The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - If Deadly Sins Had Babies (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

Jeff continues the discussion on how the seven deadly sins can show up in our lives. This week he covers envy, gluttony, avarice, and sloth and all the ways we can participate in these vices, often without realizing it. Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Use the comment box below, or email Jeff at [e-mail]. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode! Snippet from the Show “Jesus said we should mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. But envy is all upside down. It causes us to rejoice with those who mourn and mourn with those who rejoice.” Get the downloadable pdf in the shownotes of this episode at ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, episode 117, If Deadly Sins had Babies, Part 2. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Hey, welcome back to talk more about deadly sins. glad you joined me. We're not done, are we? Hey, it's been a good week this week, and I appreciate

the comments that I've received from you, and I know that a lot of people do struggle with these amazing seven deadly sins, which when you put them all together, you've got some problems going on in your life, and I think a lot of people are hungry right now, and how do I deal with this? You know, how do I recognize these things in my life? There's so much going on in the news right now and so much negativity and, you know, political fighting and international intrigue and all that. And it's nice to be kept up to speed as to what's going on. But in the meantime, we've got life to live, don't we? And we got families to raise and school to get through. And we've got to get through the working day. And we have to struggle with ourselves and realize that there's a battle

going on in our life between good and evil, heaven and hell, darkness and light. And And we want to get on with really making our heart a project in our lives. And last week, we looked at three of the deadly sins. We looked at pride, anger, and we also looked at lust. And this week, we're going to try to get through the rest of them. And there's a handout that I'm making available to you, which is a handout that I received from the 22nd annual men's conference for God Squad in St. Peter's Parish in Calgary, Alberta. Father Jonathan Gibson did a great job of an examination of conscience and handed out a chart which I'm actually using as the basis for these two shows last week and this week, and I'm making it available to you. And I just want you to

have full access to everything I'm talking about. I'm the delivery guy this week. Speaking of delivery, we've got some mail, and Judy from Texas wrote and said, I just wanted to say thank you for all you do. I enjoy your podcast every week. They really give me insight into how I can grow closer to the Lord. I especially enjoy your show notes with the biblical references, blessings. Thank you, Judy. I appreciate that very much. Kent writes and says, I listen to numerous podcasts while driving and throughout my day. He said, I discovered your podcast recently, and it is now my favorite. Love to hear that, Kent. I appreciate the pastoral approach, challenging me to go deeper through scripture and practical spirituality.

Our church is going through some rough times, and it is easy to feel discouraged, especially when many of the podcasts I hear are all about doom and gloom. Hearing your show was just what I needed. I also recently began morning Lexio Divina. I'm so grateful. Just wanted to pass on some feedback and a note of appreciation for the ministry you do. That's from Kent. Kent, I appreciate that very much. And Josette writes. My name is Josette. She's from South Africa. I'm Catholic born and had many questions about my faith listening to your podcast has really helped me understand the church better and increased my faith. And she goes on and asks a couple questions. I'll get back to you. But thank you, Joseph, for writing in. If you would like to write in, you can do that by simply sending an email to me. And that email would be a address to The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And as I say in every show, if you want the show notes, which I have usually a lot of scriptures, and in this week, it's a nice handout on the deadly sins.

You can get that free. It's in the show notes. And if you don't get the show notes, you can send me an email at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. In the subject line put, I need the show notes. And we'll put you on that list and we'll give them to you every single week. Hey, I'm going to tell you this on the beginning of the show, because this is a big deal, this is a big deal. We've got some big, big things happening in 2020 in Israel. Emily and I are leading two, two, two for the, two, two pilgrimages to Israel in January, two of them, first one and the second one, and you get that information on my website. Jackie Francois Angel is going to be the canter on the first trip, and Lisa La Cuyo is going to be

the canter on the second trip. And then Father Mike Schmitz, who hails from deep, deep north Minnesota and Duluth, is going to join me as we go over to Israel in June of 2020. We call it 2020 Vision. It is a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but it's only for young adults. And so I'm going to ask you as a young adult, get the word out, tweet it out, Instagram it out, Facebook it out, You know, Snapchat it out, get the information out, because we've got an incredible trip lined up for young adults in June of 2020. We have some three top Catholic singers who are going to be doing concerts and leading in mass, Allie Aaliyah, Taylor Tripodi, and Brother Isaiah, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime, but you've got to be a young adult, you know, it's like 18 through 30. If you're just a little hair over, send me an email.

