Sin and selfishness

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

Is there anything worse than death?  Yes.  Sin.  For sin is spiritual death.  Death kills our bodies, but spiritual death is death of the life of our soul that if not remedied will stay forever in Hell.  The life of our soul is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.  Christ said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body (martyrdom) but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.”  (Matthew 10:28) And that “one” (that destroys both soul and body) is our sin especially mortal sins or big sins.

At the very core of sin is disordered self-love, or selfishness.  Selfishness means “me first” and is essentially dominating because it means “the others are just second.”  Disordered self-love means making ourselves our own god: that is, our own end, good and goal. It is seeking our happiness, purpose, destiny and meaning in ourself rather than in God.  It means Hamlet (character in the book) thinking he’s Shakespeare (author).

We are born with this inclination to selfishness because of Original Sin, the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve.  It is our acquired disease, not our original design, and it can be destroyed and must be destroyed.  We sin because we are sinners in the same way as singers sing.  We are actually “sinaholics” or sin addicts and we need to be rehabilitated.  Christ is the rehabilitation center as well as the doctor and nurse who will cure us and restore us.

Christ saves us not only from the wrong that we do (sin) but also from the wrong that we are (sinners).  What we do always shows what we are.  Where else could our deeds come from? None other than from ourselves. That is why God does not accept our lying excuses: “The devil made me do it (Eve) or “The woman you gave me made me do it (Adam) or “My apelike ancestry made me do it” (Charles Darwin) or “My capitalist economy made me do it” (Karl Marx), or “The hormones of my libido made me do it” (Sigmund Freud) Our human nature does not mean “totally corrupt” as John Calvin (founder of Calvinism – a protestant sect) taught.  In fact, it is only because we are so good originally—made in God’s image, called to be saints—that sin is so awful: it defaces a holy masterpiece.

Christ wants to remove sin in us so that we can be ready to receive His most valuable gift: a share of His divine life.  As Scott Hahn would say, “We are not just saved from something (sin) but saved for something (divine life).”  Sin is actually a lack of faith.  Faith means to trust God.  To sin means not to trust God, that He can truly make us happy. We insist that we know how to make ourselves happy.  It is the Ego Drama vs. the Theo Drama (Theo is Latin for God) as Bishop Barron would say.  The Ego Drama is making yourself the center of the universe. All the rest are just the supporting cast, including God.  Life would then be all about you.  You are the writer, producer, director and the leading actor in this film or drama.  It’s a life living by your own rules, your own commandments and your own script.  The Theo Drama on the other hand means we let God be the director, producer, script writer of our life.  We are still the leading actor or actress but we try to faithfully follow God’s script and not our own.  We let Him do the director’s role in our lives.  If we try to be that good and faithful actor in this drama it will surely be a blockbuster film and it will surely have a happy and perfect ending.   As Blessed Bishop Fulton Sheen would say, “If you do not worship God, you worship something else, and nine out of ten times it will be yourself.  You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.”