First of all, I pray that your Lent is off to a beautiful and Holy start! To be completely honest, I have been CRAVING Lent. My life has just started to feel a little too noisy and busy and I am glad the Church is wise enough to give us a season to get back on track.
So, I decided to take advantage of this season and do a little series on the Podcast. Lent is meant to be a season of quiet and growth, so I will be spending all 7 Wednesdays of Lent talking about the major vices we all face. The seven vices we will be discussing are Anger, Envy, Lust, Pride, Gluttony, Greed and Sloth.
I will be using the incredible book, Victory Over Vice, by Venerable Fulton Sheen to talk about these Vices. We will be using that book as wonderful guide for these episodes but, as always, we will be talking specifically about how these vices might be a part of our lives as Catholic Women.
Up first, Anger.
Each Vice that Fulton Sheen discusses grows out of some of the last words that Christ said while dying on the cross. The words we examine for the vice of Anger are, "Father, forgiven them for they know not what they do."
Fulton Sheen points to 2 lessons we need to learn about anger from these words of Christ:
The Reason for Forgiveness is Ignorance. There are no limits to Forgiveness.Ignorance plays a major role here. We are often ignorant of another person's motivations. We are nearly always ignorant of our own sins, although keenly aware of another person's sins. And we are often ignorant of all the factors impacting our situation, seeing only our own little part of it. And so, we struggle to let go of our anger and move toward forgiveness.
And yet, God, who knows all, always forgives.
So, it is important to remember our ignorance and always assume that there are factors you are not aware of.
In the episode I talk about marriage a lot and how these lessons on anger can make us better, more loving wives. We do struggle with anger at times, like anyone, and I feel like what Fulton Sheen reveals on the topic of anger are important things for me to learn. Let's hope I learn them!
There is so much more to this episode, and I just know you will grow from the wisdom of Venerable Fulton Sheen, just as I have.
So head over and listen!
Next week we are tackling a big, ugly vice: Envy.
See you then!
Nancy