Beg a little. No, just tell me you'd like to come. We might try to work that out. But we've got to get the word out because it's going to fill up so quick. And you can find all that at jeffcavens.com under Pilgrimages. Well, let's look now at the second episode here on if deadly sins had babies. Wouldn't that be awful? Well, I've got to be honest with you.

Some of them have in my life. I've noticed some of the babies of these deadly sins in my own life. Last week, we looked at pride, anger, and lust, and this is part of a neat acronym called Pale Gas, Pale, that's Pride, Anger, Lust, Envy, Pale. And then Gas is gluttony, avarice, and sloth. I didn't come up with this. I didn't come up with it, Father Jonathan Gibson did. I got to give him credit.

Big shout out. Let's look at envy. Envy is one of the deadly sins, and I think envy is a killer. The deadly sins are. That's why we call them deadly sins. We don't call them hindrance sins. We don't call them bothering sins. We call them deadly. Deadly. Because when we get involved in these deadly sins, it can kill our soul. So envy is one of them, and it's a feeling of being discontented or resentful, longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or blessings.

Envy is just plain yuck. You know it is? It's yucky. And it's bad. It's bad. and you don't get anything out of it. Put it this way. If you want to understand if envy is part of your life, then you have to understand one of the children of envy. And one of the children of envy is that you are very joyful when your neighbor experiences misfortune. You kind of, you know, that makes you kind of happy, you know, when someone else. is really unhappy. That's a sign of envy. Or the real sign is one of the babies of envy, and one of the children, one of the little brats, is that you are unhappy when somebody else in your life is blessed. You become unhappy. They win the lottery. It bums you out. They have

children, and they're doing well in high school, and it makes you mad. You know, they paid off their home early and you're like, that's envy. Envy is such a killer. One of the babies of envy is hatred. That's an intense dislike. It's ill-will towards someone. It's like, I hate them. And when they do even better, I hate them more. Well, that's envy. And envy can crop up in business. It can crop up in ministry. It can. It can crop up in larger families where in the will, say, mom and dad have died, and all the siblings gather around and look in the will and find out that the third born got the table and everyone should be happy with, but they're not. They're angry. They're bummed about it, you know? Envious. Hatred is one of those children. Another child of envy

is a tailbearing. It's malicious gossip. It's revealing secrets. You know, I heard about them. Well, did you hear that so-and-so got a raise at work? Yeah, but did you know that? you know, we start gossiping, tailbearing. And that is one of the children. Can you imagine being consumed by envy and then having all these brats running around, hatred, tail bearing, and the rest? Oh, man, give me a life. I don't want to, I don't want to be surrounded by that all the time. Well, maybe you notice that in other people, but maybe other people notice that in you, in your tailbearing, in your gossip, revealing little secrets. One of the things I used to hear in church is that people would suddenly find the confines of the church in spiritual work, a safe place to do spiritual gossiping.

So they would come up and say, well, I know you won't say anything, and I trust that you will pray about this, but did you know that Donna and Frank were, fill in the blank? Well, that's malicious gossip under the name of spirituality. Keep it to yourself. Detraction is one of the other children. It reduce or take away worth or value of a person or a thing. Yeah, if you're going to take away from someone else's value or you're going to reduce the value of their life or what they have received, that's detraction. And when you're involved in detraction, that is a sign that you're struggling with envy. How about this child? Joy at our neighbor's misfortune. Joy at our neighbor's misfortune. I talked about that a little bit. Or the grief of others' prosperity. Those are the two

big ones right there of the five kids of envy, hatred, tailbearing, detraction, joy at our neighbor's misfortune, grief of others' prosperity. And what this is, is this is an upside-down life. This is an upside-down church. For Jesus said that we should mourn with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice. But envy is all upside down. We rejoice with those who mourn and we mourn with those who rejoice. That is just plain stupid. And we, if we're struggling with envy, we've got to get on top of it. How do we do it? Well, there's the virtue of admiration. Adoration. Or you could tie that to respect. Respect. Right? admiration, respect. Stop looking at the negative in other people's lives and start giving a good word.

