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I heard a priest give a sermon recently where he said that we should always avoid every unnecessary occasion of sin.  I thought it was a mistake, but then he said it again, that we are tempted every day, and it is our Christian duty to protect our state of grace by having no part in any unnecessary occasion of sin.

I wanted to ask him, "What is an example of a necessary occasion of sin?"  

Because if the word "unnecessary" is necessary in those sentences, then it lends meaning to the sentences.  If the meaning contributed by "unnecessary" is to be REMOVED, you would need the opposite word, which would be "necessary."



We might even go so far as to say, if the opposite of unnecessary is used, then to retain the original meaning, another opposite must also be used, like this:

"We should never avoid a necessary occasion of sin."

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Certain occasions of sin are unavoidable for certain people as a result of their station in life.  These occasions of sin are necessary.  For example, bad companions are an occasion of sin.  If one is volunteering their free time to them, that is an unnecessary occasion of sin.  However, if one has unsavory co-workers (as one often does), his being around them is a necessary occasion of sin, because it is necessary for his station in life to go to work and earn a paycheck, occasion of sin as it may be.

Extraordinary examples would apply to this as well-- an emergency worker or a police officer could enter a place of ill-repute if an emergency occurred there, or other things along that line.

Quote from: Neil Obstat

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I heard a priest give a sermon recently where he said that we should always avoid every unnecessary occasion of sin.  I thought it was a mistake, but then he said it again, that we are tempted every day, and it is our Christian duty to protect our state of grace by having no part in any unnecessary occasion of sin.

I wanted to ask him, "What is an example of a necessary occasion of sin?"  

Because if the word "unnecessary" is necessary in those sentences, then it lends meaning to the sentences.  If the meaning contributed by "unnecessary" is to be REMOVED, you would need the opposite word, which would be "necessary."



We might even go so far as to say, if the opposite of unnecessary is used, then to retain the original meaning, another opposite must also be used, like this:

"We should never avoid a necessary occasion of sin."

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It is UNNECESSARY to use the word UNNECESSARY since it is absolutely NECESSARY to avoid ALL occasions of sin.

Yet, not all occasions of sin CAN be avoided.  This is when an occasion of sin is "necessary."  For instance, a young man still in school can't avoid the occasion of sin present in his house with his parents frequently engaging in lewd and profane speech.  This is just one of many examples where an occasion of sin is simply unavoidable, and therefore "necessary."

Certain occasions of sin are unavoidable for certain people as a result of their station in life.  These occasions of sin are necessary.  For example, bad companions are an occasion of sin.  If one is volunteering their free time to them, that is an unnecessary occasion of sin.  However, if one has unsavory co-workers (as one often does), his being around them is a necessary occasion of sin, because it is necessary for his station in life to go to work and earn a paycheck, occasion of sin as it may be.

Extraordinary examples would apply to this as well-- an emergency worker or a police officer could enter a place of ill-repute if an emergency occurred there, or other things along that line.

Doctors also might encounter certain occasions of sin in their line of work -- not everyone they examine is old and/or male. And in the good old days, all doctors were men.

There is absolutely such a thing as a necessary occasion of sin.

And yes, TKGS, it amounts to those occasions that we cannot avoid due to our duties of state.

Mith gave another good example -- the vices and bad example of co-workers.

Generally speaking, you don't want to get involved in a line of work that hits you in a weak spot (a person inclined to theft shouldn't work in a bank), but many careers expose a person to various vices, bad habits, and sinful temptations.

A parent will be tempted to excessive anger, impatience (or sloth and indifference) when faced with misbehaved children. A long haul truck driver might suffer temptations being away from his wife & family so much. A college professor might be tempted by all the "beautiful young things" in his class. A person working retail might be tempted to gossip (about co-workers) or anger (about customers). A person working in a large company might be tempted to lie, slander, or step on others to "climb the corporate ladder". And so on.

All we can do about the "necessary" occasions of sin is to mitigate them, put up whatever protections we can, and develop the necessary virtue to stand (as opposed to fall) in the face of them. It helps to have the humility to pray to God for help, and not trust in our own strength. Trusting in oneself is usually the first step in any fall.

The difference between "necessary" and "unnecessary" temptations is also quite shocking: God will sustain you in the former, but not in the latter. He wills that you experience and vanquish the former, but He wants you to avoid the latter.

Putting yourself in an UNNECESSARY occasion of sin is the same thing as tempting God. God is not likely to reward such impudence with His fatherly grace and protection. On the contrary, you will have no one but yourself to blame if you fall.

For example, He will not sustain you if you decide your family must go to the public beach. That's not necessary for a Catholic family. Working for a living IS necessary, however. You can be confident that God will give you the graces to deal with whatever temptations you experience training for, finding, and keeping a job to support yourself and/or your family.

This is matter for the virtue of Prudence. For example, one should not endeavor to become a public lifeguard for a living.

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I wrote the following before reading the rest of the thread:


Thank you TKGS for this reply.  

I really think you'll need to ask the priest.  Perhaps he just mis-spoke.  If what he ordinarily says is very orthodox, I would think that, perhaps, he was, in his mind, changing how he was going to phrase the comment as he was speaking and the "unnecessary" just came out.  He may not even realize he said it.  That can happen, even in repeating the phrase because it just sounded right at the time.

I was thinking this very thing when he gave the sermon like this, and so I paid extra close attention to the next few sentences, where he repeated the same phrase, "unnecessary occasions of sin."  

Something I failed to mention in the OP is that his sermons are normally all typed out in advance, and he reads them from the pulpit.  He doesn't use a teleprompter, but you can see his printed copy lying there on the podium as it's always folded the same way, in thirds, like it was mailed in a business-sized envelope.  Sometimes, he picks up the pages to flip through and skip a page or whatever, then sets them down again to keep reading from them.   His eyes go down to the page and he raises them intermittently.  Quite often, he uses specific gestures for the same words, whenever they occur, and when I have assisted at two Masses on the same day with the same sermon, I have heard him give word-for-word the identical sermon, and use the precisely identical gestures in both sermons for each specific word or phrase attached to each specific gesture.  I have noticed that he takes BREATHS at the same point in most sentences, during such duplicate sermons.  I'm not making this up.  His sermons are very good, but I often have a lot of trouble IGNORING these distractions.  I guess that's my own, personal problem, that I need to overcome.

He doesn't try to hide the fact that he ALWAYS prepares sermons word for word, with very few spontaneous additions (when he does say something that's not on the page, you can easily tell the difference by the obvious difference in his style and manner, but I suspect he's not aware of this, and I'm not sure how to bring it up, because, like with my experience with Mel, I'm embarrassed to do so).  He has answered this question frankly, and he has no compunction about it.  It's something to do with a difficulty he has with speaking extemporaneously --  a personal problem when large groups of people are listening, or whatever.  I don't hold it against him, although I have to keep it in mind while listening because his style of delivery is a bit contrived, and that is distracting to me;  because he has somehow not developed the skill of dramatic reading like actors need to do to make their memorized words SEEM to be spontaneous, like in great movies.. that's what the Academy Awards are for:  excellence in pretending to be someone you are NOT, and the 'magic' of being very convincing at it.  

That's one thing I like to thank Mel Gibson for:  a few years ago, when I went to his chapel, he stood in the pews and he read aloud some Scripture reading during Holy Week, as one of several men who gave such readings, and I guess it was to help the priest who was pretty old, and maybe he didn't have the strength to read it all himself.  But the point is, when Mel read, it was a bit like heaven to me.  His voice was clear, and loud, his diction was impeccable, his style of delivery made the words come alive, as though he was actually speaking them from the heart.  President Ronald Reagan had this same gift, and they called him "The Great Communicator."  But Mel's tone quality and timbre is far superior to Reagan's.  When you hear Gibson read Scripture, you want him to just keep on reading forever.

I asked around about this at the time, and everyone told me:  "Mel's an actor -- this is his field."  I asked if they thought he had rehearsed his lines ahead of time and they retorted, "He's a professional!  What would you expect?"  I suppose I should have asked him in person, but I was too embarrassed.  Another actor, Richard Jameson, has been an occasional guest speaker and his dramatic reading is quite reminiscent of Mel's, and the difference is, I have managed to summon the courage to tell Mr. Jameson how much I appreciate his prowess in delivery.  He was very appreciative, and he deserves the compliment, but I probably don't deserve his appreciation.  

On the other hand, if he really did intend to say "unnecessary occasion of sin", then I too would like to hear of an example of a "necessary occasion of sin".  I can simply think of no time when the Church would recommend (as in being necessary) the faithful to place ourselves in the occasion of sin.

I was thinking that as well.  Because he offered no example in context at the time.

But you are correct.  If there are "unnecessary occasions of sin", there are implied "necessary occasions of sin".

If you ask, I'm sure he will tell you he mis-spoke and, most likely, he will actually be surprised that he said that or think, perhaps, that you mis-heard him because it truly does sound absurd.

The next time I get a chance, I'll ask him and see what he says, but I really think he did not make a mistake.  I saw the mannerisms he was using and the way he looked at us and his inflection and it was very much with full knowledge of what he was deliberately saying to us.  He just didn't elaborate.  

P.S.  Is English his native language?  That too could affect his thoughts about how to phrase his intended meaning.

 

American English is his mother tongue.  

