Average Sin Frequency

Originally posted by Conrau K
Sorry, but I already have a priest to provide that spiritual direction.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
OK, if you can live with four weekly sins, that's a choice I can respect. As for myself, I prefer to be the very best that I can be. I fully believe that you have it within yourself to get down to three weekly sins, possibly even two, but as I said, if your priest can keep you under five that's certainly nothing to scoff at. However if you ever decide that he is not helping you make the most of your potential, let me know.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I've seen you take the Lord's name in vain in this very thread.

Sorry, Conrau. I've been very busy.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Is that the basis of your hermeneutic? The 'wow' factor?

Of course not. I was merely commenting that the content of the 'Our Father' is relatively
unremarkable except for the part that reads 'as we forgive those....'

Note what the 'asking' part says (as well as the passage immediately following: Give us our
daily bread; Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; and so on.

Jesus is teaching people to seek wisdom and understanding. He is not saying, 'Pray for
good things to happen to other people.' Indeed, He says, 'Give your cloak and robe,' or 'Give
two loaves, not one,' and so forth.

I think asking God for guidance, wisdom, advice -- that's all good and I'm totally in favor of it.
That inward introspection is totally different then burying yourself in a cloister and praying for
the end of world hunger.

And anyway, I do not know why you have zeroed in on intercessory prayer. Monasteries are devoted to contemplative prayer. The primary purpose is to contemplate God, through prayer, study and manual labour, and experience His presence. Intercessory prayer is a marginal practice.

Yes but so what? Jesus didn't say that His followers' primary duty was to contemplate God.
He said to love your neighbor as yourself was, after loving God, the first duty. Jesus, at other
points, explains who your neighbor is (everyone, even your enemy) and how that love ought to
be manifested (feeding, slaking, &c).

Indeed, if one is to maintain that Jesus is God, then one's being unable to recognize Him in the
faces of those in need is proof positive that he doesn't know God, no matter how much contemplation
he engages in.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Conrau K
Of course. But the profits go to charities. A monastery of strict-observant Cistercians in my state make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. In three years they were able to repay a substantial loan for their newly acquired property. They then built a retreat house so that any Catholic can stay there for prayer and silence. I understand that they have also donated to charities outside their apostolate.

Again, the 'charity' is the entity itself. Yes, they made candles. And then they used the money
to build a building for themselves, not for the homeless. Another example: the Capuchin's here
in Pittsburgh have two huge fundraisers, both of which go to raising funds to pay for seminarians.

Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with raising money for your own establishment. But
that's not charity in the sense that Jesus said. Jesus didn't say, 'Collect money and
spend it on buildings.' He said, 'Feed the hungry.'

Again, let me be clear: I've no problem with the erection of a church (or, in my case, the
installation of a pipe organ), or prayer house, or giving money to seminarians. But that's not
Jesus' command. And to pretend otherwise is just dishonest.

But I disagree that all Christians have such a capacity. Not everyone is able to live in the modern world and some Christians may find that the only way to maintain their faith is by a hermetic life.

Huh? People would lose their faith if they were out in the rank and file feeding the hungry?
Faith without works isn't faith, Conrau. Shutting yourself off in a building, hiding away from
the world's problems is the epitome of a 'dead faith.'

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can
that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them
the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works,
is dead. James 2:14-17

The real world is the place where the faith Jesus and His Disciples described is lived out.

Is there a place for solitude in the life of a person with a healthy faith? Of course. Jesus went
out into the desert. But He came back. Is there a place for personal pleas for intercession?
Yes. But, as Saint Teresa said, Christ has no hands but that of His believers.

If those hands are willingly idle, then the so-called believers are just consenting to let Jesus
go hungry, thirsty, naked and lonely.

Nemesio

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
On average, how many sins do you commit each day?

Originally posted by Badwater
Sin is a state of being, not the list of dont's that get you on the s-list.

How many Venal sins does it take to fill one mortal sin?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I see.

Would you say that when Catholic dogma constructs a taxonomy of individual sins, such as those that are mortal sins and those that are venal sins and so on, it is exhibiting a notional defect regarding sin by treating sins as acts and not states of being?

Also, would you say that the Ten Commandments exhibits a similar notional defec ...[text shortened]... nst me?

Finally, is ConrauK simply confused to claim that he sins but four times a week?

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
Sinfulness does not exclude the possibility of individual sins, any more than criminality excludes the possibility of individual crimes. If anything, the former traits, in each case, respectively presuppose the latter acts (although one can, it is sometimes alleged, sin by intent alone, rather than actually having to act, as is the case for crimes).