The Enormity of Venial Sins

We conceive of venial sins only as of a light word, a vain thought, an act of little consequence. This is a great illusion; since it is of faith that God punishes a venial sin with supernatural sufferings, longer and keener than the most terrible torments of this life. From whence the conclusion follows, that the malice of venial sins is greater, beyond compare, in the judgement of God than it is in the idea of men.

Venial sins is an evil so great, that it obliges a God of infinite goodness – who would have been willing to remain upon the cross for the love of men even for centuries – to condemn a soul. Now we look at our sins only under their physical aspect, which attracts us, or under their moral aspect, of which we scarcely form a conception. We must contemplate them in their effects, and consider that they prevent their union with God, and banish us from Him for ever in this life if we continue in them.

That which happens to seculars in the matter of mortal sin, we religious experience with respect to venial. In seculars passion quenches the light of faith, as well as that of reason. Inordinate affections corrupts judgement, and they then fall into the greatest disorders. The Jews had sufficient light to know that Jesus was God; envy blinded them, and they put to death the messiah whom they expected. Socrates, Plato, Trajan, might have known by the simple light of nature the abominable crimes to which they abandoned themselves. Their brutal passion blinded them.

Nothing is more plain than the obligation of making restitution when we have unjustly deprived our neighbour of his goods; and yet everyday we see this obligation. Men do not make restitution, and they never will make it. Attachment to worldly goods has so corrupted their judgement, that they no longer light to see its necessity. It is in the same way that we harden ourselves in a multitude of habitual venial sins. Vanity, sensuality, attachment to our little comforts, stifle within us the light of grace, which enables us to see the evil of this class of faults. Those who, from the tenderness of conscience, pursue another cause we regard as scrupulous persons. And to flatter ourselves in our blindness, we palliate, by a thousand specious pleas, the passions that blinds us. We invent for ourselves some good intention, and this done, we carelessly pass by all the movements of grace.

(Spiritual Doctrine of Fr. Louis Lallement)