A Word in Season: A Shrug is Meager Exercise... Or, whatcha gonna do with venial sins?

My column this week at Patheos is one part confession, and one part resolve.  I got some habits that be needin' some kicking.

Pardon me, but my spiritual mediocrity is showing. 

Lent is approaching -- Ash Wednesday on February 22 – and it’s causing me to consider my spiritual health. For a Christian, the resolution to be good and do good should permeate every day, not just at the onset of the penitential seasons. The call to holiness is in season and out. 

The trajectory of our lives should be a movement from our initial conversion -- a turning away from mortal sins and toward Christ. Indeed, the full maturation of the children of God is the call to be living saints, resembling Christ by imitation. 

Yet sometimes my witness is a bit shaky. 

No, let me say that more truthfully: I often settle for mediocrity. 

I settle for well, I haven’t broken any of the Ten Commandments recently, and I don’t have any mortal sins to confess, and so I coast. Even though I am old enough to know better, I am not immune to the lure of bad habits

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Oh, and if you want a insightful look at the deadly sins in modern language, check this out, again at Patheos.