The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 247: The Weight of Sin (2026)

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

We can consider the variety of sins in light of their gravity or seriousness. In doing so, we see that some sins weaken charity while others destroy it. The first we call venial sins, the second mortal. Our very freedom makes possible this rejection of God. Yet, God’s mercy has no limits. God can and will forgive every sin of which we repent. Fr. Mike invites all listeners to seek this forgiveness and go to Confession. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1854-1864. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in E. is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 247. We're reading paragraphs 1854 to 1864. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in your reading plan by

visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. I was a question, did I remember to say that yesterday? Part of me says, part of me thinks, I forgot to say that yesterday. But part of me thinks you would never forget to say something like that, not something as important as you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app because today is day 247. paragraphs 1854 to 1864. Yesterday, we started talking about sin. And it was a long one. It felt long. I don't know if it felt long for you, but I just, maybe I was making that point over the top of just, okay, talking about sins. Yesterday, we talked about the different kinds of sins.

And mercy and sin, the definition of sin. Today we're talking about the gravity of sin. So there's two kinds of sin, right? There's mortal sin and there's venial sin. And so we're talking about that today. And what's required for a sin to be mortal. That's what we're diving into. And we're also talking about some of the things that can mitigate our responsibility or mitigate our culpability when it comes to sin. So remember, there's venial sin that wounds and there's mortal sin that kills. That's kind of like the idea behind this whole thing. So mortal and venial sins. At the same time, again, what are the three requirements for a sin to be mortal?

It has to be grave matter. I have to have full knowledge. I have to have full consent of the will. So there are some things that can mitigate my culpability. So unintentional ignorance can be something that mitigated. my culpability. When I wasn't completely free to choose that sin, that can mitigate my culpability. We're talking about all of those things, at least the beginning of those things today on on day 247, paragraphs 1854 to 1864. Let's say a prayer and then launch into today because

why not? Let's get after it. We'll pray, Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you so much for bringing us here to this place. Thank you for bringing us to this day, day 247 of just letting you teach us. Lord, as we hear about sin today, we ask that you please help us. Help us to be the kind of people who can be convicted by your truth, who can be convicted by our own guilt, who can be convicted by your love. Lord, help us also be convicted by your mercy so that as deeply as we are convicted of our need for you, we are also convicted of your love for us, your mercy that you pour out on our behalf. You won for us in the death and resurrection of your son, Jesus.

Lord God, we ask, please, please, may none of us ever, ever give in to despair or discouragement when it comes to sin. Lord God, we struggle, so many of us struggle. We ask that you please, meet us in that struggle. never, never let us give up. But always, please, help us get up. Help us to call out to you. Lord, when we cannot on our own stand up, raise us up. We trust in you. We love you. Please meet our brothers and sisters in their deepest moment of discouragement. Meet every one of our brothers and sisters in their deepest moment of despair with your mercy so that every sinner will know that sin does not define them.

They're defined by you and your love. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It's day 247. We are reading paragraphs 1854 to 1864. The gravity of sin.

Mortal and venial sin. Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. The distinction between mortal and venial sin already evident in Scripture became part of the tradition of the church. It is corroborated by human experience. mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law. It turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

Venial sin allows charity to subsist even though it offends and wounds it. Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us, that is, charity, necessitates a new initiative of God's mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, when the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object, whether it contradicts the love of God such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery. But when the sinner's will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the

love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial. For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met. Mortal sin is a sin whose object is grave matter, and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man. Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother. The gravity of sins is more or less great.

Murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged. Violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger. Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish but rather increase the voluntary character of a sin. Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense.

But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. sin committed through malice by deliberate choice of evil is the gravest. Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices forever

with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God. One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent. Veneal sin weakens charity.

It manifests a disordered affection for created goods, It impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good. It merits temporal punishment. Deliberate, an unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However, venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God's grace, it is humanly repairable. St. John Paul II stated, venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace,

friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness. St. Augustine wrote, While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call light. If you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them.

A number of light objects makes a great mass. A number of drops fill a river. A number of grains make a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession. Jesus stated, Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven.

men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss. Right, there we have it. Paragraphs 1854 to 1864, there's a lot. There is a lot in there. And so the first thing, the church makes the claim right off the bat that there are different kinds of sins. In fact, the church makes the claim that sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. There are some Christians out there who say, nope, every sin is of the same weight.

