10 give that away hard yeah yeah it's meant to be you Deadly sin number six is gluttony.

Now I want you to know something. As we're moving up the seven-story mountain, we start with pride. The more serious of the deadly sins are the more spiritual ones.

See how I'm driving it? They're more... tied to the spirit in a way the higher you go the more they're tied to the body the church kind of recognizes these are weaknesses of the flesh and see everest is kind of like that so is sloth but now especially as you're getting higher on the mountain it's where the the bodily sins have taken over. They're less serious.

Deadly, don't belittle them, but they're less deadly. Gluttony. Are we an overfed country? Yeah, I think it's fair to say we are.

I just saw my doctor and my physical, and I'm in good shape, thank God. But you know that thing where you actually get on the scale at the doctor's office? I used to have a scale in my room.

I got rid of it a while ago. You get on the scale in the doctor's office, and you actually hear the nurse say what you weigh. You're like, oh, my gosh.

And so I saw the doctor, and I said, oh, gosh, doctor, I'm heavier than I want to be. And he goes, well, you're eating when you're not hungry. That's true, isn't it?

A lot of us eat when we're not hungry. We eat just for pleasure. We eat for whatever.

Is it a psychological issue? Yes, to some degree. A physical issue sometimes, sure.

But here we're talking about it as a spiritual issue. Here's Aquinas again. What's gluttony? It's an immoderate or unreasonable pleasure in food and drink.

Gluttony is taking an immoderate or unreasonable pleasure in food and drink. As such, it's related to avarice. It's a kind of concupiscence. It's trying to fill up this emptiness which only God can fill.

It's a type of pleasure. If I just get enough pleasure, I'll be happy. I'm missing pleasure in my life. That's my problem. So I will drink too much.

I'll eat too much. Now, mind you, Catholics aren't Puritans. Don't misconstrue me on this point.

We have nothing against the pleasure of food and drink and sex and so on. You know the great line from Hilaire Belloc, which I'm sure you've heard, but wherever the Catholics... sun does shine, there's music and laughter and good red wine.

Good. That's right. We're not Puritans. In fact, I think Puritanism is a form of corruption, of spiritual corruption. So we like the pleasures of the body.

Nothing in the world wrong with them. But it's this inordinate, immoderate, or unreasonable pleasure in these things that's a problem. Augustine's dictum comes to mind very much, Lord, you made us for yourself. It's the, think of all desire as a kind of sacrament of this fundamental restlessness of the soul.

Here's Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual masters of the last century. Merton said, the desires of the flesh are a bit like children. Parents know about this, when kids want what they want when they want it.

Mommy, I want this, I want this, I want this. now now and if you indulge the kids every desire what's going to happen in time they're going to run your whole life and i've seen especially young parents fall into this trap is do you realize how the kids are utterly dominating this entire house because you're indulging everyone of their desires. So Merton said the desire for food and drink and sensual pleasure can be like that. I want it, I want it, I want it, now, now, now. And if you don't discipline them, they will soon be running the house.

See, that's the trouble with gluttony in all its forms, is now sensual desire so runs the house that I've forgotten about mission, I've forgotten about purpose, I've forgotten about prayer, I've forgotten about rightly ordering my life. That's the trouble with gluttony. Think of the devil's temptation here to the Lord. Turn these stones into bread. It's a temptation to gluttony, to make pleasure, sensual pleasure, the center of your life.

And the Lord's great rejoinder is still an important one for us. We don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. See, gluttony is a deadly sin. It's trying to live by bread alone, by pleasure alone.

It can't work. What's the antidote to gluttony? The classic term here is asceticism. Asceticism. Denying oneself food and drink and sensual pleasure for the sake of focusing the soul.

So not Puritanism, not that. These are terrible things, I have to just flee from them. Or I have to escape from them to a pure spiritual life.

realm. That ain't it. We look forward to the resurrection of the body, right? The body is good, meant for salvation.

