The penance of believers whose venial sins (peccata venialia) occasioned by the universal sinfulness of human nature obtain forgiveness in daily prayer.
It may be that all those venial sins are atoned for and wiped away by the patiently borne agony of death, but how often it happens that the Christian is suddenly surprised by death in different forms, and when least expecting it.
Second, even venial sins are a stain which prevent the soul from entering into heaven.
Through God's grace and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the members of the heavenly court, let us resolve, in future, to avoid not only mortal but also venial sin.
For every sin is first of all an aversion or turning away from God, the highest and uncreated good--either a complete aversion as in the case of mortal sin, or a partial aversion as in the case of venial sin.
After this, Sir Mathew treated the tale as an ingenious andvenial invention, and always enjoyed it highly whenever it was subsequently related in his hearing.
Venial as this sort of sin may appear to you, to me it seems most grave,--nearly unpardonable.
One hesitates to say where a man, holding Shelley's unusual views respecting the intercourse of the sexes, would draw the line between venial indiscretion and unpardonable depravity in feminine demeanour.
Let there be an end of the dishonest endeavours to gloss the blackest business of Shelley's life into a venial indiscretion, to colour and tone it into a pretty piece of domestic romance.
Certainly guilty of the venial offence of indiscreet and disloyal loquacity, Elise was probably also guilty of encouraging her husband in his purpose to extort more money from her bountiful employers.
For the masses, until the late days of the empire, infanticide was, at the worst, a venial crime.
Also, "the fundamental truth that the same act can never be at once venial for a man to demand and infamous for a woman to accord, though nobly enforced by the early Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of Christendom.
The fame, or infamy, which he earned for himself in later years condemns his minor vices to perpetual memory; or perhaps it is a relief to find that he was linked to mankind by participating in their more venial frailties.
On the 16th the Six Articles Bill was moderated, in favour not of heresy, but of the more venial offence of incontinency.
Just as some Pope or other says of the water sprinkled with salt that it sanctifies and cleanses the people; and the gloss says that it cleanses from venial sins.
But vanity, though unconquerably rooted in me by nature and habit, was no longer overlooked as a venial error.
Looseness of morals on the one side, or even a very venial degree of levity on the other, is fatal to all the loftier forms of passion.
For," he said, "if the rules of Religious Orders are not in themselves binding under pain of either mortal or venial sin, how much less so are the statutes of confraternities?
Now to commit a venial sin is essentially a not working with God, though it may not be a positive working against Him.
I once asked him what was the true difference between venial sin and imperfection, and I will try to recall his teaching on the subject that I may impart it to you.
Besides venial sins, there are certain natural propensities and inclinations which are called imperfections, since they tend towards evil, and, if unchecked, lead to excesses of various kinds.
Venial sin, especially when the soul clings to it, makes us run the risk of losing charity, because it exposes us to the danger of committing mortal sin, by which alone charity is driven forth and banished from the soul.
He does not say "anyone who is without venial sin," for from that who is exempt?
You ask me if a great number of venial sins can ever make up a mortal one, and consequently cause us to lose the grace of God.
You ask me if imperfections are matters sufficient for confession, as well as venial sin.
We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned.
Otherwise you could not bear even a venial sin,[67] nor endure a word of man against you.
These are the men who have undertaken to distinguish for us between mortal and venial sin.
Prisoners of previous good character, and guilty only of venial crimes.
To men thus sick of the languid manner of their contemporaries ruggedness seemed a venial fault, or rather a positive merit.
Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of ill-breeding, that it was almost essential to the character of a fine gentleman.
But the distinction of venial and mortal sins, upon which it proceeded, was even now generally acknowledged.
Venial sins were transgressions which any sincere believer might commit, whilst mortal sins were such as were considered incompatible with the genuine profession of Christianity.
We find Tertullian, after he became a Montanist, dwelling on the distinction of venialand mortal sins.
Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight.
Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what they call the coulpe.
Footnote 6: It is true that a few writers among the Fathers see in blessed Mary traces of venial sin; who think of her intervention at Cana as presumptuous &c.
Our every day familiarity with venial sin, our easy tolerance of it, the adjustment of our lives to habits that involve it, have resulted in a lack of spiritual sensitiveness.
Among the Bushmans veracity is said to be too often, yet not always, disregarded, "and the neglect of it considered a mere venial offence.
It is said that by the observance of it a person will be pardoned all his past venial sins, and that only those who keep it will be allowed to enter through the gate of heaven called Rayyân.
Mary's part, not even venial (Council of Trent, sess.
By this means, he secures his money, and is guilty only of a thousand venial sins, which he gets forgiveness for by giving the priest fifty dollars.
Now, to take so much at once would be a mortal sin; but to steal ten cents would be only a venial sin.
And ever weaker grows through acted crime, Or seeming-genial, venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still.
How is sin univocally distinguished intovenial and mortal, if the venial be not sin Bp.
Capable of being forgiven; not heinous; excusable; pardonable; as, a venialfault or transgression.
If there were any lie in the case, it could be no more than as officious and venial one.
Weakness of the flesh and fornication appeared to him the most monstrous of sins, and he would be very angry if I dared to assert that, in my estimation, they were the most venial of faults.
He remarked that it was considered a very venial sin for a regular priest to say two masses in one day for the sake of earning two carlini more, but that for the same sin a secular priest would deserve to be burnt at the stake.
To these laudable Distinctions let me add one more; that of Publick Applause, which, when truly merited, is perhaps one of the most agreeable Gratifications that venial Vanity can feel.
Likewise, certain sins are usually venial, but in certain circumstances a venial sin may take on such malice as to be constituted mortal.
In damning others, there may be disorder enough to constitute a venial sin, without any greater malice.
It is not possible in all cases to tell exactly what is mortal and what venial in our offenses.
The sin he thus commits may be mortal or venial according to the gravity of the matter of the oath.
In other words, is there nothing but venialsin in thefts of little values, or is there only one big sin at the end?
If in the course of his pilferings he no longer adverts to his first purpose and has no intention in stealing beyond that of helping himself to a little of his neighbor's goods, he is guilty of nothing more than a venial sin.
When anyone makes game or fun of another's evil or defect, because it is a slight evil in itself, this is a venial sin by reason of its genus.
Now it is sometimes a venialsin to do an injury: for the Philosopher says (Ethic.
There is another cupidity, that ofvenial sin, which is always diminished by charity: and yet this cupidity cannot diminish charity, for the reason given above.
When ingratitude is a venial sin it is not contrary to, but beside charity: since it does not destroy the habit of charity, but excludes some act thereof.
If, however, the end intended be not contrary to charity, it will be a venial sin, as for instance when a man takes pleasure in the pretense itself: of such a man it is said in Ethic.
Now vainglory is not always a mortal sin, but is sometimes a venial sin which only the very perfect avoid.
Secondly, so that he perceives the drink to be immoderate, but without knowing it to be intoxicating, and then drunkenness may involve a venial sin.
It is nevertheless a venial sin, because it arises either from some kind of negligence or from some disinclination to virtue in him.
The venial sins of the perfect consist chiefly in sudden movements, which being hidden cannot give scandal.