It's also interesting that this sermon was in the context of a meditation that he had provided, which has in part the following:  

"Have you put yourself in an occasion of sin by reading bad books, looking a indecent pictures, keeping bad company, attending immoral performances, watching indecent movies of television programs, singing lewd songs, and the like?  Have you distributed obscene books or magazines?  Have you informed others of places of distribution?  Have you encouraged others to read them?  Have you been an occasion of sin to others, by your conversation, dress, appearance, or actions?..."

I had just been reading this examination of conscience;  therefore, when I heard the phrase, "occasion of sin" in the sermon, I immediately recalled the context of the meditation I had just made a few minutes before.  I like to think my mind was working PROPERLY when that happens so quickly.  My difficulty came right away when I realized that the word, "unnecessary" would NOT FIT in the following sentences:

Have you put yourself in an unnecessary occasion of sin by reading bad books, looking at indecent pictures, keeping bad company, attending immoral performances..., and, Have you been an unnecessary occasion of sin to others, by your conversation, dress, appearance, or actions?  

The reason I thought it would not fit is, I could not imagine how a meditation on examination of conscience would be fruitful when it implies that there are times when reading bad books, looking at indecent pictures, keeping bad company or attending immoral performances would be "necessary."  Nor could I imagine how an examination of conscience would be of any use when it's based on the concept that my conversations, dress, appearance or actions could somehow be a NECESSARY occasion of sin to others.  

All of this FLASHED THROUGH MY MIND in about 28 milliseconds the moment I heard that phrase uttered from the pulpit.  And I could NOT get it out of my mind for the rest of the sermon!  

And it was otherwise a pretty good sermon.


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Ephesians 4:26-27

"Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil."

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Dear shin, this is a marvelous quote from St. Alphonsus.  In which of his numerous books can this be found?  

(I have heard that He wrote so prolifically, all in Latin, of course, that most of his books remain UNTRANSLATED into English or other modern living languages.)

Quote from: shin

'"It is not," says St. Francis de Sales, "the seeing of objects so much as the fixing of our eyes upon them that proves most pernicious."

'"If," says St. Augustine, "our eyes should by chance fall upon others, let us take care never to fix them upon any one."

'Father Manareo, when taking leave of St. Ignatius for a distant place, looked steadfastly in his face: for this look he was corrected by the saint. From the conduct of St. Ignatius on this occasion, we learn that it was not becoming in religious to fix their eyes on the countenance of a person even of the same sex, particularly if the person is young.

'But I do not see how looks at young persons of a different sex can be excused from the guilt of a venial fault, or even from mortal sin, when there is proximate danger of criminal consent. "It is not lawful," says St. Gregory, "to behold what it is not lawful to covet."

'The evil thought that proceeds from looks, though it should be rejected, never fails to leave a stain upon the soul.

'Brother Roger, a Franciscan of singular purity, being once asked why he was so reserved in his intercourse with women, replied, that when men avoid the occasions of sin, God preserves them;  but when they expose themselves to danger, they are justly abandoned by the Lord, and easily fall into some grievous transgressions.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

I tell you, shin, this is such a powerful grouping of quotes, that I'm going to write them down on 3x5 cards and read them from time to time.  

You have done a spiritual work of mercy by informing my ignorance.

I would like to know in which book to find them, because I just know that when I share them with friends, they're going to ask me, "Are you just making this up?" or, "Is this a true story?" or, "Where did he say that?"

This is so entirely contrary to the spirit of the world that permeates everything today, that people are not going to believe that they should think about it.  They're going to say stuff like, "Don't preach at me!"  or, "What do you think you are, holier than thou, or what?" or,  "What rock did you climb out from under?  Why don't you just go and climb back under it?"

We are facing today people whose hearts and minds are in the grip of satan to the point where they don't even know what they're saying when they talk.  Is this possession?  Or is it demonic oppression?  It seems to me it could be one or the other.  

Today Fr.'s sermon had the following  (Different priest than the OP has):  

Under demonic possession, unless the subject, the person possessed, gives his consent for the exorcism, the priest's prayers won't work.  The priest needs to determine that the candidate is truly a candidate, by finding out that he wants to be exorcised and that he wants to be free of the demon(s) inside of him.   God gives us free will, and if we have chosen to be on the side of the devil, God abandons us to the fate of our own choice, and not even an exorcist can do anything about it.  



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Sin and occasion of sin are avoidable or unavoidable, not necessary and unnecessary.

Avoid is the key word and not necessary.

You are correct Neil, unnecessary would also mean there was a necessary.  

And out of charity, it ought to be summed up to "a poor choice of words".

Freguenting the unnecessary occaisions of sin is the same thing as doing the Devil's work for him.