Acknowledge Your Sins and Be Reconciled
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Blessed 2nd Sunday in Advent! This coming Saturday at 10:00 AM (Dec. 13, 2025), we will celebrate our annual Advent Reconciliation Service. In preparation, I offer you a reflection guide that you can bring to prayer—and even take with you to the service itself.
In one sense, each of us are guilty of every one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” in some form or degree. I encourage you to look deeply into your heart, beyond the basic or literal definitions. When seen in a fuller spiritual light, we may be surprised to recognize how these sins take subtle shape within us.
Along with this list, I hope my homily this weekend will also help you prepare for a good confession, “acknowledging your sins,” just as those who heard the call of John the Baptist in this weekend’s Gospel. This will be a fantastic way we can participate in the driving out of darkness this Advent, as Fr. Dominic preached last weekend.
Reflection on The Seven Deadly Sins
• Pride – The gravest of the deadly sins and the root of all the others. Pride places the self before God and others, essentially rebelling against God’s plans for us. It is an excessive love of self that manifests as arrogance. Pride sees oneself as the center of everything, denying God’s rightful primacy. Narcissism and lack of empathy often flow from this sin. Do I need to be the center of attention?
• Greed – An inordinate and selfish desire for money, wealth, or possessions—even small or trivial things. Greed is closely related to lust in that it grasps at more than is needed or rightly ordered. Do you carelessly spend your money on things you don't need only to find yourself needing to by more? Do my possessions posses me?
• Lust – An inordinate or illicit desire for sexual pleasure. It abuses the gift of sexuality by seeking personal satisfaction at the expense of another, leading to objectification, exploitation, or misuse of another person. Lust can also be directed to things which makes it related to greed and gluttony. Have I watched pornography, misused my body, or justified small compromises that lead me away from purity?
• Envy – More than jealousy, envy includes the fear that another’s good fortune somehow diminishes one’s own. It can appear as resentment or even sadness at someone else’s success. It is a powerful temptation, especially for sports fans, and has historically been seen as the interior root of even extreme sins such as murder. Do I resent that another person received acknowledgment despite the fact it was just?
• Gluttony – Commonly associated with drunkenness, but it refers more broadly to the excessive or disordered consumption of food or drink. Stress, boredom, loneliness, or depression can feed this sin. It is often linked to greed, where “enough is never enough.” Have I been drunk or tipsy after drinking alcohol? Have I used food or drugs as a way to medicate myself from the issues in my life?
• Wrath – A disordered anger that can grow into hatred and a desire for revenge. Wrath can drive someone to desire serious harm to another. It arises when anger becomes uncontrolled and turns into fury. God’s wrath, by contrast, seeks conversion, mercy, and justice—not destruction. Have I wished someone dead or just "disappeared?" Have I wanted the ruin of another person or sports team?
• Sloth – More than simple laziness. Sloth is a spiritual heaviness or resistance to doing what is good. It leads to procrastination and avoidance of prayer, Mass, or works of charity. It often motivates a person to do anything except what truly needs to be done. Have I become blind to the good things in my life and focused only no the bad things? Do I avoid my responsibilities?