But, for a time, we limit sensual pleasure so as to awaken and focus. spiritual desire that's why john henry newman talks about asceticism as a basic principle of catholicism when we forget that see my generation tended to forget it after vatican ii i came of age right after the council is we were so so down in that i mean that seemed puritanical it seemed world denying body denying so we didn't emphasize asceticism but it's a sign of a healthy catholicism i think he's quite right about that here's a story our, Scott I think your time, you guys went to the Holy Land didn't you? Our third year men at Mundelein go for a long sojourn in the Holy Land. And they're there for ten weeks.

Well one year a class arrived and their arrival coincided with Ramadan, you know the Muslim month of prayer and fasting. What struck our students when they got home and told me this was, you knew the minute you got off the plane that it was Ramadan. It was just in the rhythm of people's lives.

It was in their way of relating. It was in their behavior. You knew something was going to happen. of spiritual significance was going on. And then it prompted in my mind this question.

If someone arrived let's say from the Middle East to Chicago during Lent, you know, largely Catholic Chicago during Lent, what would they notice? My guess is they wouldn't know as much at all different. We're not very good at asceticism.

But spiritual people from time immemorial and across the religious lines have seen the significance and purpose of it. And so, practical advice. Fast.

One of the great practices of Lent is fasting. I'm not good at fasting. I'll confess that to you.

It's a spiritual practice I have a hard time with, which is why I should do it more. And I mean, not some wimpy... be a little fast, but I mean a real serious fast. Skip a meal, perhaps on the Fridays during lunch, maybe skip lunch altogether.

Spend the hour in prayer instead of eating. Maybe give the money you would have spent to the poor. Don't go out drinking some night you wanted to and pray the rosary instead that night. Go away from the table during Lent feeling hungry. Good advice medically.

Yeah, every doctor says it. It's also good advice spiritually. Go away from a meal regularly during Lent feeling hungry. All right, I'm going over a little bit. I'm sorry.

One more, though. One more. The sin you've all been waiting for, the sin of lust.

Years ago, this friend of mine said, I suffer from glust, which is a combination of gluttony and lust. Glust. Now, again, here, you know, it's difficult to talk about this in a Catholic context because we tend, you know, we have the reputation of being obsessed with sex, obsessed with sexual sin.

I'm Irish. I'm all Irish, both sides of my family. And there's something in the Irish formation that became maybe a little too preoccupied with this. But once again, we should not fall into Puritanism. The Catholic tradition reverences sex, including sexual pleasure.

Nothing in the world wrong with it. In fact, that's why we protect it so carefully. You know, it's funny, this thought occurred to me a couple years ago. Usually once a year I go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. I mean, God help me, I'm a Cub fan.

Talk about a spiritual asceticism for many years. But I got to Wrigley Field, and, you know, Wrigley Field is one of the great gems of baseball, beautiful old stadium. And, man, is it protected. You know, when you arrive at Wrigley Field, you can't just walk in. You know, of course you give them your ticket, but there's all sorts of ways.

It's like getting on an airplane. I mean, you have to go through metal detectors, and they check your bags and all this stuff. But why are there so many rules around Wrigley Field? Because it's so beautiful and so precious because we love it so much. Of course we're surrounded by rules.

You Catholics are hung up. All these rules. out sex.

Well, yeah, of course there are. Because we love it. And we reverence it so much. You know, that's the right way to look at it.

What does lust mean? It doesn't mean sexual pleasure. Lust is a distortion of the sexual desire. I can define it very simply.

Using another human being as a means to your sexual pleasure. It's the use of another human being as a means to your own sexual occasion. That's a principle, by the way, that John Paul used a lot in his moral writings.

It's this principle that goes back to Immanuel Kant. One of the forms of what Kant called the categorical imperative is never use a human being as a means, but always try to use it as a means. treat a human being as an end. That means someone to be reverenced in him or herself and can never be reduced to the level of a means to your pleasure.

See, that's lust. That's lust. Go to to Times Square sometime, when you go to New York and you walk into Times Square, and you look up, and I always think if an ancient person came back in a time machine, they'd think, these are our gods.

Because up in lights, these giant figures of semi-nude men and women. What is that? But it's just this sort of hymn of praise to sexual pleasure for its own sake. How it dominates our society.

