25 — VENIAL SIN

Presence of God. — Inflame me, O Lord, with Your holy zeal so that I may not tolerate in myself the smallest thing that displeases You.

Meditation

1 — Although in lighter matter, venial sin too, like mortal sin, goes against the will of God and therefore, though it does not destroy charity, goes in the direction opposite to it, with the consequence of diminishing its impulse and vigor, and of hindering its development. This is the disastrous effect of deliberate venial sins, that is, committed with eyes open, while knowing one is doing what displeases God.

This kind of venial sins, when committed habitually, diminish the soul’s tendency toward God and instead increase the tendency toward selfish satisfaction, toward creatures. And thus, little by little, the soul loses fervor, loses sensitivity to offense against God and is reduced to the state of lukewarmness, characterized precisely by a certain indifference to venial sin; an indifference that puts it in danger of offending God even in grave matter. It is in this sense that venial sin can be compared to a subtle, insidious illness - a kind of spiritual tuberculosis - that slowly, but fatally, undermines the organism. It is not rare to find souls who, having at first given themselves to God with sincere fervor, over time, yielding to selfishness, laziness, their own comfort, and not knowing how to impose generous efforts upon themselves to proceed on the path undertaken, let themselves go to continual negligences, listlessness, voluntary omissions, acts of laziness. Their spiritual life is reduced to a kind of lethargy that is not yet death, but has no longer anything of the freshness and vigor of a healthy and robust life. The fervor of charity is lacking, extinguished by continual, deliberate compliances with venial sin. St. Teresa of Jesus, warning against such a state, teaches: “When you feel no pain for a fault that happens to you to commit, fear, because sin, even venial, must pierce you with sorrow to the depths of your soul... For the love of God, watch attentively never to commit even one known venial sin, however small... And what can ever be small in offending a Majesty so great?” (P. 2, 5 and 20; Way 41, 3).

2 — Very different are venial sins that escape us through fragility, through inadvertence. Often the soul would not wish to yield at any cost, but because it is still weak, at the moment of temptation, especially if taken by surprise, it falls; nevertheless, as soon as it notices it, it feels sincere sorrow, immediately repents, asks pardon of the Lord, rises again, and sets out once more. Such sins do not bring great harm to the soul, but are rather signs of its weakness, of its spiritual immaturity. Indeed, if in the face of such falls the soul knows how to humble itself sincerely, it derives a true advantage from them, namely a deeper consciousness of its misery, which will lead it to distrust its own strength totally, to place in God alone all its trust. It will experience in practice the great reality of Jesus’ words: “Without Me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15, 5). Not infrequently the Lord permits such falls precisely to give the soul this practical knowledge of its nothingness, to ground it seriously in humility, which is the basis of all spiritual life.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, speaking of such faults, believed she could assert that they “do not displease the Lord,” precisely because they do not depend on bad will, which with open eyes and a cool mind commits sin, but rather on the weakness of human nature.

If because of our weakness it is impossible not to fall every day into some venial faults of surprise or fragility, what matters is to know how to detest and repair them generously at once. But as for known venial sins, the soul must be firmly resolved never to commit one for all the gold in the world.

Colloquy

“Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei! Forgive, Father, forgive me, miserable ingrate. I confess that Your goodness has kept me Your spouse, although through my defects I have always been unfaithful to You. Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei. O my soul, and what are you doing? Do you not know that you are continually seen by God? Know that from His eye you can never hide, because nothing is hidden from Him... O eternal God, O compassionate and merciful Father, have pity and mercy on us, because we are blind and without any light, especially I, poor and miserable... O You, true sun, enter my soul and illumine it with Yourself. Drive out its darkness and give light; destroy the frost of self-love and infuse the fire of Your charity... Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei” (St. Catherine of Siena).

“May it please You, O Lord, that I fear only offending You, convinced that greater harm can come to me from one deliberate venial sin than from all hell” (T.G. Life 25, 20). In fact, the true evil, the only one I must fear, is neither temptation nor trials, nor interior and exterior contradictions, nor loss of material goods or bodily health; but true evil is what can in any way hinder my union with You, my supreme Good! And this evil, I understand, can be caused by one single deliberately committed venial sin. O Jesus, I beg You, by the merits of Your Passion, free me from so great an evil, take from me the sad ability to offend You, and if by my native weakness it is impossible for me to be exempt from every fault, grant that these may never be the fruit of bad will. Make my faults serve only to humble me, without ever offending You.

“Yes, because of my misery I fall very often, often I allow myself to be distracted from my one occupation, I move away from You, I wet my poor little wings, scarcely formed, in the miserable puddles of water I find on this earth! Then I groan like the swallow, and my cry tells You all, and You, infinite Mercy, remember that You did not come to call the just, but sinners” (T.B.G. St. 11).