Ash Wednesday

The Works of the Flesh

• Acts of selfishness

  Acts of selfishness make private advantage the controlling rule of conduct. They oppose charity and the common good by treating the needs, rights, or salvation of others as unimportant whenever they conflict with personal preference.

• Dissensions

  Dissensions are needless divisions produced by stubborn disagreement, quarrels, or refusal of rightful unity. Disagreement about truth can be necessary, but dissension becomes sinful when pride or self-interest breaks peace without a just cause.

• Factions

  Factions form parties around persons or private interests in a way that fractures rightful unity. The fault is not ordinary association, but partisan attachment that places the group’s victory above truth, justice, charity, or the good of the whole.

• Occasions of envy

  Occasions of envy are attitudes or actions that cultivate sorrow at another’s good or pleasure in another’s loss. They keep comparison and resentment alive instead of recognizing every genuine good as something that can honor God.

• Drinking bouts

  Drinking bouts are occasions of deliberate excess in which sobriety, reason, and self-command are impaired or cast aside. The moral disorder comes from seeking intoxication or accepting the harms it brings to judgment, duty, health, and others.