What is “Sin”? How do I know if my actions are bad or good? Is the Church too strict? If I’m not good enough, will I go to hell? There are so many questions! There seem to be a lot of rules in the Church about what is a sin and what isn’t. If you ask me, even though I am as guilty as anyone of breaking these rules, this is a good thing. These are the boundaries help form the conscience of each person. Many of these boundaries we already know because they are obvious; don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t steal… They are never arbitrary; they are always based in natural reason. God spells them out for us, just in case, but we all know them. You don’t have to be a Christian to know how to act for the good.

The application of these broad principles can be more difficult. For instance, not everyone makes the connection that “thou shalt not murder” contains within it the prohibition of contraception. This is still a reasonable opinion, you don’t need to be a Christian to figure it out, but it takes a bit more thinking. The Church, through her long history of philosophy and theology, has developed teachings on these matters and makes them available to us as a gift. We would be remiss to ignore them and it is our duty to inform our conscience as well as we can.

So, we have these rules, and while they attempt to constrict some of our choices, like don’t murder, they provide us with the basis of true freedom; the freedom for human excellence. But, to understand what makes an act good or bad we need to start well before we even get to rules. We need to first understand the human heart and what it is that makes us happy. For instance, in the Catechism, the discussion on morality begins with what is called a “vocation to beatitude” before the 10 are commandments are discussed. We all have a vocation, a calling, a reason that we are here on this earth.

That vocation generally considered is to beatitude, or happiness. God made us because he loves us and wants us to be happy, not so that he could control us. Our happiness lies in finding God, loving him, and loving what he loves. God loves that person at work who drives you crazy, so you should love that person, too. When we turn aside to our own desires and pleasures we confuse this with happiness but it actually makes us profoundly unhappy. This is a typical story, right? The rich, selfish, handsome person who is actually very lonely and sad. The bully who gets what he wants but has no joy. On the other hand, we have the saints, who think of others first and express so much joy and happiness in life that it is almost startling. Sometimes we who aren’t saints look at how much they sacrifice and how simple they seem to be and wonder why they are so strange. Well, they seem strange to us because they are far happier than us!

Our Lord is clear that the underlying purpose of God’s law is in the vocation to beatitude when he gives his Sermon on the Mount and he interprets the Commandments for us: Blessed is he… The word that is translated as blessed is just as easily translated as “Happy”. Happy is he who is meek. Happy is he who is gentle… The source of morality is situated in our very being and as we become virtuous we become more and more fulfilled as human beings.

The Catechism talks about the sources of morality; for an act to be good, it will contain 1) a good object, 2) be appropriate to the circumstances, and 3) be done with good intention. A good act has all 3 of these parts. A bad act could have 2 of them, or it could have less, but if any 1 of these is missing, the act cannot be said to be good. So, a good act will not go against your conscience for a greater good. A bad act, such as murder, can never be justified even if you have the best intentions in the world when you murder someone. The good act, though, must be done with the right intention. If I give money to a poor person because I want to impress others by my generosity, that is no longer a good act; it is selfish.

A sin cut deep. It chooses the desires of the individual instead and sets up separation between the person and God. We have certain guidelines and the Church helps us form our consciences, but only you know what your intentions were and only you can prosecute yourself in the confessional. During Lent, when many of us are carefully examining our sins. It is helpful to know what a sin is and why we avoid it. Not to become good enough to please an angry God and avoid hell. We do good because it is the key to happiness and gives glory to the loving God who is all goodness. Most of all, we can be grateful that our entrance into heaven does not depend on our goodness but on God’s mercy, for whenever we fall short, he is waiting to forgive us when we confess our sins.

We will have an added opportunity to confess our sins at the parish day of penance, which is this Sunday, Mar 22 at 2pm.