The Interior Man, An Extended Consideration

A deeper look into the Interior Life and Mortal Sin

Christ Knocking at the Door, Public Domain

Last week in my weekly Gospel reflection on Mark chapter 7, I reflected on the idea of the Interior Man. You can find that here. I wanted to expand on what was briefly discussed there to give a more detailed account of the Moral Life as it applies to our Interior Life. I also wanted to explore the reality of Mortal Sin and how it truly causes spiritual chaos in us. We live in a time where much of Moral Theology is based only on the study of sin. While this is certainly necessary, and I will consider this here, the medievals saw Moral Theology through the lens of the Virtues and the growth of the Interior Life toward God. I hope this article synthesizes the two. Yes, we must avoid evil at all costs. But no moral life is complete without also doing good and forming these habits, through grace, in imitation of Christ.

The Interior Life

God has created man for an intimate relationship with Him. At man’s creation, he was endowed with a state of Grace and Original Justice which allowed him to live a sanctified life in union with God. This graced nature was meant to be passed on to future generations. It is important to understand that this was not a natural state of man. What I mean by that is that man is not by his own nature in this heightened state. It is something infused in him by God. This displays the immensely important distinction between the Order of Nature and the Order of Grace. As created beings, we naturally reside in the Order of Nature. Of our own power, we cannot ascend into the Order of Grace. This is where God, in His goodness and love of mankind, infuses grace into our souls and lifts us into the Order of Grace.

With the fall of man into sin, this state of grace was lost in Adam and Eve, and this caused a fallen human nature to be passed on to the next generations.¹ From this point on, all of mankind is conceived and born in a state radically contrary to God. We are, as St. Paul writes, “children of wrath.”² That sanctified nature, originally willed by God, is no longer communicated to mankind. We are conceived spiritually dead.

But, in the fullness of time, the Eternal Son became incarnate and took human nature to redeem it. He loved man so much that He gave His life so that divine life could be returned to man who had so completely lost it. This great mystery of the Cross is our beginning point in the interior life. What was lost through sin, is returned to us through the Paschal Mystery. From the cross, the grace of the sacraments is poured out on mankind.³ Through Baptism, the seed of eternal life is planted in us, that seed being sanctifying grace. From the first moment of our Baptism, our souls are lifted into that Order of Grace and infused with divine life. This seed is then meant to grow into a flowing interior life in which we are continually drawn to a greater state of perfection and, ultimately, union with God.

Through the sacrament of baptism, God infuses us with sanctifying grace, and with it:

- The Infused Theological Virtues

• Faith

• Hope

• Charity

- The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

• Reverence

• Understanding

• Courage

• Knowledge

• Judgment

• Fear of the Lord

• Wisdom

- The Infused Moral Virtues⁴

• Prudence

• Justice

• Fortitude

• Temperance

In addition to these gifts, the Trinitarian God also comes and makes His home in us.⁵ The sinner is justified before God and infused with grace. The fruits of the Holy Spirit⁶ and the Beatitudes⁷ are the supernatural effects of this divine life.

All of this together, the work of God in the cross and the Sacraments, makes of our soul an Interior Castle in which the Lord comes and knocks and seeks to dine with us.⁸ For those who allow Him in, they are able to have an intimate relationship with The Incarnate Lord as He dwells within them while they remain in a state of grace. Through the reception of the sacraments, prayer, abnegation, and humility, the seed of eternal life grows into a flower stretching toward the beatific vision and union with the Trinitarian God for all eternity. Steadily, this soul can rise through the stages of the interior life to perfect union with God.

Adam and Eve Cast from the Garden, Sistine Chapel

Mortal Sin

During our journey toward union with God, man sets up impediments to grace and salvation in the form of sin, in particular, what we refer to as mortal sin. St. John refers to this deadly sin in his first letter:

“If anyone sees his brother committing what is not a deadly sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not deadly. There is sin which is deadly; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not deadly.”⁹

St. John makes a distinction between a sin that is deadly, that is, one that leads to spiritual death, and one that is not deadly, that which we call venial. For a sin to be mortal, that is, lead to spiritual death, three conditions must be present:

First, the act itself must be grave matter. For the object of an act to be grave matter it must be of a serious species. This means that it must offend one of the Ten Commandments, be one of the seven deadly sins, or break one of the precepts of the church. The object or act is contrary to the law of God and is, by nature, an offense against Charity, that is, the love of God and Neighbor.

Second, the person must have full knowledge. The person acting must have sufficient knowledge that the act is grave matter, and it is contrary to God’s law. It is important that we do not fall into error on two extremes. First, invincible ignorance is something that the church has continually affirmed as a mitigating factor in determining full knowledge. Invincible ignorance is when the person committing the act legitimately did not know that it was sinful. This presupposes that it was not their fault that they did not know. Because of this, we do not want to automatically assume every immoral action is a mortal sin. Ignorance can be at play. On the other side though, we do not want to deny the ease of falling into mortal sin based on knowledge. This criterion does not require a malicious knowledge of offending God. It requires that we know, either through previous catechesis or through the natural law, that we are doing wrong. The natural law is sufficient because, by nature, the choice of sin already includes a certain contempt for God.¹⁰ One does not need to be a theologian to understand that the act that is before them is wrong. This understanding is sufficient.

Third, we require deliberate consent. This is a movement of the will toward the evil object and away from God. Our wills are the faculty of the soul which desires and reaches out toward something. In the spiritual life, we are meant to reach out and embrace God through hope and charity, respectively. Through deliberate consent to sin, we are turning away from God, He whom we should love above all, and are turning toward and embracing a created thing. This doesn’t mean that we have to have a love for the sin as sin. It just means that we are choosing to do it as opposed to the good and there is nothing forcing us to do it against our will. This criterion can be mitigated through something taking away our ability to consent like addiction, psychological disorders, or severe external pressure.

The Catholic Church teaches that all three criteria must be present for a mortal sin to be committed.¹¹ It is possible to commit a grave act, contrary to the love of God, but because knowledge or consent were lacking, a venial sin has been committed. Each mortal sin is a grave turning away from the love of God and is radically contrary to our nature. Because of this, when we commit a mortal sin, i.e., with all three criteria, we place ourselves apart from God.

The effects of mortal sin on the soul of the sinner are disastrous. First, we destroy sanctifying grace in our souls. This grace is the seed of eternal life, and we kill that seed through the gravity of the act we have committed. This divine life which was begun in us at baptism is destroyed in us and thus, heaven is out of reach. Second, the supernatural virtue of Charity is also destroyed, though as long as we have not sinned against them, faith and hope remain. Charity is the virtue that makes us like unto God.¹² Without Charity being infused into our soul, we cannot be conformed to God and thus, we cannot enter into the beatific vision. Since Charity is gone, the infused moral virtues are gone as well. While the natural moral virtues remain in us to whatever degree we have habituated them, the infused moral virtues that move us toward our final end are lost since Charity, which orders them, is lost. Further, where through Baptism we had become the dwelling place of God, He no longer dwells in us. Since we have replaced love of Him with love of a created thing, He no longer dwells in us as in a temple. Since the Holy Spirit takes His leave of us, so do the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

This is a truly lamentable state. One that is characterized by a turning away from the love of God to the disordered love of a created thing. Charity is the principle that unites us to God. Yes, faith and hope are needed as they are what lead us to Charity, but Charity is that which makes us like unto God. Without Charity, we cannot dwell in the presence of God for eternity.

