“Sin makes a man a coward. A life in the truth of Christ makes him bold.” St. JohnChrysostom (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Sins, however great and detestable they may be, are looked upon as trivial, or not sins at all, when men get accustomed to them; and so far does this go, that such sins are not only concealed, but are boasted of,and published far and wide...In our own times, many forms of sin...are now so openly and habitually practiced that we dare not excommunicate a layman, we dare not even defrock a clergyman, for the commission of them.” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Every sin is more harmful to the sinner than to the one sinned against.” St. Augustine ofHippo
“The life of sin is a fall from coherance into chaos; the life of virtue a climb from the many to the One.” St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century, Doctor of the Church)
“Sin is loving what God hates, and hating what God loves.” St. Catherine of Siena (14th century, Doctor of the Church)
“This then, O my soul, is what the sinfulness of sin consists in. It is lifting up my hand against my Infinite Benefactor, against my Almighty Creator, Preserver, and Judge.” St. JohnHenry Newman (19th century)
“No man is ever conscious of sin, when he thinks of it as merely breaking a law. He never sees the full intensity of sin until, driving while drunk, he kills a child. So when we look not to a broken law, but at the broken Person of Christ on the Cross, we begin to see the full gravity of sin...On the Cross, Our Lord poured out His Life’s Blood, not because bloodshed pleased His Father, but because the sinner deserved to die, and Christ, willing to be one with the sinners, chose to bear pain as they should have borne it. He bore all of the iniquity of evil because He deigned to come into the world disorganized by evil.” Ven. Fulton Sheen (19th-20th centuries)
“He said that it behooved Him to suffer. This indeed was true, because when anyone preaches absolute and Divine Truth to a world that believes in pragmatism, He will be crucifed. The only way that He could show the evil of sin, was by revealing what sin could do to goodness, namely pinion Him to a tree.” Ven. Fulton Sheen
“Don’t forget, my son, that for you there is but one evil on earth: sin. You must fear it and avoid it with the grace of God.” St. Josemaria Escriva (20th century)
“Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a ‘right’ to persist in evil – in any sin at all – and who thus rejects Redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one’s conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one’s life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one’s self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.” Pope St. John Paul II (20th-21st centuries)
“Do not overlook those ‘little’ acts of unfaithfulness. Remember, storms and floods are not the only things which can destroy a crop; tiny insects can devastate a field overnight.” Ven. Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan (20th-21st centuries)
“You should feel comforted that your judge is also your merciful Father. In fact, the more just He is, the more reassured you should be, since He will take into account your human frailties. But do not abuse His goodness by foolishly remaining in sin.” Ven. Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan