Mortal Sin
by
Rev. Francis A. Baker
A Mission Sermon
“Know
thou, and see, that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the
Lord thy God.” Jeremiah 2:19
I
A
In
the book of the prophet Ezekiel it is related that God showed to the prophet in
a vision the city of Jerusalem. It was all stretched out before him in its
greatness and in its beauty. The magnificent temple was there, with its stones
and spires glittering in the sun; its streets were full of people, prosperous
and happy; a people who were in possession of the true religion, who had been
adopted by God as His children, and over whom He had exercised a special
protection. It was a beautiful sight; beautiful to the eye, and well fitted to
excite the most religious emotions in the mind.
B
But there was something that checked these feelings of pleasure and delight. God permitted the prophet to see the interior of that city. He unfolded before him the secret abominations that were practiced there. He showed him the idolatries and impurities to which his chosen people the Jews had delivered themselves up, and then in wrath and indignation God complained of the people and said: “The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Judah is exceeding great; and the land is filled with blood; and the city is filled with perverseness, for they have said: The Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord sees not.” (Ezekiel 9:9) Then the joy of the prophet was turned into sorrow.
II
A
To-night, my brethren, a vision meets my eye hardly less beautiful than that which met the eye of the prophet. How beautiful a sight is this church and this congregation! This church is raised to the honor of the true God. Its walls are salvation and its gates praise. And this congregation, beautiful as it is in the assemblage of a multitude of living, intelligent beings – where I see the old man with his crown of silver hair, the young man and the young woman in the freshness of their bloom and youth – is much more so regarded as a Catholic congregation, as professing the true faith.
B
But tell me – for I cannot look into your hearts as the prophet did – tell me, does God see, beneath this beautiful, outward appearance, the abominations of iniquity? Does God this night see in the church some heart that is in mortal sin? Some Catholic who has renounced, if not his faith, at least the practice of his faith? Some child of passion who has swerved from the path of justice, lost his conscience and the sense of sin, and given himself to the service of the devil!
C
Are there any here tonight in mortal sin? There may be. I will confess, and you will not think me uncharitable in doing so, I believe there are some. I know not how many, but from what I know of the world, I believe there are some here, in this congregation, whose consciences tell them they are in mortal sin. Oh! then, let me tell them what they have done. Let me show them what mortal sin is.
D
Let me prove to them that it is an evil and a bitter thing for them to have left the Lord their God. This is my subject tonight. I will show you the dreadfulness of mortal sin: first, from its nature; secondly, from its effects on the soul; and thirdly, from its eternal consequences.
III
A
You know, my dear brethren, that we were created to love and serve God in this life, and to be happy forever with Him in heaven. God has given us this world, and our own nature, all that we have or are; and He is willing that we should enjoy the world and act out our nature. It is true, there are certain restrictions which He has given us. These restrictions are contained in His law, embodied in the Ten Commandments.
B
In these commandments God has circumscribed our liberty, has put limits to what we may do; but I need not say that these limits have been so fixed, not in order to abridge our happiness, but really to increase it. So the case stands on God’s part. But now, on our part, we have an inclination to disregard the limits God as put on our use of the world, and to place our happiness in the creature.
C
The world smiles before us, and we think this or that enjoyment would make us happy. It may often happen that the very enjoyment and comfort is one which God has forbidden; but no matter, we are strongly inclined to seize it, nevertheless, and to gratify our desire in spite of the prohibition.
D
This inclination is what is called concupiscence, and is sometimes exceedingly strong, so that it is very difficult to resist it. God has, however, always given us reason and faith, free will and grace, to enable us to overcome it. This, then, being so, you see that man stands between two claimants: the world on the one hand, inviting him to follow his own corrupt inclinations; on the other, God requiring him to restrain his passions by the rules of virtue and religion.
E
Now what takes place under such circumstances? Alas, my brethren, I will tell you what to often takes place. I will tell you what takes place so commonly that men take it for granted that it must be so – so commonly that the majority of men cease to wonder at it – what happens every day, every hour, every minute. It happens that men listen to the voice of passion, renounce virtue and reason, stifle grace, and turn away from God, to satisfy their desire for the creature.