Look for the good. Ignore the temptation to be a tail bearer. Find the good in that person and lift that up. There's always something good that you can find about somebody else. And I'll tell you, I've noticed over the years in counseling and reading and writing and speaking, that oftentimes when people struggle with envy, they're struggling with their relationship with the Lord. They don't feel that the Lord loves them. They don't feel that the Lord has their benefits in mind. They don't feel that the Lord's going to come through in the area of their finances or their health or the success of their children. And so their real battle is with the Lord. It's like that parable where the Lord, the ruler of the vineyard, or the

garden, he decided that he was going to pay one guy, I'll make this up, but he's going to pay him $25 to come in at 9 in the morning and work till 5. And then another guy comes in at noon and he says, I'll give you $25. And another guy comes in at 3, I'll give you $25. And the guy that came in early in the morning and says, what do you mean? You're paying them the same as me? And the answer to that was, do you question my generosity? See, your problem is not with your sister-in-law. Your problem is not with your brother. Your problem is not with your colleague at work. Your problem is with the Lord. Be happy. Be satisfied with what God gives you in your life and stop comparing yourself to others. The next one is gluttony. We're on to gas now,

pale gas. Gas is gluttony, avarice, and sloth. Glutney, what's that? Well, that's an excess of food, drink, or pleasure. Gluttony, glutton. Boy, as I look at this, I'm thinking to myself, well, wait a minute, maybe I should pause because I think I might at times be struggling with some of these things, you know? Is it hard to say no to certain foods and things? Gluttony. Well, what are the children of gluttony that if you, maybe you're six foot tall, 175 pounds,

and nobody would look at you and say, there's a glutton. some of some people wear it a little bit differently but others you know nobody would guess they're a glutton but they may be a glutton just because they didn't gain weight doesn't mean that they are not a glutton so what are some of the children that you might you might recognize in your own life well one of them is is unseemly joy unseemly joy it's improper or inappropriate unseemly joy there's a there's a a holy joy about things and an unseemly joy about things, where it's almost like this joy that we have is like, oh, I can't wait to get that food. I can't wait to get there and have those drinks or whatever it is. That's one of the children of gluttony is unseemly joy. Another one

is vulgarity, vulgarity, and that is lacking sophistication or good taste. It's just vulgar. You're vulgar, you know, and that is a sign. That's a sign of gluttony to be vulgar in our talk, to be vulgar in our actions. It is a sign that there is an excess in our lives. Another one of the children of gluttony is uncleanness, uncleanness, and that's impure, unfit, right? Impure, unfit, uncleanness. And that's impure, unfit, uncleanness. And that can be a sign of gluttony in our lives. It's always interesting to see at the beginning of the year how many people want to make a New Year's resolution. And they want to get fit, they want to get in shape, and they are painfully aware that they are struggling with gluttony in their life.

Now, there's another loquaciousness. That's a fancy word for you, huh? Me too. That's one of the other children. That's talking way too much. We could just rename that one verbal diarrhea. Some of us have verbal diarrhea. You go to a party, you go to some kind of social event, or you get on the phone, whatever it might be, and they can't stop talking. They just can't stop talking. That's actually a sign of gluttony, an excess of food, drink, or pleasure, is that they're just talking way too much. That's one of the children of gluttony. And then, dullness of mind as it regards understanding.

There's a dullness there about wisdom and about insight, and they don't really get it. They are all caught up in food, drink, or pleasure, and they can't engage in meaningful reason in their life. and they have their mind on other things, and they are acting on their pleasures. These are some of the children of gluttony, five of them right there. So how do you deal with that? Well, asceticism.

