Episode Transcript  

One

Don’t Take Poison

St. Augustine compares mortal sin to drinking lethal poison and hoping someone brings the antidote before you die. It exposes the insanity of sin. We say we want Heaven and then deliberately choose what is incompatible with Heaven. We tell ourselves, “It’s fine. I’ll go to confession. I’ll stop eventually.” We drink the poison because we assume the antidote will be there whenever we want it. But what if death comes first? Or what if repeatedly choosing sin destroys our desire to repent?

And poison does not have to kill you to harm you. Some poisons weaken you, destroy your health, or gradually paralyze you. That is what venial sin and vice do to the soul. Venial sin does not kill the life of grace as mortal sin does. But it wounds our friendship with God, weakens the will, darkens the mind, and diminishes our ability to love.

Repeated venial sins become vices, habits that make sin easier and virtue harder. They may not kill the soul, but they weaken its resistance and make it more susceptible to mortal sin, the lethal poison.

So don’t merely avoid what will kill you. Don’t take poison at all.

Two

Once You’re Dead, it’s Too Late

No sane person who didn’t want to die would ever play with some kind of lethal poison. Maybe someone could find an antidote in time, but what if they couldn’t? Or what if you died before the antidote arrived? Then it would be too late. And by the way, what if you keep taking poison, poison-antidote, poison-antidote, and the antidote eventually loses its effect? Then there’ll be no escape.

Now what is the antidote to sin? Well, on one level, it’s the sacrament of confession. But what gets you to the sacrament of confession, and what makes the sacrament valid, is your repentance. So we could say that repentance is the antidote to sin. And obviously, when you sin, you don’t feel repentance for the sin; if you did, you wouldn’t be sinning in the first place. So how can you be so sure that you’ll ever really repent?

And here’s the most terrible thing of all: the more you repeat the sin/repent cycle, the harder it gets to repent. The more you get used to your sin, the harder it is to get worked up about it afterwards, and the harder it is to make a real resolution to not sin in the future. In other words, as the poison of sin progresses, it gets harder to find an antidote, and the antidote starts to lose its counteragency against the poison.

Eventually, you get to the point where you just can’t repent any more. God will always forgive you, but there will come a time when you simply refuse to go through the process of repentance anymore. And then Hell will have begun, and you’ll be spiritually dead, even if you’re still walking around above ground. So don’t take poison. Don’t take sin, thinking you’ll just repent later. Because maybe you won’t.

Three

Don’t Make Yourself Sick, Even if It’s Curable

It’s crazy to drink poison and hope for an antidote, because you might not find the antidote, and after a while the antidote might stop working. In other words, don’t drink poison because it might kill you. But also, don’t drink poison because it’ll make you sick! And it’s the same with sin, especially with serious sin. You shouldn’t do it, because it might end up sending you to hell. You might not end up repenting in time and you might end up just completely unable to repent. But also, sin will make you miserable in the meantime.

People who sin and plan to repent later already know this, the whole reason they plan to repent later is that deep down inside they know that this sin is going to make them miserable, and they’re going to have to try to escape it. So to say, “I’ll sin now, but later on I’ll repent and reform my life,” is basically the same as saying, “I’ll make myself miserable now, but later on I’ll try to get happy.” Here’s an idea: How about just be happy now? Just keep your innocence, don’t betray your God, don’t hurt your neighbor, don’t wreck your own humanity. And be happy now!

If you want to be healthy, don’t drink poison and then plan on looking for an antidote. Just avoid the poison and enjoy your health now!

Four

Why do we drink the Poison of Sin?

Again, it’s insane to sin, just like it’s insane to drink poison. So why do we do it? Well, maybe for a couple of reasons. First of all, because sometimes the poison of sin makes you feel good. But then you just have to remember that the sick, nasty feeling you get afterwards lasts a lot longer. Secondly, sometimes we drink poison because it’s exciting. It’s like a kind of Russian Roulette, knowing that you’re risking a great good and wondering whether you’ll lose everything.

But actually, do you know a better way to get the blood pumping than risking a good you already have and wondering if you’ll lose it? The most exciting thing, the excitement championship teams experience, and everyone who pursues the highest excellence, the most exciting thing there is trying to acquire the greatest good and not being sure you’ll get it. It’s way more exciting trying to get something great that you don’t have than needlessly risking something great that you already have. That’s why it’s much more exciting trying to be a saint than it is gambling on whether or not you’ll go to hell.

Finally, people might drink the poison of sin because it’s addictive. Not because they enjoy it, or find it exciting, but just because they feel like they need it. But the truth is, you don’t need poison. You don’t want it, and you don’t need it. And if you keep the sin out of your house, out of your office, out of reach, that feeling of need goes away. And the sickness of sin will go away with it.

Five

Resolution

We all of us have a kind of sin-poison that we’ve just gotten used to drinking. Maybe in the back of our minds we think we’ll repent later, or we’ll just go through detox in Purgatory. It’s time to stop thinking like that. What is the poison that you drink from regularly? It’s time to stop right now, to repent right now, while you still have the chance.

This may be the last time you’ll have the energy, the resolution to actually get it out of your life. So make a plan to cut it out, cut out all occasions of it, all opportunities to give in to it. Then go to confession and get the antidote. And watch how good it is to have that poison finally work its way out of your soul.

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