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LTACL: The Least Pleasurable Sin? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) · The Catholic Current

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  Let me ask you this. Is there a nice way to tell someone to go to hell?
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  A cynical person once said that the art of diplomacy
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  is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they
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  thank you for the advice, they ask for directions, and they
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  actually look forward to making the trip. Now the devil would say,
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  I can do you better than that. I can tempt you to a deadly sin
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  that gives you no pleasure at all, that you don't want
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  to let go of, and will take you straight to hell.
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  Is that really a thing? Stay with me, I've got a story to tell. Hi, I'm Judgement Father
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  Robert McTague, your host every day of the Catholic Current, coming to you from the Station of the Cross
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  Catholic Media Network. Let's take a closer look. Glad you're here.
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  I've been doing a series recently on the deadly sins, and at least
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  some of the deadly sins kind of give you something for it. You know what I mean?
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  Gluttony, you get a decent meal out of it every once in a while. But what about envy?
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  You might say, well, I don't know, Father, what about envy? But I need to make a distinction.
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  I need to make a distinction between envy and jealousy.
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  I think sometimes they're used interchangeably in conversation, and it can lead
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  to bad outcomes. For example, back in the day when Oprah was still on
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  television, she was recounting how she read in the Bible where God
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  said, you know, I am a jealous God. And she said, what? God is jealous
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  of me? And that's when I decided to, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, that's not
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  what that means. Jealousy means I want to keep
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  what is mine, and I don't want you to have it. Now, jealousy can be a bad thing,
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  except when God does it. Because God
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  wants the best for the beloved. That would be us.
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  And what's best for his beloved is him, which is why God doesn't
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  like to share. God doesn't want to share his beloved with
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  the false gods, with the idols, and certainly not with the demons.
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  So we should all breathe a sigh of relief that God is a jealous God.
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  What about envy? So if jealousy says I want to protect
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  what's mine, envy says I want what's yours.
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  And I hate you because what you have
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  is yours. And I resent that you
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  have what I don't have.
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  You see how poisonous that can be, right? Listen to what
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  John Vianney said about envy. He said,
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  So says St. John Vianney.
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  That makes envy look kind of ugly, doesn't it?
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  It does seem to be irrational.
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  There is no pleasure in envy, and yet,
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  yet people can cling to it, can have a death grip
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  on envy. I've known all too many people who've
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  lost everything, their health,
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  their career, their home, their family, their jobs,
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  their love, their lives, because
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  they sat in a corner in the grip of envy and resentment,
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  angry with all the world and all of creation
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  that the world never gave them a chance for their own
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  personal Nuremberg trials.
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  God have mercy on them all. Please let us not suffer
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  that fate. Now here's the ironic thing. Those
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  things that we're envious of, human loves, human associations,
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  object possessions, wealth, power, reputation,
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  clicks on social media, all those things, you know what?
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  We can't take any of them with us when we die.
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  As the saying goes, there's no pocket in the shroud. The only thing we bring
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  with us into the next life is our character,
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  which of course is spiritual and not material.
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  What's the moral of the story? How do we fix it? Well, let's turn to Scripture. Let's turn
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  to St. Paul, his epistle to the Colossians. He said,
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  set your mind on the things that are above and not on the
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  things that are upon the earth. So let's have an
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  examination of conscience. Do I have envy
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  in my heart? Do I grind my teeth and clench my
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  fist because someone has something that I don't
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  have? St. Paul would say, let it go.
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  Let it go. Set your heart on the
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  treasure, on the love that the world cannot give,
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  cannot equal, and cannot take away.
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  And that, of course, is the happiness of heaven. Think on these things today.
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  Take them to prayer and talk about it with those you love. Go in peace
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  and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.
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  Thanks for watching today. I release new videos on Mondays
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  and Wednesdays. Check out the archives for more videos. You can listen
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  to my podcast at stationofthecross.com and you can find my
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  written work at heraldofthegospel.org. See you next time.