What's another word for asceticism that we can handle here in our discussion today? It is self-discipline. Self-discipline. And I got to tell you, this is something that we need so desperately in our lives. it's really self-discipline is the chart you're going to receive says an avoidance of all forms of indulgence asceticism how do we deal with guilt or gluttony rather how do we deal with the with gluttony we have to discipline ourselves and we have that discipline by virtue of the Holy Spirit given to us at baptism confirmation we do have that power of Christ within us to discipline to discipline

ourselves in these areas. But if we don't act on that, it's very easy for us to give in to excess of food, drink, or pleasure in our lives. There's a wonderful little tool in scripture in the sermon on the Mount, on the three forms of piety that helps so much in this area. Back in Genesis, chapter three, we talk about how the food, the fruit, of the tree that Eve was looking at was, it was good to the eyes, it was good to the taste, it made one wise. And in 1st, John, at the end of the Bible, we see the same thing, the same three problems, this lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. But in the sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives three forms of piety. You know, he gives prayer, and he gives

fasting, right? He gives prayer and fasting. And when you read these forms of piety, and almsgiving is the third one. As I say, I only give you two. Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, these three correspond with these these problems that we have, right? Lust of the flesh, we fast, don't we? We fast. we do that. And the pride of life, we pray and we begin to totally depend upon the Lord. And the lust of the eyes, what do we do? We give it away. Olms giving. These are ways of combating these issues dealing with gluttony in our lives and pride and so forth. Just threw that in for you right there. And so asceticism, self-discipline is the way we deal with gluttony in our lives. I'm going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to go through the next two, Averis and Sloth,

and then we'll be done with those seven deadly sins. Once again, we're talking about if deadly sins had babies and we're going through a list of those children of these seven deadly sins. You are listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Sonia Corbett, the Bible study of Angelista. When I became Catholic, I had a really hard time understanding the role Mary was supposed to play in my life. So I went to her and I told her, I just don't get it. I need your help. And guess what? Mary did just that. She showed me a way to pray that has revolutionized my entire life. Mary has been called the mother of listening. She didn't just hear the word. She knew how to hear it in light of her own relationships, circumstances, and habits. And then she let the word transform her. I realized that I had to share

what I was learning about Mary's way of praying with others. So I wrote how to pray like Mary, a step-by-step guide to discovering God's voice in the scriptures and letting him transform your heart. I invite you to learn more about how to pray like Mary at ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. And welcome back talking about if the deadly sins had babies, what would they sound like? What would their names be? And we're going to go to our six. out of seven, which is Averis now. We're going to look at that. And by the way, if you just really start focusing on the show right now, we've got this wonderful chart available to you in the show notes. And so you don't have to pull over on the side road and write all these

things down. Just listen, pray, ask the Lord, is this you? Are you experiencing the children? the babies of these seven deadly sins, the brats of these things that destroy our lives. Averis is one of them. What is that? Well, Averis is an obsession with money or covetousness, wanting what other people have. What a terrible way to go through life, hey? That was for you, Canadians. That's a terrible way to go through life is to live in Averis.

It's this obsession with money. the love of money, which is the root of all evil, and this constant wanting. Now, I've been there before. I'm not, you know, as I say all these things, I'm telling you right now, to a degree, I have dealt with all of these in my life. I just don't want them to take root. You know, I want them to be rooted out of my life. So what are some of the brats of Averis?

Well, number one, is a little kid called treachery. That's deceptive. It's a betrayal of trust. If you're obsessed with money and covetousness and you want and you want and you want, then you may have some betrayal of trust going on in your life and deceptiveness. That little brat needs to be disciplined, huh? Treachery. Another one of the children is fraud.