You don't need me to tell you this, but pornography is a rampant spiritual problem in our society. I know what dealing now with these young guys, people in their 20s, in a way that my generation never was, but the Internet happened. Now, you know what the average age, I got this from an expert who deals with sexual dysfunction stuff, you know what the average age for the first exposure to Internet pornography is in our country? Eleven. I'm not kidding.

And I see it confirmed all the time. Eleven. Most of our, mostly young men, of course, have a greater proclivity, but women too.

11 is the average age of the first exposure. And you give that to an 11-year-old, what happens? Almost immediate addiction.

And we've done studies of how the brain gets changed and wired by this exposure to pornography. You well know this, that way beyond AT&T and McDonald's and name the biggest corporations, is the pornography industry. Multi, multi-billion dollar industry. in America.

What is that but now an institutionalized lust, which is deeply perverting the minds and spirits and hearts, especially of our young kids? And will that have radiating effects throughout the rest of their lives? Yes.

Don't think, oh, it's a little minor problem. I can compartmentalize it. That is not a minor problem. That's a deadly sin. And the deadly sins have a way of radiating out and causing trouble everywhere.

Remember C.S. Lewis's image of the convoy of ships? moving along together, and they're all to one purpose. Even get one ship off kilter, what happens? The whole convoy gets messed up. One ship off kilter, they're all going to crash together eventually.

If this side of life is not under control, it'll cause trouble. What's the antidote to lust? Well, chastity is the classical term. What's chastity but an upright expression of one's sexuality?

No matter what your form of life is, you're married, you're single, you're a celibate, etc. It's an upright expression, a morally correct expression of sexuality. One that always involves the profound respect for the personhood of the other.

That's what's at the heart of chastity and all of its expressions. Practical advice? You know, mind you, John Paul kind of haunted me over there in the corner. When John Paul famously said that lust can take place within marriage, he was roundly criticized.

But that's perfectly right, it seems to me. Perfectly right. That even married couples can treat each other as means and not as an end.

Can treat each other with disrespect sexually. Nothing surprising to me about that. Here's a practical advice.

If you have pornography in any form, get rid of it. Now. And, you know, I say it, I know as I say this, I'm addressing most people in our society. It's not some little minor thing off on the side. It's impacting...

a lot of people. If you have any pornography in your life, get rid of it. If the computer is a problem, get rid of it. It's better to be thrown into Gehenna with one leg than to go with both legs into heaven.

I mean, if this thing is causing such a problem, get rid of it. Don't cooperate with the pornography industry. And it's across the board, isn't it?

All sorts of ways it draws us in. Stop cooperating with it. If you're involved in any kind of manipulative sexual relationship, and you know what I'm talking about, I mean, we're all in danger of this, cut it out.

If you're involved in some kind of manipulative sexual relationship where you're using another person for your own sexual pleasure, stop it. Cut it out. It's a deadly sin.

Eliminate it. Okay, let me just close. I'm sorry I went on a little bit too long.

Let me just remind you of the seven sins. and lively virtues. So, the first one, the worst one, the most serious, pride. Pride. What's the antidote?

Humility. Stay close to the humus, the earth. Second one, envy.

You know, a friend of mine... succeed, something in me dies. That's bad.

Overcome it through admiration. Learn to admire in yourself and others. Third sin, anger.

You all know you're angry at somebody right now. Antidote, do something this Lent to forgive. Heal the relationship. Fourth, sloth, laziness of the soul. Overcome it by zeal for the mission.

Find out what God wants you to do. Do it. Next, avarice.

It's overcome through generosity. Give something away, this Lent. Get in a habit of generosity. Gluttony, the unreasonable desire for food and drink. Overcome through a healthy asceticism.

And finally, lust is overcome through chastity. Get our sexual lives, everybody, in order. Be aware of the seven deadly sins.

Practice the seven lively virtues. Good Lenten stuff and helps us to be spiritually healthy. God bless you all. Thanks for listening today.

Transcript for:Understanding the Seven Deadly Sins

Transcript for:
Understanding the Seven Deadly Sins