Quotes from the Saints about Sin

Sin separates us from the love of God and makes us slaves of Satan. Someone once said that committing a venial sin (a minor one) is like taking a bath in polluted wastewater. Mortal sin is like committing suicide. Neither one is something we should aspire to.

Types of Sin

Of course, some venial sins are intentional and some are unintentional (happening without our thinking about them). An example of an intentional venial sin would be to purposely click on a  website with suggestively clothed women to ogle them for pleasure.  An unintentional venial sin would be to click on a website that shows scantily clad women in ads and then glance at them for a second or two before looking away.  Both sins are wrong, of course, but the former one is with malice intended, and the latter is not.

Mortal sin requires three things to be deadly:  1)- The sin must be serious (looking at hardcore pornography, for instance); 2) the sin must be done with the full consent of your will (I want to reject God’s will and go with the will of the devil), and 3) you must know that it’s a mortal sin (I am fully aware that this sin kills the grace of God in my soul). If any one of these three conditions is missing, it is not a mortal sin. So let’s say that you get really mad, and you blurt out a phrase that takes God’s name in vain. You have just broken the second of the Ten Commandments, but you didn’t really consent to it; it just came out. That is a serious sin, of course, but it is not mortal, since you didn’t have the full consent of the will. Another example is if you dream about pornographic sex right before you wake up; this is not a mortal sin, because no one can fully control their dreams, and, therefore, you didn’t freely consent to it.

Overcoming Sin

It should be noted that one good confession with true repentance for your sins is more powerful than an exorcism, because confession is a sacrament; an exorcism is not. (An exorcism is a sacramental). So if you find yourself constantly sinning, go to confession often. The grace you receive there will help you overcome Satan’s hold on your soul and will assist you in beating your bad habits.  Also, saying the rosary every day with full meditation on the 20 mysteries is guaranteed to help you overcome your secret sin. Why? Because you are calling on Mary and the Holy Spirit to come to you and assist you… and they always will!

Meditation on the Passion of Jesus is also guaranteed to help us all overcome sin and to advance spiritually to God, our Loving Father. Meditation on the Passion of Jesus is like pouring alcohol on a body wound to cleanse it. Meditation helps cleanse the soul.

Saints’ Quotes about Sin

“Where sin was hatched, let tears now wash the nest”(St. Robert Southwell).

“He who knows what God is, studies to avoid sin” (St. Benedict Joseph Labre).

“The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no stench in the world can equal it” (St. Philip Neri).

“Fearful afflictions await the hard of heart, for without great sufferings they cannot become pliable and responsive”  (St. Thalassios the Libyan).

“Satisfaction consists in the cutting off of the causes of the sin. Thus, fasting is the proper antidote to lust; prayer to pride, to envy, anger and sloth; alms to covetousness”(St. Richard of Chichester).

“To abstain from sinful actions is not sufficient for the fulfillment of God’s law. The very desire of what is forbidden is evil” (St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle).

“He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement“ (St. Alphonsus Liguori).

“Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin, and to establish His life within us” (St John Eudes).

“There is no sin or wrong that gives a man a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience“ (Saint Catherine of Sienna).

“Enjoy yourself as much as you like – if only you keep from sin” (Saint John Bosco).

“You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy – the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud“ (St. Vincent de Paul).

“Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul“ (St. Anthony of Padua).

“We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners” {St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul (paragraph #1783)}.

I am not ignorant of what is said of my Lord in the Psalm: ‘You destroy those who speak a lie.’ And again: ‘A lying mouth deals death to the soul.’ And likewise, the Lord says in the Gospel: ‘On the day of judgment men shall render account for every idle word they utter (St. Patrick).

​Indeed it is written, Everyone who sins is a slave of sin; but the slave does not abide in the house forever. The son abides forever. Since then we too have been granted to have been called sons according to grace, we remain in the house forever, if we hold firm the beginning of our undertaking to the end (St. Theodore the Studite).

And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me! The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we, on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation (St. Catherine of Genoa).

We should all realize that no matter where or how a man dies, if he is in the state of mortal sin and does not repent, when he could have done so and did not, the Devil tears his soul from his body with such anguish and distress that only a person who has experienced it can appreciate it (St. Francis of Assisi).

I see clearly with the interior eye, that the sweet God loves with a pure love the creature that He has created, and has a hatred for nothing but sin, which is more opposed to Him than can be thought or imagined (St. Catherine of Genoa).

Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal. ‘For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we should not be condemned with the world’ (1 Cor. 11:31-32) (St. Maximos the Confessor).

He who is sluggish in prayer, and slothful and negligent in serving his brethren and in performing other holy tasks, is explicitly called an idler by the apostle, and condemned as unworthy even of his bread. For St. Paul writes that the idler is not to have any food (cf. 2 Thess. 3:10); and elsewhere it is said that God hates idlers, that the idle man cannot be trusted, and that idleness has taught great evil (cf. Ecclus. 33:27). Thus each of us should bear the fruit of some action performed in God’s name, even if he has employed himself diligently in but one good work. Otherwise he will be totally barren, and without any share in eternal blessings (St. Symeon Metaphrastis).

In the Great Deluge in the days of Noah, nearly all mankind perished, eight persons alone being saved in the Ark. In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the earth, and out of this deluge very few escape. Scarcely anyone is saved (Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori).

We are convinced, that this sin [willful ignorance] alone causes the loss of more souls than all the other sins together, because he who is ignorant does not realize the harm he does by his sin, nor the great good he thus forfeits” (St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars).

These persons, I say, make their first attack against the beasts that they have noticed are stronger and fiercer, and when these have been killed they more easily destroy the ones that are left, which are less terrible and less aggressive. Likewise, it is always the case that when the more powerful vices have been overthrown and are succeeded by weaker ones we shall obtain a perfect victory without any hardship (St. John Cassian).

The person who has surrendered himself entirely to sin indulges with enjoyment and pleasure in unnatural and shameful passions – licentiousness, unchastity, greed, hatred, guile and the forms of vice – as though they were natural. The genuine and perfected Christian, on the other hand, with great enjoyment and spiritual pleasure participates effortlessly and without impediment in all the virtues and all the supranatural fruits of the Spirit – love, peace, patient endurance, faith, humility and the entire truly golden galaxy of virtue – as though they were natural” (St. Symeon Metaphrastis).

In the light of the Divine Goodness, it seems to me, though others may think differently, that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins and that it should be detested in the sight of our Creator and Lord by all of His creatures who are capable of enjoying His divine and everlasting glory. It is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received, and as such it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes. Contrariwise, the grateful acknowledgment of blessings and gifts received is loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth“ (St. Ignatius of Loyola).

When we are in sin, our soul is all diseased, all rotten; it is pitiful. The thought that the good God sees it ought to make it enter into itself. And then, what pleasure is there in sin? None at all. We have frightful dreams that the devil is carrying us away, that we are falling over precipices. Put yourself on good terms with God; have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; you will sleep as quietly as an angel. You will be glad to waken in the night, to pray to God; you will have nothing but thanksgivings on your lips; you will rise towards Heaven with great facility, as an eagle soars through the air“ (St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars).