Feast of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, July 21
Deacon Robert Banet
I’ve been praying the psalms and sometimes they really baffle me.
Oh?
Yes. One of them says, “His prosperity stirred my grief.” I couldn’t get my head around that.
Ah. Well it’s referring to something we don’t like to think about. I’s the feeling that some people have, a feeling of joy when something bad happens to somebody else.
That’s terrible.
I agree. And that’s not the worst of it. It also means when somebody else has trouble, you take some pleasure in it.
That’s just as bad. Or worse.
Again, I agree. It’s the sin that caused Satan to tempt Eve. He was so struck by her beauty and her goodness that he set out to destroy her. He was envious of her.
Envious? Is that envy?
Yes. When people say they envy you they often simply mean they wish they had what you had. It’s a kind of compliment.
Well, I have envied people in that sense but I can’t understand how people can be that other kind. It sounds like hatred.
Yes. It really is hatred. And if you can’t understand it, it means you are simply not tempted by that sin.
What do you mean?
I mean I was explaining this to someone and he just could not imagine what that feeling was. He had temptations to other sins, he said, but he had never experienced that one.
Maybe that’s the way God arranges it. Some people have temptations of all kinds except one. Maybe some don’t even have temptations to lust or anger.
Well, whatever the explanation is, we just want to avoid this envious feeling. We should rejoice when our friends win the lottery and sympathize with them when they lose their job. That’s the way to keep from falling into this more or less secret sin. Hardly anyone admits to this shameful sin that does not give you any kind of satisfaction like, say, greed or anger. There’s some satisfaction in those sins but not in envy.
I’m thankful to God that I don’t have this temptation. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.