F
This is what happens daily, hourly, momentarily; and this is mortal sin, which is in its nature the greatest of all evils, considered in its relation both to God and man, as I am about to show you in this first part of my discourse.
IV
A
Understand me, my brethren: the sin I am going to speak of is mortal sin. I do not say that every transgression of the law of God is mortal. You know that it is not so. You know that there are some actions which men commit, which are forbidden, but by which a man does not mean really to give up the friendship of God – some sins which are not committed with full deliberation, some sins in which the matter is very small, some sins which come more from ignorance or frailty than from malice; and which God, Who see things just as they are, does not regard as grievous.
B
He is displeased with them, but not mortally offended. He punishes them, but not with the utter withdrawal of His favor. If He did, who of us could be saved? But every sin in which the soul sees clearly that she must choose between the friendship of God and the gratification of unlawful passion – which, with full deliberation, in full defiance of any grave precept of God or the Holy Church, she obeys the call of corrupt nature, every such sin is mortal, that is, grievously offends God and cuts off the soul from His grace.
C
Do you want to know what a moral sin is? It is an insult offered to God – Almighty God. One trembles to say it, but so it is. Yes! If you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is everything in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes.
D
If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? You have heard how Pius VI was insulted; dragged about from place to place, until he died; and did you not feel indignant that such outrages were committed on the person of God’s vicegerent?
E
Now, when you committed a mortal sin you insulted, not the vicegerent of God, but God himself. You contemned His authority and despised His greatness. Would you know Who it is Whom you have offended? Look at that mountain trembling with earthquakes, and breathing forth smoke and flame, hear the thunder roll around its head, and see the lightning flash! Mark the people, how they fall back affrighted and terrified! What is the cause of these convulsions of nature, and this terror of the people? God is speaking.
F
He spoke on Mount Sinai and the earth trembled before Him; and it is His words then spoken that you have defied, O sinner! Are you not afraid of His vengeance Whom you have offended? Open the heavens and see the angels, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, prostrate before Him.
G
See all the saints adoring Him – the Blessed Virgin Mary herself trembling before His greatness. And you insult Him! What are you? A creature, a dependant, a slave. What would a master do if his slave should strike him? And you, a servant, a slave, a mere nothing, have not hesitated to raise your hand against Almighty God!
V
A
And for what have you done all this? For the pleasure of sin. You have preferred a vile, temporary gratification, to the favor of Almighty God. When you sinned, there was on one side the beauty of God, the beauty of perfection, the splendor of grace, the joy of saints, peace of conscience, heaven; on the other there was the false pleasure of sin. You weighed them in the balance one with another, and, oh folly!
B
In your estimation a moment’s sin outweighed God and heaven and eternity. That is what the Almighty complains of in Holy Scripture: “They violated me among my people for a handful of barley and a piece of bread to kill souls which should not die.” (Ezekiel 13:19) Oh! For how small a thing it is that you have been content to lose God – a few dollars of unjust gain, human respect, the gratification of revenge, a night’s debauch, a half-hour’s indulgence of sinful thoughts, a forbidden word, an intoxicating glass; for this you have thrown to the winds God and heaven.
C
What has He not done for you? He takes care of you and gives you all you have. It is He who warms you by the sun, refreshes you by the air, gladdens and nourishes you by the green field. It is He who brought you through the dangerous time of childhood, who led you up through manhood, who redeemed you by His blood, made you a Catholic, and gave you your parents, friends, every blessing, and the hope of heaven beyond this life, and you have grieved and hated Him.
D
See Jesus Christ before the Jews. He has spent His life in doing them good. He has labored for them and is about to die for them. And now they spit on Him, they buffet Him, they crown Him with thorns and bow the knee in mockery before Him. Nay, O sinner! You are the Jew who did this. You by your mortal sin have made him an object of scorn. You have spit upon Him, you have stabbed Him to the heart.