There are some Christians who will say that there's no distinction between moral sin and venial sin. In fact, there are some Christians who will say things like, no, you still $5, you murder someone, it's all the same. Now, the Catholic Church, our Catholic understanding of that would say, we would disagree with that. we would we would say that no scripture has we get the distinction between mortal and venial sin from the Bible itself in fact first John chapter five talks about there are sins that lead to death

and there are sins that do not lead to death so there's already a distinction there between moral and venial sin and I like this in fact paragraph 1854 ends with this sentence it says it is this fact that there's different gravities right uh different weights to sin it says that is corroborated by human experience. We recognize, we recognize that even when it comes to each other, there are certain things that we can do to violate the relationship with our parents, with our siblings, with our friends, with our children, with anybody that have different weights. That, yes, we should not lie to each other, but when a person lies in this particular way or about this particular thing, that could have a greater significance, a greater weight, has a greater gravity. So, mortal sin

and venial sin. Let's look at this distinction. Paragraph 1855 says mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of a person by a grave violation of God's law. It turns us away from God, who is our ultimate end and our beatitude by preferring an inferior good to him. So it destroys mortal sin, destroys love in our hearts. Basically, it takes us out of that right relationship with God. We're no longer in a state of grace. At the same time, venial sin still allows love or still allows charity to subsist, even though it wounds and offends it. And this is, okay, I'm going to give this example. And hopefully it makes sense. Hopefully it's

not too gruesome. But here it is. I remember hearing this in seminary. And I thought, wow, that's a great example. And then our professor thought that we thought it was too, he didn't like it at all. He thought it was too graphic. But here we go. So apparently, in places where they have bullfighting. Here's the example. Again, so we're going to talk about bullfighting right now because here we are. Because I think this is a good example. There is the bullfighter. There's what they call the picador. Apparently. I've done. never been there, don't know. But this is apparently according to Wikipedia, what happens? There's the picador. And the picador comes out and he starts fighting the bull. And the picador

has these little short spears or they're kind of like almost like needles. He sticks them essentially as the bull comes by, puts them in the bull's like neck and shoulder area. And these knives, these blades, whatever they are, they don't kill the bull. They just wound the bull. In fact, that, you know, small sins, we call them peccadillos. right. Picador, here's the picador who has these small daggers. They don't kill the bull like peccadillos. These small sins or venial sins, they don't kill the life of God in our soul. But what do they do? You know, apparently the picador comes out there to limit the bull's ability to fight against the matador. If you know in Spanish, matar is to kill. So the matador is the one who kills the bull. That's the mortal sin.

So the picador comes out just simply to wound the bull and to make it so that he can't fight against the matador. very well. And so the bull can no longer move his neck or his head the way he wants to move. He can only run as fast as he wants to run, all these kind of things. It has the Picador, the Pecadillo's, right? They haven't destroyed the life of the bull. And just like peccadillos sins, are venial sins, don't destroy the life of God in our souls. But they wound us to the degree that it's far easier for the Matador or the evil one to deliver that killing blow. And so the distinction between venial sins, it's not like, oh, venial sins are no big deal. In fact, What is it, St. Augustine later on who says that, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things that are

very small, a lot of things that are very little and no big deal. But if you collect a lot of them, then you have a beach is made up of what? Beach is made up of tiny, tiny grains of sand. But this massive beach is made up of small, small things. A whole river is made up of drops of water. A number of grains makes a heap. And so a bunch of venial sins, they can weigh us down to is such a place where, yeah, mortal sin is the only, it's the next clear step. So here's the distinction between menial sin and mortal sin. Okay, so for a sin to be mortal, paragraph 1857 highlights this. Three conditions must together be met. Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter, and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. So these three, you know,

I always say a big deal sin, I knew it, and I freely chose it. So these three aspects. So this grave matter full knowledge, deliberate consent. So, okay, so what's grave matter? And that's a great question. You know, I often get asked, has the church ever published a list of mortal sins? Like a list of basically, if you violate these things, it's always and everywhere going to be immortal sin. The church has never ever published a comprehensive list that I know of, at least, of here's all the mortal sins, here's all the grave matter. And there's a number of reasons for that. And that's because, as it specifies in paragraph 1858, the gravity of sins is more or less great. There are also, there are factors that can affect the severity of a sin. It even gives the example. It says,

violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger. That's why I've always invited people when we do an examination of conscience and preparation for a confession is, okay, somewhere between, as we want to land, somewhere between being way too general, and they vague when it comes to confessing the sin and, you know, telling the story of the sin. And so here we are. We're going to confession. And I don't want to be way too general. Like, we have an African priest and he always says, don't come into this confession and say, bless me, father, I stole a rope. And neglect to mention there was a cow attached to the rope. He says, yeah, you stole the cow, right? Not just I stole a rope. I have to include all of

the relevant details that could affect the severity of the sin. So my example would be, don't just say, oh father I hit someone okay I hit my mom okay that's a big difference I hit my mom with the car okay that's a again a relevant detail hit my mom with the car four times okay all those are relevant details and all of those because why are they relevant because they affect the severity the gravity of the sin and so we recognize that there are factors like relational relationships we know there are factors like who is wronged we know there are factors like the amount For example, I took someone's pencil. They had a whole case of 30 pencils and I took one.

