Parish Staff Pastor Rev. David Powers Sch.P. Parochial Vicars Rev. Nelson Henao Sch.P. Rev. Richard Wyzykiewicz Sch.P. Parish Secretary Mrs. Rosemarie Ortiz Organist Mr. Franco Bonanome Leader of Song Mrs. Terry Bonanome January-February, 2016 saint Director of Development Mrs. Stephanie Turtle Helena St. Helena’s School (718) 892-3234 parish Early Childhood (3-4 year olds) Elementary School (Grades K-8) Bronx, NY Principal: Mr. Richard Meller Mass Schedule 2050 Benedict Avenue Bronx, New York 10462 High School: Monsignor Scanlan H.S. (718) 430-0100 http://www.scanlanhs.edu/ Principal: Mr. Peter Doran 915 Hutchinson River Parkway Bronx, New York 10465 made at St. Helena Rectory: Certificate. 1315 Olmstead Avenue Bronx, N.Y. 10462 should Phone: (718) 892-3232 as as at the Rectory. Fax: (718) 892-7713 a www.churchofsthelena.com Email: [email protected] at Rectory. Alumni: [email protected] ST. L BRONX, A WORD FROM THE PASTOR: St. Thomas as pride, avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, and NEWSFLASH - SIN DOES EXIST—PART 3 anger. Many people ask: Today, we seem to have lost a sense of sin. All systems, religious Is it possible to sin and not be aware that one has done so? and ethical, which either deny, on the one hand, the existence of a personal creator and lawgiver distinct from and superior to his The answer is “yes” because there is a distinction between the creation, or, on the other, the existence of free will and objective elements (object itself and circumstances) and the responsibility in man, distort or destroy the true biblico-theological subjective (advertence to the sinfulness of the act). An action notion of sin. In the beginning of the Christian era the Gnostics, which, as a matter of fact, is contrary to the Divine law but is not although their doctrines varied in details, denied the existence of a known to be such by the person constitutes a material sin; personal creator. The idea of sin is not contained in their system. whereas formal sin is committed when a person freely There is no sin for them, unless it be the sin of ignorance, no transgresses the law as shown him by his conscience. Thus, a necessity for an atonement because Jesus was not God. person who takes the property of another while believing it to be Manichaeism with its two eternal principles, good and evil, at his own commits a material sin; but the sin would be formal if he perpetual war with each other, is also destructive of the true notion took the property in the belief that it belonged to another, whether of sin. All evil, and consequently sin, is from the principle of evil. his belief were correct or not. The Christian concept of God as a lawgiver is destroyed. Sin is not That sin may be committed not only by outward deeds but also by a conscious voluntary act of disobedience to the Divine will. the inner activity of the mind apart from any external manifestation, Pantheistic systems which deny the distinction between God and is plain from the two Commandments which begin: "Thou shalt not His creation make sin impossible. If man and God are one, man is covet", and from Christ's rebuke of the scribes and pharisees not responsible to anyone for his acts, morality is destroyed. If he whom he likens to "whited sepulchers full of all filthiness" (Matt is his own rule of action, he cannot deviate from right. The 23:27). Hence the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, c. v), in declaring identification of God with the world by Pantheism leaves no place that all mortal sins must be confessed, makes special mention of for sin. those that are most secret and that violate only the last two Pope Francis often speaks about our loss of the sense of sin. Over precepts of the Ten Commandments, adding that they "sometimes the course of generations, the Christian mind has gained from the more grievously wound the soul and are more dangerous than Gospel a fine sensitivity and an acute perception of the seeds of sins which are openly committed.” Three kinds of internal sin are death contained in sin, as well as a sensitivity and an acuteness of usually distinguished: delectatio morosa, i.e. the pleasure taken in perception for identifying them in the thousand guises under which a sinful thought or imagination even without desiring it; gaudium, sin shows itself. This is what is commonly called the sense of sin. i.e. dwelling with complacency on sins already committed; and This sense is rooted in man's moral conscience and is linked to desiderium, i.e. the desire for what is sinful. An efficacious desire, the sense of God, since it derives from man's conscious i.e. one that includes the deliberate intention to realize or gratify relationship with God as his creator, Lord and Father. Hence, just the desire, has the same malice, mortal or venial, as the action as it is impossible to eradicate completely the sense of God or to which it has in view. An inefficacious desire is one that carries a silence the conscience completely, so the sense of sin is never condition, in such a way that the will is prepared to perform the completely eliminated. action in case the condition were verified. When the condition is such as to eliminate all sinfulness from the action, the desire Nevertheless, it happens not infrequently that the moral involves no sin: e.g. I would gladly eat meat on a Friday during conscience of many people becomes seriously clouded, and it is Lent, if I had a dispensation; and in general this is the case inevitable therefore that in this situation there is an obscuring also whenever the action is forbidden by positive law only. When the of the sense of sin, which is closely connected with the moral action is contrary to natural law and yet is permissible in given conscience, the search for truth and the desire to make a circumstances or in a particular state of life, the desire, if it include responsible use of freedom. When the conscience is weakened those circumstances or that state as conditions, is not in itself the sense of God is also obscured, and as a result, with the loss of sinful: e.g. I would kill so-and-so if I had to do it in self-defense. this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This Usually, however, such desires are dangerous and therefore to be explains why Pope Pius XII one day declared, in words that have repressed. If, on the other hand, the condition does not remove almost become proverbial, that "the sin of the century is the loss of the sinfulness of the action, the desire is also sinful. This is clearly the sense of sin." (to be continued) Fr. David the case where the action is intrinsically and absolutely evil, e.g. blasphemy: one cannot without committing sin, have the desire—I ASH WEDNESDAY—FEBRUARY 10 would blaspheme God if it were not wrong; the condition is an impossible one and therefore does not affect the desire itself. The Lenten Fast and Abstinence pleasure taken in a sinful thought (delectatio, gaudium) is, During the season of Lent, the Church urges the faithful to reflect generally speaking, a sin of the same kind and gravity as the a spirit of penance in their daily lives through performing acts of action which is thought of. Much, however, depends on the motive fast and abstinence. FASTING requires that only one full meal be for which one thinks of sinful actions. The pleasure, e.g. which one taken per day. Two other smaller meals may be taken during the may experience in studying the nature of murder or any other day to maintain physical strength, but those two meals together crime, in getting clear ideas on the subject, tracing its causes, determining the guilt etc., is not a sin; on the contrary, it is often should NOT equal a full meal in quantity. Nor should one eat both necessary and useful. The case is different of course where between meals. Fasting obliges all those who have reached the the pleasure means gratification in the sinful object or action itself, age of 18 and continues to oblige through age 59. Those who are and it is clearly a sin when one boasts of his evil deeds. not obliged to fast are encouraged to join in the discipline of There are seven conditions that are given the term CAPITAL sins fasting to the extent that they are able. ABSTINENCE prohibits or capital vices. According to St. Thomas, "a capital vice is that individuals from eating meat on a particular day. Abstinence which has an exceedingly desirable end so that in his desire for it obliges all of those who have reached the age of 14 and continues a man goes on to the commission of many sins all of which are to oblige throughout their lives. Those who are not specifically said to originate in that vice as their chief source.” It is not then the obliged to abstain from eating meat are encouraged to join in the gravity of the vice in itself that makes it capital but rather the fact 2 discipline of abstaining to the extent that they are able. that it gives rise to many other sins. These are enumerated by FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME at 6:30PM in English and 7:30PM in Spanish, beginning on Friday, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of Fast and Feb.