Christ Teaching, Public Domain

Called to More

In His goodness, the Lord has called us to live a life of radical Charity so that we may find our true happiness in Him. The Moral Life is not merely an avoidance of evil, though that is very important. In its totality, the Moral Life is a movement toward true and lasting happiness: Beatitude. We are called to “have life and have it more abundantly.”¹³ One may look at the above criteria for mortal sin and simply judge that it is easier to stay ignorant. To never open scripture or the catechism and remain in ignorance so that we can live a life of bliss. That could not be further from the truth. At the outset of this article, I mentioned the need for modern-day Moral Theology to recover its consideration of the virtues. I will add to this, it must recover its consideration of the Interior Life as well. The progress of the soul through the stages of the interior life is a necessary journey that all must undergo if we hope to attain eternal life. The way of contemplation is not a way of a select few of the holiest monastics. It is the normative way of holiness.¹⁴

This requires that we take the journey of the spiritual life seriously and place it before our eyes at all times. We have seen what happens to the soul when we fall into mortal sin. We should not be so presumptuous that it will not happen to us. Our Lord is very clear in the Gospels:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”¹⁵

When we fall into mortal sin, we must ask God for forgiveness and resolve to not sin again. Then, moved by His grace, we need to seek His forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession. The grace of the sacrament destroys the wall that we have placed in us through mortal sin, and He reinfuses us with what was lost in our fall. Further, if our contrition is in accord with the offense itself, we will be returned to the spiritual state that we were in and even furthered along the spiritual way. The more generous our contrition, the greater it will merit an increase of charity in us. This is the goodness of God. He does not make us start our journey over. If we respond to the grace of contrition that He elicits in us, we can come out of our sin even holier than we were before. Thus, we should not despair when we fall into sin. In the providential order of God, He sometimes allows us to fall so that the redemption on the other side will merit and greater state of glory for us. If we should be so unfortunate as to fall into mortal sin, take heart, and run to the mercy of God. He is always ready and willing to give mercy in accord with our repentance. The interior life is the life of charity. We must preserve that life of charity in us at all costs.

God desires to dwell in each of us. He knocks at the door of our souls and seeks to be let in to dine with us. The measure to which we can remove the attachment of created things from our hearts is the measure to which God will make His dwelling within us.

1. Cf. Genesis 3.

2. Cf. Ephesians 2:3.

3. The intimate relationship between the passion of Christ and the Sacraments cannot be overstressed. St. Thomas Aquinas writes, “Christ delivered us from our sins principally through His Passion, not only by way of efficiency and merit, but also by way of satisfaction. Likewise, by His Passion He inaugurated the Rites of the Christian Religion by offering Himself—an oblation and a sacrifice to God (Eph 5:2). Wherefore it is manifest that the sacraments of the Church derive their power specially from Christ’s Passion, the virtue of which is in a manner united to us by our receiving the sacraments.” Summa Theologiae IIIa q. 62, a. 5. See also Catechism of the Catholic Church 1113-1130.

4. These four moral virtues are in man naturally and can more or less be practiced in a natural state as they are habitual acts. Through baptism, God infuses them with grace and orders them, through Charity, to the final end

5. Cf. John 14:23.

6. Cf. Galatians 5:22-23.

7. Cf. Matthew 5:1-11. The Beatitudes are the blueprint of the Interior Life as it is ordered toward Union with God. The first three Beatitudes correspond to the flight from sin as found in the Purgative Way. The next two are indicative of the Active Christian Life followed by the next two being indicative of the Contemplative Life. These together correspond to the Illuminative Way. Finally, the last Beatitude corresponds to the Unitive Way and Union with God, as the pure of heart will see God. See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, 165-173. Fr. Garrigou follows St. Thomas’ Commentary on Matthew.

8. Cf. Revelation 3:20.

9. 1 John 5:16–17.

10. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Reconciliation and Penance, 17.

11. Cf. CCC 1854-1857.

12. Cf. 1 John 4:7-8.

13. John 10:10.

14. “Thus it is evident to everyone, that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity;(4*) by this holiness as such a more human manner of living is promoted in this earthly society. In order that the faithful may reach this perfection, they must use their strength accordingly as they have received it, as a gift from Christ. They must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things. They must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history.” Lumen Gentium, 40.

15. Matthew 7:13–14.