The Church's tradition concerning the Seven Deadly Sins is very useful

The Seven Deadly Sins for Parents

by Mark Shea 

As parents, we know that problems which are harder to see, like a young cancer, are easier to cure, while problems plain to the eye, like a five pound tumor, are hard to cure. And we know the same is true spiritually. This is why the Church's tradition concerning the Seven Deadly Sins is so useful.

The Seven Deadly Sins are divided into the three "warm-hearted" sins of

• Wrath
• Lust
• Gluttony

and the four "cold-hearted" sins of

• Envy
• Avarice
• Sloth
• Pride.

Wrath loves the high of anger. We see it in spouses who love to get mad at each other, who look for reasons to fight, who get a sad little thrill from blowing their top when the husband is late for dinner or the wife loses the checkbook. Wrath is a choice, not a mere reaction of anger. It is there before somebody steps on the wrathful person toes, and the Wrath which comes forth has the quality of indulgence, not reaction. Wrath, in a curious way, is almost glad at the hurt toe since it gives the wrathful person a chance to "vent".

Likewise, Lust is a choice, not a mere reaction. Its essence is not sexuality (which God made), but the choice to treat human beings like things. It is not the animal response to our psychosexual hardwiring, but the will to treat other people as "stimuli" at the service of our demand to be thrilled. This is why the Church warns that we can make our own spouses the object of lust, tuning our love for our wife according to her looks today or treating our husband like an accessory in a fantasy which has almost nothing to do with him as a person. We can also make ourselves into the object of our spouse's lust, rather than a lover and partner in Christ, by encouraging our spouse to relate to us primarily in terms of our looks or sexual prowess while neglecting the many other aspects of our relationship which need as much, if not more, attention.


..............


Read more: www.ncregister.com