1. First: Be humble. Don’t be vain. (Humility over Pride)
2. Second: Be generous. Don’t be envious. (Generosity over Envy)
3. Third: Be chaste. Don’t be filthy. (Chastity over Lust)
4. Fourth: Be patient. Don’t be angry. (Patience over Wrath)
5. Fifth: Be disciplined. Don’t overeat. (Temperance over Gluttony)
6. Sixth: Be charitable. Don’t be greedy. (Charity over Greed)
7. Seventh: Be diligent. Don’t be lazy. (Diligence over Sloth)
James 3:14-16
But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
St Thomas Aquinas
"Envy is sorrow over another person's good fortune that diminishes one's own reputation". He connected envy to the vice of vainglory, which is an excessive desire for glory.
Aquinas believed that envy is a sin against the Holy Ghost. He thought envy of another person's spiritual good is a sorrow for the increase of God's grace.
Envy is related to the sin of pride. He thought that the desire to be esteemed by others can only be satisfied by having what is esteemed in others.
St John Vianney
"Envy is a sadness which we feel on account of the good that happens to our neighbor.
Envy, my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us. In the same way, my children, that the devil after his fall felt, and still feels, extreme anger at seeing us the heirs of the glory of the good God, so the envious man feels sadness at seeing the spiritual and temporal prosperity of his neighbor."
We walk, my children, in the footsteps of the devil; like him, we are vexed at good, and rejoice at evil. If our neighbor loses anything, if his affairs go wrong, if he is humbled, if he is unfortunate, we are joyful. . . we triumph! The devil, too, is full of joy and triumph when we fall, when he can make us fall as low as himself. What does he gain by it? Nothing. Shall we be richer, because our neighbor is poorer? Shall we be greater, because he is less? Shall we be happier, because he is more unhappy? O my children! how much we are to be pitied for being like this! Saint Cyprian said that other evils had limits, but that envy had none. In fact, my children, the envious man invents all sorts of wickedness; he has recourse to evil speaking, to calumny, to cunning, in order to blacken his neighbor; he repeats what he knows, and what he does not know he invents, he exaggerates. . . .
"Through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world; and also through envy we kill our neighbor; by dint of malice, of falsehood, we make him lose his reputation, his place. . . . Good Christians, my children, do not do so; they envy no one; they love their neighbor; they rejoice at the good that happens to him, and they weep with him if any misfortune comes upon him. How happy should we be if we were good Christians. Ah! my children, let us, then, be good Christians and we shall no more envy the good fortune of our neighbor; we shall never speak evil of him; we shall enjoy a sweet peace; our soul will be calm; we shall find paradise on earth".
Comments