Venial Sin

Venial sin does not leave a stain on the soul, as mortal sin does. Venial sin is like a passing cloud which puts the soul into shadow, but leaves no mark on the soul itself. Mortal sin is like an ink-dripping cloth which leaves a stain on what it has touched.

St. Paul (I Cor. 3:12) speaks of venial sins under the names of wood, hay, stubble. These are such things as may be found in a man’s house, and may be burned up without burning thehouse itself. And venial sins may be multiplied in a person, even as wood, hay, and stubble may be stored up in quantity in a house. Such venial sins are capable of being “burned up” by the penance of temporal punishment in this life or in purgatory, while the house of the soul still stands.

Man in his primal innocence could not have committed avenial sin. The first sin of man had to be a mortal sin. For venialsin comes of disorder in the sensitive appetites or in reason itself. But man in the state of innocence had “an unerringstability of order.” Until mortal sin brought disorder, the irregularities and imperfections which occasion venial sin did not exist. Therefore, the first human sin was a mortal sin.

The angels could not have sinned venially. The angels have not parts or elements; they have no sentient appetites, no passions to become inordinate. They are pure spirits. Noinordinateness is possible in an angel except complete, total,entire inordinateness. And such inordinateness is mortal sin. Hence the fallen angels sinned mortally. The good angels are now in glory and cannot commit sin. The fallen angels are in the essential disorder of mortal sin; this they reiterate or emphasize in all their acts; hence all these acts are mortal sins.

The sins of persons not of the faith are less grievous than sins of Catholics. For unbelievers do not know the malice of sin as believers do. When believers sin, they “sin against the light”; unbelievers are always in at least partial darkness.In anyone, believer or unbeliever, the beginning or first movement of sensuality is not a mortal sin, for this beginning-movement has not yet the approval of the will which is required to make a sin mortal.

When an unbaptized person comes to the use of reason,he will, according to this capacity, begin to direct his life toits true end. If he knowingly fails to do this, he is guilty of mortal sin. Before he comes to responsible life (that is, to the use of reason), an unbaptized person is in the state of original sin, but is incapable of committing actual sin. When he becomes capable of actual sin, and commits it, his first sin is necessarily mortal sin. It is impossible for a person to be guilty of venialsin with original sin alone.