|
Hi Tom,
Here is my two cents though I welcome our theology guys to chime in as well.
There is one of two questions you may be asking:
- How does God discipline us for our sins?, and
- How does God purify us from our sins?
Our Lord is a Loving and Merciful Father who understands our human frailty and the struggles we have with sin and temptation.
He disciplines through the contrition, confession, and satisfaction we make for our sins we go to the sacrament of Confession. Our satisfaction is completed when we perform our given Penance.
God purifies us for those forgiven sins through suffering but we can only speculate how, where, and for what reason this happens. Suffering itself is a redemptive mystery for individuals and everyone in the Church.
You said:
- Do the consequences of our sin effect our future actions?
Yes, the consequences of our sin affect us and the body of Christ but I don't want to give you the impression that the reason you threw that interception at the football game was definitely due to committing in your mind a mortal sin.
Yes, sin weakens our will and we are more prone to make errors but we cannot get paranoid. Moreover, mortal sin can be very hard to commit. As the Catechism states:
1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met:
"Mortal sin is sin:
1. whose object is grave matter
2. which is also committed with full knowledge, and
3. which is done with deliberate consent." |
My colleagues may have more to add.
I hope this helps,
Mike
|