E
Would you excuse a son from the guilt of parricide who should strike a knife to his father’s heart, and should miss his aim? So, the sinner is no less guilty of the crime against the life of God because God cannot die. If God could die or cease to be, mortal sin is that which would kill Him. You have aimed a blow at the life of your best benefactor, of your God.
F
And this is what passes in the world for a light thing. This is what men laugh at and boast of over their cups. This is what the world excuses, and takes for a matter of course; yes, this is what even boys and girls, as they grow up, desire not to be ignorant of – that they may know how to offend God. This is sin, so easily committed and so often committed, so quickly committed and so soon forgotten.
G
Such it is in the sight of God and the holy angels. O sinner! When you smile, often when you are rejoicing over your wicked pleasure, the heavens are black overhead, and God is angry, and the angel of vengeance stands at your side with a glittering spear, that he may plunge it in your heart.
VI
A
While you are careless, heaven and earth are groaning over your guilt. “Wonder, O ye heavens, and be in amazement,” says God by the prophet. “My people have done two evils. They have left me, the fountain of living water, and have dug out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me.
B
The ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked see, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy one of Israel, they have gone away backward.” (Isaiah 1:2,3,4)
VII
A
But in the second place, mortal sin is the greatest of all evils as regards the sinner himself. Let us consider what are its effects. Ah, my brethren, some of these effects are obvious enough. We have not to go far to seek them. We know them ourselves. What is the cause of much of the sickness that affects our race? What but sin? What is it that has ruined so many reputations, that once were fair and unblemished?
B
What is it that has destroyed the peace of so many families? It is sin. What is it that makes so many young persons prematurely old, which steals the bloom from the cheek and the luster from the eye, and gladness from the heart, and strength from the voice, and elasticity from the gait? Ah! It is sin. Yes! The effects of sin are visible and obvious to all around us, and these external effects of sin are dreadful enough, but they are not so dreadful as the internal effects, on which I purpose particularly to dwell.
C
Well, my brethren, I just said that the nature of a mortal sin is to turn away from God to the creature. Now, its effect is to kill the soul. There is a twofold life of the soul. One is a natural life, and this it can never lose, not even in hell, since it can never cease to be; and the other is the life of grace.
D
You know, my brethren, that in the heart of a good Christian there dwells a wonderful quality, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which we call grace. It is given first in baptism, and resides habitually in the soul unless it is lost by mortal sin. This it is which makes the soul acceptable to God, and capable of pleasing Him, and of meriting heaven.
E
This grace was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ, and is the most precious gift of God. It ennobles, beautifies, elevates, strengthens, and enlightens the soul in which it dwells; in a word, it is the life of the soul. This grace abides in the soul of every faithful Christian, the little child, the virtuous young man and young woman, the old man and the matron, the rich and the poor.
F
Every one who is in the state of friendship with God is possessed of this grace. He may be poor, sick, weak in body, disgusting as Lazarus was, but if he is the friend of God, his soul is endowed with the gift of grace. Now, the moment that one commits a mortal sin, the moment that a baptized Christian turns away from God to the creature, that moment his soul is stripped of this divine grace.
G
The moment that a mortal sin is committed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, that robe of grace falls off from the soul and leaves it in its deformity and weakness. It cannot be otherwise. “Can two walk together," says Holy Scripture, “and not be agreed?” Can God remain united to the soul which has cast Him off by an act of complete and formal rebellion? Oh, no! God bears much with us, He retains His friendship for us as long as He can, He restrains His displeasure when we are weak and irresolute and tired in His service; yes, when we a little turn our heads and hearts toward that world which we have renounced, when we do things that, although wrong, are not altogether so grievous as to amount to a renunciation of His friendship: but once make a full choice between God and the creature, and God’s friendship is lost.
H
You cannot reject it and retain it at the same time. God sees things exactly as they are: as you act toward Him, He will act toward you. By mortal sin you renounce Him, and therefore He must renounce you. How can I describe to you the change that takes place in that moment? It has more resemblance to the degradation of a priest than any thing else.
I
If a priest commits certain great crimes, the Church prescribes that he be solemnly degraded from the priesthood; and nothing is more dreadful than the ceremony. He stands before the bishop, clad in his sacred vestments, with alb and cincture, and maniple and stole, and with the chalice in which he has been wont to consecrate the blood of the Lord in hands.
J
Then when the sentence of degradation has been pronounced, the chalice is taken out of his hands – he shall offer the sacrifice of the Lord’s body no more; the golden chasuble is taken off his back, no more shall he bear the glory of the priesthood; the stole is seized from off his neck – he has lost the stole of immortality; the white alb is torn from him – he has lost the beauty of innocence; and last of all, his hands, on which at his ordination the holy oil was poured, are scraped – he has lost the unction of the Holy Ghost.
K
So it is in the moment that one commits a mortal sin. The Holy Scripture calls every Christian a king and a priest, because in his soul he is noble and united to God; and the soul of the meanest Christian is far more beautiful in God’s sight than the grandest monarch, dressed in his richest robes, is to our sight.
L
Well, now, as soon as a mortal sin is committed, and God departs, then the degradation of the soul takes place. The devil tears away the garment of justice, the splendor of beauty, the whiteness of innocence, the robe of immortality, which make the soul worthy of the companionship of angels, and the friendship of God. All, all are gone.
M
Oh, how abject and wretched is such a soul! Oh! how quickly will this awful change go on, and even the poor soul herself thinks not of it! And do not think this horrible history is of rare occurrence. No! it takes place in every case of mortal sin.
N
Look at that young man. See, his air and bearing show you that he knows something of the world, and that life has no secrets for him. Still there was once a time when that young man was innocent. He was a good Catholic child, his soul glistened with the brightness of baptismal grace. God looked down from heaven and smiled with pleasure; his guardian angel followed him in watchfulness indeed, but with joy and hope. He had his little trials, but what was it all – what was poverty or sickness or disappointment? Was he not a Christian? Was he not a friend of God, was not his soul beautiful in God’s sight?
O
Such he was; but a day came, a dark and dreadful day, when a voice, a seducing voice, spoke in the paradise of that heart: “Rejoice, therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes.” (Ecclesiastes 11:9) He listened to that voice and he fell; he was a changed being, he had committed his first mortal sin. Oh! If he could have seen the angry frown of God, the sad and downcast look of his guardian angel.
P
Oh! If he could have heard the shriek of triumph that came up from the devils in hell. “Thou art also wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. Thy pride is brought down to hell. Thy carcass is fallen down.” (Isaiah 14:10,11)
Q
But he hears nothing, he sees nothing, his brain is on fire, his heart is burned by passion. The world opens to him her brilliant pleasures, and he is perverted. His tastes and thoughts are all corrupted. He does not like the sacraments any more, or Mass or prayer; his delight is in haunts of dissipation, in drinking and debauchery.
R
He commits every mortal sin, and each deepens the stains of his soul and increases his misery. Perhaps here and there, for a while, he comes to confession, but he falls back. He neglects his church, begins to curse and blaspheme holy things, and then he is a wretched being, astray from God, with God’s curse upon him, the slave of the devil, the heir of hell, fair indeed without; but look within – full of rottenness and uncleanness. Oh, weep for him – “Weep not for the dead,” says Holy Scripture, “lament for him that goes away, for he shall not return again.” (Jeremiah 22:10)
S
Weep for that young man who has wandered away from his God. Weep for that young woman who has stained her soul with mortal sin. Weep for that old man who has let years go by in sin, and whose sins are counted by the thousand. Weep not for your child who leaves you to go to a distant land, but weep for him who is on his way to the land of eternal night, where everlasting horror inhabits. Weep for him who is on his way to hell.
T
Is it not a story to make one weep? The ruin of a soul! “How is the gold become dim, the fairest color is changed, the noble sons of Zion, and they that were clothed with the best of gold, how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, and the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom.” (Lamentations 4:1,2,6)
U
Once you were innocent, now you are guilty. Once you had a fair chance of heaven, now heaven is closed to you. Once, perhaps, you had rich merits laid up for heaven, you had gone through many trials, you had borne many sufferings, had achieved many labors of piety, and for each of them the good God, who never allows any good work to go unrewarded, had added many a jewel to your crown; but, alas!
