Avoiding Sin Alone Is Not Living Your Faith

Study what the Church actually teaches

Feb 05, 2025

There are elements of American Catholicism drawing on Twentieth Century Catechesis in the Church that makes the point of living our faith to avoid sin. This direction needs to change.

Of course, avoiding sin is important but so is eliminating lack of coordination on a baseball team. The winning team will work as one unit. If each member is more focused on not making mistakes, the team will not work as a unit but will function as nine units trying not to make mistakes. The focus will not be in winning but in not failing, that is not winning.

If Catholics focus on not sinning instead of loving God and neighbor and living the golden rule, they may never actually fulfill any commandments or any rules. They will only focus on living without sinning. This creates a vacuum of negative action which can increase more negative action.

We see this strongly in social media. You can find there a form of Catholic influencer focused on avoiding sin. They live and preach modernized forms of Catholic traditionalism.

Jesus died that all may be saved

The focus of these influencers is to avoid sin and, therefore, avoid Hell. However, Jesus Christ died that all may be saved. We experience his salvation by seeking to be transformed into his mindset as he draws us closer to Himself. The more we open ourselves to his grace, the more we experience this transformation and our whole way of being changes over time.

The man who encounters Christ who once lived to party, changes his way of living and lives to please Christ. The person who seeks to please Christ and develops this prayerful relationship with Him will never experience Hell. Many influencers avoid all of this and teach others to seek only to avoid sin, so they won’t end up in Hell. As they lead others down this path, they exclaim that they intend to be one of the few who enter the Kingdom of God. They may also say they have no guarantees of their salvation but if they are not saved, you can rest assured you will definitely be damned. This type of Catholicism which is endemic in social media and the type the pope speaks against is self-deceiving.

Jesus called the pharisees blind; this is why they could not see

This pharisees fought against sin all the time and in the process, they rejected Christ. They did not recognize him to be the Son of God because they chose not to serve God but rather the letter of the law. In seeking to live the law, they could not see God in their midst despite all the signs, wonders and teachings that indicated he is there.

They not only clinged to the law but also their interpretation of it, so when Jesus explained that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, they considered him a heretic to be stoned to death. He rejected their interpretation of the law, therefore, they labeled him a blasphemer and killed him.

God is active in our lives

The Church teaches that the Holy Spirit is active in our lives and always leading us to the Kingdom of God. The more we are docile to his grace, the more he renews our minds. We experience him transforming us every day.

The Lord also manifests himself through the sacraments which help us to live our faith as the disciples God calls us to at Baptism. We become ambassadors of the Kingdom to lead others to Christ as well. Our role is to love as Jesus did and to invite others to his royal banquet in our lives.

If we do this, we will still sin because the just person sins seven times daily (Proverbs 24:16-18) but our desire to sin will decrease while we rejoice in the grace of forgiveness when we do.

We will see our lives transformed as we see other lives transformed not because of our actions but through God’s grace channeled through our service to Him. None of this will you learn from the social media influencers who preach their brand of 21st century traditional Catholicism.

Today, we see influencers tell us that we have a choice, either Heaven or Hell implying no recourse to God; that half of the funerals one priest influencer celebrates may be for a person unhappy where he or she ends up; that the majority of people will go to Hell and that we must meet a standard of comportment to be saved. All of this without any mention of a relationship with God.

What does the Church actually teach

What the Church actually teaches is that God’s grace is reaching out to us and inviting us to this relationship. He is calling us always to join him in eternal life and so allow ourselves to be transformed in this life to be united with him in the next.

We are the salt of the Earth and we are the prophets of the Kingdom. Our lives lead us to be those lights in the darkness that Christ uses to shine to all the world that He is alive and in love with all. None of this we can do if our main mission is to avoid sin and Hell and nothing more.

The Holy Spirit is active

If we do this, we will still sin because the just person sins seven times daily, but our desire to sin will decrease while we rejoice in the grace of forgiveness when we do.

We will see our lives transformed as we see other lives transformed not because of our actions but through God’s grace channeled through our service and daily to Him.

Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA

The parish podcast is at CatholicAudioMedia.com

Catholic Audio Media Newsletter from St. Anthony Allston, MA

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