Versus I saw a man begging on the street and I took all the change they had in the bucket in front of him. You know, that kind of, that's a different gravity, right? This is a different weight. When it comes to this, why doesn't the church listed all of the mortal sins, all the grave sins, all the grave matter, is because of all these factors that go into this. Now, as a general rule, though, we can understand that there are sins that are of a more grave nature when they directly violate God, where they go against God and when they violate the dignity of the human person. Therefore, sins that violate, that go against God directly, those would always be of a graver nature.

So taking the Lord's name in vain or violating the Sabbath by not going to mass on a Sunday or getting involved with the occult or witchcraft, that kind of thing. those all violate God. They all go against God. So they all have a graver nature to them to themselves. And also sins that violate the dignity of the human person, those will have a more severe nature to them as well. So things like violence against human being, things like using another person sexually, those things would have a, they have a graver nature to them and graver nature to those sins

because they directly go against God or they directly go against, go against, violating the dignity that every person has. Hope that makes some sense. So then it also requires what? Full knowledge and complete consent. So I need to know that this is a sin and I need to freely choose to do it anyways. We've already talked about these in the past. Just highlight this one more time. Fained ignorance and hardness of heart did not diminish but rather increase the voluntary character of a sin. Think about this. Fained ignorance. Oh, I had no idea. Like that pretend ignorance when I actually, I really did know. Or hardness of heart.

Hardness of heart is, wow, this is so powerful and convicts me. Hardness of heart is, no, I know this is a sin. I don't care. That doesn't mitigate my responsibility. It doesn't mitigate my culpability. In fact, it increases it because now I'm pretending I don't know or I'm choosing not to care. That's pretty deadly, right? That's really deadly.

Think about trying to do that in a relationship with another human being. like trying to I mean how many times can a husband and wife get away with pretend ignorance I had no idea you asked me to do that right really or hardness of heart I mean how long would that relationship last if I just say yeah I know what that's what you wanted but I don't care that wouldn't last at all and so we recognize this is the distinction between mortal and venial sins it's so important for us to understand this so that we can move forward why because God wants to forgive us just like we said yesterday it. God wants to forgive us of our sins. So paragraph 1864 brings us to a close, this little section to a close by talking about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So what is that? And it specifies it here

in paragraph 1864. So God wills, God wants, here's what God wants. God wants. God wants to forgive all of our sins. Blastphemy against the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said, every sin, every blasphemy will be forgiven. But the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. So what is that? What's that one sin that will not be forgiven. Well, the church highlights this. There are no limits to the mercy of God. But anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. So the only sin that God can't forgive is the sin that we don't allow him to forgive. Sin against the Holy Spirit, a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is refusing to allow God to forgive us. God, what God wants to do is he wants to give us

mercy. What God wants to do is he wants to heal us, forgive us, reconcile us to himself. He wants all of those things. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is rejecting the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. The great news, again, we talked about this yesterday. In order to have the good news, we need to know the bad news. The great news is God wills to, he wants to, and he can forgive all of our sins. But he only can do this if we allow him to do it. So God wants us to come to him with all of our mortal sins, even the ones that we're embarrassed by, even the ones that we're like, maybe we like still, but he's saying, no, just let it go. Just give it to me. God wants to forgive you of all of your sins. He wants to forgive me of all my sins. So let us not have that sin against the

Holy Spirit. But I pray that all of us will trust in God and trust in His mercy and say, okay, God, these are my mortal sins. These are grave sins that I knew about and I freely chose and I'm laying them down at your feet. I'm laying them down at the foot of the cross and I'm trusting in you to forgive me now. My prayer is that those of us who are going through this catechism in a year who are hearing this today and convicted by God's mercy, by God's love, convicted in the depths of our conscience will seek out confession as soon as possible. If it's been a long time, my invitation is this is your sign. This is the sign. I'm praying for you that all of us, let's pray for each other that our brothers and sisters who are on this journey with us who have been away from

confession who have been away and holding on to these whatever these sins are that we can turn to the Lord right now and trust in his mercy by going to confession that's what I'm praying for I am praying for you please pray for me my name is father Mike I cannot wait to see you tomorrow god bless