Question

Dear Father Angelo,

If one cannot foresee anything in their future, except death, they will have a hard time washing themselves clean from the filth of sin. And the hardest sins to come out of are those caused by impurity. All of this makes life on Earth an actual living hell.

The outcome is a frightening vicious cycle, where sins bring about blindness to the future and this blindness to the future doesn’t allow to come out of sin. It is a crushing slavery where the two factors (blindness and sin) feed off each other.

Moreover, I wonder how much the above-mentioned blindness to the future is affected by mental health problems (for example depression) and by spiritual wounds (sins): in the first case, Confession can only do so much, whereas in the latter case, sins do need a good Confession.

Best wishes

Answer from the priest

Dearest,

1. I agree with what you said.

It is the same vicious cycle that the Lord talks about when He says: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.” (John 3:19).

People cannot see the light because they blinded themselves without even realizing it.

One becomes blind – as you rightly say – especially through sins of impurity, which, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, cause inner blindness (in Latin cecitudo mentis). Therefore during celebrations or even when listening to God’s word, one fails to go beyond the surface of the symbols.

But as a matter of fact, the eyes of faith aim exactly at going beyond the symbols to grasp the hidden reality, that is the mystery (mystery means hidden reality) underneath the symbols.

2. You rightly define this vicious cycle as “frightening”, because “sins bring about blindness to the future and this blindness to the future doesn’t allow to come out of sin”. 

It is indeed a “a crushing slavery where the two factors (blindness and sin) feed off each other”. 

The Lord said it too: “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34).

As Saint Thomas Aquinas comments: “Thus Augustine says: what a wretched slavery (that is, slavery to sin). A slave of man, when worn out by the harsh commands of his master, can find relief in flight; but a slave of sin drags his sin with him, wherever he flees: for the sin he did is within him. The pleasure passes, the sin (the act of sin) passes; what gave pleasure has gone, what wounds have remained” (Commentary on Saint John, 8:34).

3. Thus people can be freed from sin only by an exterior intervention, that is Christ’s grace.

Such exterior intervention is brought about and favored by those realities which allow grace to reach its recipients and to which Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus referred when she wrote: “Verily in prayer and sacrifice lies all my strength, they are my invincible arms; experience has taught me that they touch hearts far more easily than words” (The Story of a Soul, Chapter X).

4. To those same realities alluded also Saint John Vianney, also known as the “Curé d’Ars”. While speaking with one of his fellow-priests who complained about not being able to accomplish anything during his ministry, he said: “You have offered humble prayers to God, you have wept, you have groaned, you have sighed. Have you added fasts, vigils, sleeping on the floor, castigation of your body? Until you have done all of these, do not think that you have tried everything”.

So, even when faced with the most crushing vicious cycles, the Christian has always hope for what is impossible for men, is possible for God.

I remember you to the Lord and I wish you a fruitful journey through Advent and a Holy Christmas, full of grace.

I bless you.

Father Angelo

Tradotto da Chiara Midea

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