Question of the Week

Question of the Week:  When does a bad thought become a sin? There are many different kinds of thoughts that can lead to sin but do not always do so.  I doubt that it is possible to review ever possible situation. A person may have a thought concerning something wrong or harmful that they could do.  However, if that person has no intention of ever doing this thing, it would normally not be sinful.  If that person did have the intention to perform this action if the opportunity were to present itself, then the intention to act makes the thought sinful.  If we have the intention to sin, we sin, even if the opportunity to act out our intentions never arises.  If the thought leads to a hateful and vindictive heart, then it could be sinful, as well. A person could have thoughts that are similar to envy or jealousy over something that another person has.  The desire to have something nice, that another has, is not sinful, in itself.  However, if we mistreat this other person because of envy or if we hope that they will experience harm because we are jealous that they have what we do not possess, this is going beyond simply wishing that we had something nice. Sin requires a choice on our part.  Often, we cannot control the thoughts that enter our minds.  However, if we find that we are dwelling on thoughts that are evil or focus on evil actions, then it is apparent that, at some point, we have chosen to allow those thoughts to remain within us.  We may not be able to “pin point” the moment when we said “yes” to these thoughts but it would be clear that we had made a choice to invite them to remain.

Fr. Tom Sieg -4/4/2012