Recurrence of Sins Forgiven

A sin forgiven is forgiven. A man may, indeed, commit another sin like the one forgiven, but he does not fall back into forgiven sin. It is not possible for the stain of past sins, andthe debt of punishment incurred by them, to return upon the forgiven sinner. A sin may be worse because of like sins previously forgiven. But the past sins themselves, once pardoned, do not return.

Only in the sense that a man who is pardoned returns to sins like those forgiven, and thereby shows base ingratitude to the forgiving God, is it said that forgiven sins return upon the sinner.

Therefore, if a man has obtained forgiveness of mortal sins, and later commits others, his ingratitude does not bring back upon him the debt of punishment due to all past mortal sins. Still,there must be some proportion in this business. The more frequent and grievous one’s past mortal sins have been, the greater isthe debt of punishment incurred by subsequent mortal sin.

We must not say that the ingratitude of a forgivensinner who commits mortal sins anew, is a special mortal sin in itself. This ingratitude is regularly a circumstance only of thenew mortal sin which the offender commits. If, however, therelapsing sinner has an actual contempt of God and the favor he received in his earlier pardon, his ingratitude is a special sin.