Shadows Within
Hey there! It’s great to have you here. It has indeed been a while since I wrote and shared my reflections here.
Maybe it’s the spirit of the new year, or just a desire to return back to something I genuinely love to do, but here we are, back at it with a brand new running series.
I love to do these types of efforts on my blog. They are not only immersive and a joy to share; through them, I am able to shine a light on my own need of the Saviour as I research, digest, write, edit and publish them.
Why This Series?
With this blog, I usually aim to share my reflections drawn from my Christian walk. These reflections show me my inescapable weakness, and some practical ways to help me hold on tighter to Jesus.
I did a random, stand-alone post on envy a while back. While I was researching and writing it, the thought just popped into my head, “make a running series for the other ‘deadly sins’.” I parked the idea to stew and develop further, and I feel now would be a good time to flesh it out because we all have struggled with envy, pride and even lust in more than one point in life. My hope is that they will serve you as they have for me; point us all back to Jesus.
And the running title? To deny the existence of our own shadows is to deny what makes us human. Shadows can hide a lot, or make something seem different from what it actually is. Through shining the light of Scripture into these shadows of our sinful selves can we see ourselves as we truly are, and all we can be if we let in the light that is Christ.
So, buckle up and let’s take a look from the outside in, and the inside out.
Origin of the List
What are the seven deadly sins? They are classified according to Roman Catholic tradition to be the chief sins from which all other sins flow.
In the late fourth century, a monk named Evagrius Ponticus (died 399) wrote a handbook of sorts, called Praktikos, and with it, his aim was to help like-minded monks to practice the ways of piety. The work contained a list of the “wicked thoughts” that cause man to fall away from their perfect union with God. The list was originally in this order:
- Gluttony
- Lust
- Avarice
- Sorrow
- Wrath
- Sloth
- Vainglory
- Pride
This list was most probably used for the next 200 or so years, until Pope Gregory the Great saw similarity between two sets of these sins: vainglory and pride, sloth and sorrow. He took it upon himself to trim the list, collapsing vainglory into pride, sorrow into sloth and adding envy in his commentary on Job and the problem of evil.
The ranking of the list was as follows:
- Pride
- Envy
- Wrath
- Sloth
- Avarice/Greed
- Gluttony
- Lust
The Ranking Explained
A glance at the list shows the sins to be listed in order of most severity.
This is the Catholic perspective of mortal sins (a deliberate turning away from God and embracing something else in place) and venial sins (sins committed that do not completely sever one’s communion with God, usually seen as slight and may lead to mortal sin if unattended to).
One’s view of this list, however, is totally upon them, as sin is undeniably sin if not confessed and turned away from. Some may consider greed to be the ultimate, while others see envy as the source of all the wrongs seen in this life.
In this series, I will not follow a particular order, but rather hope to show us how each of these sins are very present in us all, and what we can do to avoid them from taking a hold in our lives, damaging our relationship with God and with those around us.
Below are some websites I used while researching for this article.