The Stages of Sin from St. Bernard of Clairvaux - Fasten Your Seatbelts!

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 09-12-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Bigg Red]

PS: Prayers up for you. We are all sinners and must ask for His mercy.

[castlegreyskull]

I just read this a couple of times. I am trying to understand. So basically we are in the New Testament and of the Spirit, and not the letter. I assume the “letter” is something like Leviticus Chapter 20?

I think I have to read this a couple of more times. There seems to be a lot there.

[Bigg Red]

Are you Catholic? I ask this because all of my understanding is from a Catholic perspective, so I would be inclined to offer you Catholic references.

Prayers for you.

[castlegreyskull]

I m not a Catholic. I wouldn’t mind reading your references though.

[topher]

bump

[Bigg Red]

Jesus tells us that the only unforgivable sin is sin against the Holy Spirit. And basically that consists in not accepting God’s forgiveness for sins of which you have repented.

I copied the following from this website:
https://www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/jp2giver.htm

We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in “dead works”, in sin. And the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept this forgiveness of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this “non-forgiveness” is linked, as to its cause, to “non-repentance”, in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. This means the refusal to come to the sources of Redemption, which nevertheless remain “ always “ open in the economy of salvation in which the mission of the Holy Spirit is accomplished. The Spirit has infinite power to draw from these sources: “he will take what is mine”, Jesus said. In this way he brings to completion in human souls the work of the Redemption accomplished by Christ, and distributes its fruits. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a “right” to persist in evil—in any sin at all—and who thus rejects Redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one’s conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one’s life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one’s self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.

***
I hope this helps.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." ~ John 3:16

Jesus saves. All of us have done disgraceful things, but Jesus willingly took on all of it that we might be saved. I think every type of emotional disposition has the tendency towards a particular bad direction. For some, it's the inability to stop dwelling on and picking at past sins -- but Jesus washes it all away if you truly believe in Him, and fully embracing that is the first and last step towards letting go of it all.