V
That crown is broken, those jewels scattered and crushed, those merits lost. And what has done this. That mortal sin! That rebellion against God and loss of grace which it brought with it. Ah! My brethren, when I think of these things, when I think that Christians are falling into sin, and, for a very trifle and a nothing, losing the favor of God,
W
I feel as if I wished all preachers should go out to the whole world and cry out: “Know thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God.” I am not surprised that St. Ignatius said he would be willing to do all he did for the prevention of one mortal sin.
VIII
A
But, my brethren I have not as yet described the full effects of mortal sin. It immediately makes us liable to the eternal punishment of hell. That is what hell is made for. It is the prison for mortal sin. Apostates from the faith, drunkards, murderers, adulterers, the impure, the dishonest, the profane, the impious, calumniators, and all sinners “shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
B
The sentence of damnation is in the next life, but damnation itself begins in this. Each one of us is a candidate for heaven or hell, at this present moment. Hell is not something which is assigned to us arbitrarily. We dig our own hell for ourselves. When we first commit a mortal sin we open hell under our feet, and every time we commit a fresh mortal sin we deepen that hell.
C
It may happen even that the sentence is passed in the same instant that we sin. Many men die in the very act of sin. The fallen angels, themselves, sank into hell the very instant they committed the first mortal sin. You know, my brethren, that the angels were created very beautiful and powerful. There were myriads and myriads of them. They were as beautiful as Gabriel or Michael or Raphael; and yet, as soon as they committed one mortal sin, notwithstanding their glory, their beauty, their number, their splendid intellects, their power, they were hurled from the thrones of heaven; not only defaced, degraded, and dishonored by the loss of sanctifying grace, but condemned to hell, chained in everlasting darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day.
D
If God dealt so with the angels, surely there is nothing unjust in cutting off the days of a sinner in the very moment of sin. Oh! My brethren, I will tell you what happens when one sins: the devils come and claim this soul as their own: this poor soul becomes the slave of the devil, the heir of hell and of damnation. It is not for nothing, then, that conscience makes such a terrible alarm in the soul when we commit a mortal sin.
E
Tell me, did you not at the moment you sinned hear a stern voice speaking in the depths of your heart? Tell me, O my brethren, did you not, when you were deeply plunged in sinful enjoyment, feel a dreadful pang at your heart? Tell me, now that you stand in God’s holy presence, tell me now, is there not something within you that tells you, you are ruined?
F
What is that? Ah! that is the beginning of the remorse of the damned. That is the sting of the worm that shall never die. That is the shadow of your eternal doom in your soul. It tells you that you are the child of the devil; it tells you that you have lost God, and that you are not fit for heaven, but are an heir of hell. And it tells you truly.
G
If this moment you were to die, like Dives, you would be buried in hell. And why? For a momentary gratification of appetite? Is that what you will be punished for? No; but because, for a momentary gratification of appetite, you have forsaken the Lord your God, broken His law, lost His grace. You have made your choice. You have chosen sin and not God, and death overtakes you before you have returned to God by penance, and you are lost on account of your sin, lost forever on account of you sin.
H
Go down to the chambers of hell, ask Dives, ask Judas, ask the fallen angels, ask each one who in that dark abode drags out a long eternity; ask them what it is that brought them there, and they will tell you, mortal sin. It is mortal sin that kindles that flame, that feeds that fire, that makes them burn unceasingly, and forever.
I
Oh then, tell me! If you will not listen to reason, to God, to the angels; will you not listen to your companions last? Listen to them as from their dark prison they cry out, “It is an evil and a bitter thing to have left the Lord your God.”
J
Such, my brethren, is moral sin. Such is one mortal sin. It does not require many mortal sins to lose God’s grace or incur damnation. One is enough – one final deliberate rebellion against God and his holy law.