It's a wrongful or criminal deception. Willing to commit fraud, willing to do something illegal to obtain something that you want, something that you are coveting in your life. and you're willing to even risk jail time or to taint or ruin your, the legend of your life, the name that you have built. So fraud is something that's one of the little children. You little fraud, you, you're a child of avarice. I know you. And then the third one is falsehood, and that is a lie, simple lie or untruth. If you have a proclivity toward lying, or kind of lying, a little white lie, or simply avoiding the truth, that can be a sign that

you are struggling with avarice in your life. Another is, it deals with something you hear about, you hear about it in the news all the time right now with politics, perjury, that little brat called perjury. And that is a willingness to tell a lie after taking an oath. It is using the strength of an oath to prop up a lie and to continue to pursue an obsession with money or covetous wanting of others or something, right? You're willing to commit perjury. Well, our society doesn't take that too well. It's not too funny. In fact, you might find yourself in prison. And recently in the news, there's been a lot of people who are indicted. and sat before a grand jury and lied and ended up in prison. And that's how serious we take this. And it's

one of the little brats of avarice, right? Of avarice, covetousness, obsession, obsession with money. I think if we had a discussion right now, you and I and everybody that is joining us, we could have quite a discussion on this right now. Well, we don't want to be caught up in that. How about another one of the little kids, one of the children of avarice is restlessness. anxiety, restlessness. I can never find a place of peace. I can never be settled. I cannot find this balance in my life. I was just a desire for an obsession and I've got to get ahead in my 401k and I'll never find this peace and this equilibrium in my life. It's a restlessness that we are struggling with and that can be related to Averis. And then

Another one of the children here, there's seven children of Averis. The next one is violence. Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone, or something. Destroy something. So violence can rise up as a child of Averis, and it can manifest itself in very, very detrimental ways, very injurious ways, and very sad ways criminally and legally. relationship-wise. So violence is something where if you can't get the money you want or you can't get what you want, violence can oftentimes come up. And that's one of the little brats of Averis.

And then the last little one is insensibility for mercy. Insensibility for mercy. All of a sudden, there you are. And everyone's talking about somebody who got caught, somebody whose life has been destroyed. And that little, that little rat runs into the room and is insensible when it comes to mercy. Well, that's a child of avarice. It's a lack of concern or compassion for the plight of others. If you're obsessed with money, if there's a covetousness in your life, then your, your sensibility concerning mercy in other people's lives is going to diminish greatly. And we don't need that, do we? We don't need that. Well, what is the solution? What is the virtue for dealing with these brats of avarice? It's generosity. That's right.

I mentioned it just a moment ago. Sermon on the Mount, in Sermon on the Mount calls it almsgiving. If you've got a problem with this stuff, don't just resist it. You're not going to get very far with just this inner strength and heroic virtue of your own. You are going to have to do something about it. And Jesus says what it is. It is what? Almsgiving.

Give it away. Give it away. Give it away. Quality of being kind and generous. if you're struggling with an obsession with money, step up your giving. If you're struggling with the covetousness of things, divest yourself of them. This is how we deal with it. And only you know, for sure, if you're dealing with this. And the final one is sloth. Sloth. What is sloth? That's an aversion to seeking the spiritual disciplines. Prayer, Bible study.

Church attendance, going to a holy hour, praying the rosary, getting to church early. Sloth. Sounds like an animal. Sloth, aversion to seeking the spiritual disciplines. What are some of the children? Well, there's five of them, five brats of sloth that you might see hanging around once in a while. Maybe some of them you say, well, I haven't really seen that, but there's a couple of them that popped up in my life. and I'd like to recognize this for what it really is, and that sloth. One of them is malice, the intention or desire to do evil. Okay, malice. You've got malice on your heart, and you have this intention to do evil.

And that's a dangerous thing. That's a very dangerous thing. Another one of the children of sloth is spite. Spite. What is spite? Well, spite is when we desire to hurt or annoy or offend. And spite is kind of getting back at somebody. And that is, that's very dangerous.

And that's, that is a child of sloth, which is an aversion to seeking the spiritual disciplines and seeking the, the truth. There's another little child of sloth, and that's faint-heartedness. Faint-heartedness, that's lacking courage, timid. How many times have you been in a meeting or some kind of situation where, it got really tense, and you knew that the topic that was being discussed needed somebody to courageously address the issue in love and charity and in truth, and you didn't do it. You didn't do it.

