God’s Glory in Earthen Vessels: “Sins of Infirmity”

“As we gain happiness through suffering, so do we arrive at holiness through infirmity, because man’s very condition is a fallen one, and in passing out of the country of sin, he necessarily passes through it.”

After its long chronicle of the horrid depths of human evil and sin, the Book of Genesis ends with Joseph’s declaration to his traitorous brothers, now reconciled: “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” As the Church continues her Lenten journey, St. John Henry Newman’s sermon the “Sins of Infirmity” offers the paradoxically consoling reminder that what was true of Joseph’s brothers will remain true of us so long as we sojourn in this life. We must learn, especially in Lent, that Christ’s words from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” are spoken for and about all of us, even those of us who have been graciously redeemed by Baptism, sanctified by the Eucharist and Confirmation, and by the grace of Confession have found ourselves free of habitually grave sin. In Newman’s words, sins of “infirmity” are not mortal; they do not deprive us of God’s grace because of willfully turning from Him. Sins of “infirmity,” while still serious, are those sins by which we recognize our constant dependence on God, his mercy, and the sacrifice of His Son. Newman’s consoling reminder is that these sorts of sins are, in fact, common even to saints, who are saints not because they achieve their own perfection, but because they progressively receive God’s perfection as a gift in the midst of their many failings and “infirmities.”

“It pleases Almighty God to work out His great purposes in and through human infirmity and sin. Thus Balaam had a word put in his mouth in the midst of his enchantments, and Caiphas prophesied in the act of persuading our Lord’s death.” St. Paul’s image is apt, that we bear God’s glory in “earthen vessels” that it may be more clearly evident that the work is God’s, not ours (2 Cor. 4:7). Newman imagines what we must look like to the Angels, who from a distance might see the brightness of Christ’s presence with the Church Militant, but who on closer inspection see Christians whose “dress is tattered” and whose faces have “lines of care.” While weary with warring against sin, God’s glory is displayed with paradoxical clearness.  

This teaches us that we have “no firm hope” in ourselves. Nothing about ourselves can tell us that God’s glory is ours; only God Himself and His mercy can hold out to us the hope of perfection. “As men in a battle cannot see how it is going, so Christians have no certain signs of God’s presence in their hearts, and can but look up towards their Lord and Saviour, and timidly hope.” A zealous convert, baptized, reconciled, confirmed, and fortified by the Eucharist, might be tempted to desire fast and easy Christian perfection. But by his very zeal he may err in neglecting his many infirmities as a member of the race of Adam. He must confront the ways in which he is “feeble-minded, excitable, wayward, irritable, changeable, miserable.” If we do not recognize our misery, we have no motive to receive mercy.

Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), in his spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence, which deeply influenced St. Therèse of Lisieux, exhorts the Christian to abandon his or herself to God’s providence in all situations. His many letters to female religious clarify that this is especially important when one is perplexed or discouraged by persistent venial sins and imperfect habits. While advising Christians against tolerating the sin, Fr. Caussade counsels them to avoid allowing “sins of infirmity” to move us to distrust God and His mercy, or to despond and despair. Rather, we must depend upon God all the more deeply, who loves us in the midst of our sins. God has a glorious plan for our spiritual growth, but it is all too easy to mistake His plan for our own plan or expectations for our spiritual growth. Abandoning ourselves to God’s will in the midst of human failings and venial habits, we learn to trust and depend on Him alone.

In essential agreement with Fr. Caussade, Newman lists the following varieties of “sins of infirmity” that all Christians and all saints contend against throughout the whole of life:

1. Sins wherein there is no consent of the will, such as original sin which is an inherited “evil principle within us.”
2. Those that arise from former habits of sin that still exert a power over our souls, habits, and memories, coloring our thoughts, words, and works. These are the wounds of former sins.
3. Those that arise from “want of self-command” or lack of habitual self-control–the mind is aware, and the conscience is informed, but the “governing principle is weak.”
4. Sins fallen into from being “taken unawares.”
5. Sins in which man succumbs to the devil’s subtle temptations that inflame the “wounds and scars of past sins healed,” disinclining us from God out of shame.
6. “Deficiency of practical experience” or ”ignorance of how to perform our duties.” In other words, doing harm when we mean to do good. And,
7. “Unworthy motives, low views, mistakes in principle, false maxims, which abound on all sides of us, and which we catch (as it were) from each other… that spirit of the world which we breathe, and which defiles all we do, yet which can hardly be said to be a willful pollution…”

These and more subtle flaws and errors abound. And yet we are loved beyond our imagining; Christ says of us from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  “Infirmities are no necessary mark of reprobation… God’s elect have infirmities, and that most of our own sins may possibly be no more than infirmities… is itself a consolation.”

In Lent, to rise to greater heights of holiness, we must let ourselves be loved and nourished by God even in the midst of our venial failings, and strive to let Him save us in the way that He wants, not in the way that we want. Our venial sins and human frailties do not disqualify us from sainthood, but are the very battle-ground where saints are made.

Suggested Meditations

Newman’s Stations of the Cross Meditations (short) (long)

George Herbert’s “Love (III)”

Fr. Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence

Newman’s “Sins of Infirmity”