And on the way home, you told your spouse, you said, oh, man, I should have said something. I should have done something. Or think of another situation in your life where you know what you should be. do and you don't. Remember in the Mass we say, you know, forgive us for what we have done and what we have failed to do. Faintheartedness, a timid little child is a child of sloth. And then sluggishness with regard to living the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are so important in our lives, and we can measure our life by those on a daily basis every time we go to confession. But if there's a sluggishness with regard to those Ten Commandments, we may be part of that seventh

deadly sin called Sloth. And so we need to deal with that. And then the last one, which this is the one that I'm, I mean, I'm not confessing to you, don't get me wrong, but I'm saying, this is one that I find myself struggling with. This little kid comes around once in a while, this son of sloth. And that is a wondering of the mind after unlawful things. How often do we think about unlawful things, maybe even in church? Huh? Maybe even in church. But we're driving, we're laying down at the end of the day, we're taking a walk around one of these wonderful lakes in Minnesota, and there's a wondering of the mind after unlawful things. That's a a sign that this little child of yours might have a father called sloth or a mother called sloth.

So how do we deal with sloth? How do we deal with it? Well, zeal. Zeele. And what is zeal? It is great energy or enthusiasm for the things of God. We are zealous. Our hearts are set on the right. Our hearts are set on courage. Our hearts are set on doing things that are holy, and we're going to move ourselves in that direction. There's going to be a zeal in our life, and the zeal of the Lord will compel us to not be a sloth, but to not walk in malice, not walk in spite, not be timid and lack courage, but to demonstrate courage and to be proactive. in the things that God has called us to do. So those are the seven, those are the seven deadly sins. Remember the acronym, pale, gas. Pale is pride, anger, lust, and envy. Gas is gluttony, avarice, and sloth.

Now, the ways we deal with that, pride is dealt with that by humility. Anger is dealt with by forgiveness, lust by chastity, envy by admiration, or respect, gluttony by asceticism. That's discipline. Averous, generosity, sloth, zeal. Now, what I really, really recommend to you to do in the last, you know, a few seconds, a few minutes we have here together today is if you notice one of these seven deadly sins cropping up in your life, evidenced by the brats that they've had, these little children, the babies of the seven deadly sins, I encourage you with all of my heart to go to confession. And I'm going to put in the show notes an outline for going to confession, also provided by Father Jonathan Gibson. If you ever go to Calgary, by the way, you've got to go to St. Peter's. Great church. And quite a few times we've had the Alberta men's conference there. Great place. But anyway, I'm going to put this in the show notes going to confession. And it has three major steps about beginning your confession and then actually confess.

How do you actually confess these sins and listening to the words of the priest, how to end confession, and then what do you do after confession in response to dealing with these seven deadly sins? So I got a lot of goodies waiting for you in the show notes this week. I'll tell you what. It's a goalmind. And I called Sean Lynn right before the show and I said, is it okay to use this? He goes, yeah, yeah. I said, I want to give, you know, Kuzzi. to Father Jonathan because he did a great job, and I've been studying it myself, so I want you to benefit from it and to grow in holiness. All right, again, my friend, you can get a hold of me at the Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com for the show notes, ideas, your thoughts. I do encourage you to go to iTunes and Google Play and rank the show, leave some show notes. It helps in the algorithm. We have been reading some of the emails.

of people who said they went and were searching on the web for a particular topic, and they got this show. And it changed their life. And that's not me. That's the Lord, you and me all working together. And I appreciate you doing that. So I'd ask you, if you have not done that, please go there and rank the show. I'm partial to five stars. I'm kidding. Rank the show the way you see fit and any comments that you can give. And I would love to hear from you. Let me pray for you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I love you, and I thank you, Lord, for giving us this opportunity to walk with you and your kingdom. Lord, we struggle so often with pride and anger and lust and envy. We struggle, Lord, with an excess of love for food and pleasure with gluttony and avarice

and sloth. But, Lord, we want to deal with these things. Help us, oh God, to recognize the signs, the babies of these seven deadly sins and give us the courage to walk in virtue. day after day after day, Lord, until we are on top of this and we walk more like you, talk more like you, live more like you. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. My friend, I love you and I'm praying for you and I do hope you have an outstanding day. God bless you.