PatriotDev
Never Broken
Notes on Gossip
Gossiping is several sins
1. Curiosity: You’d like to know something. In theology, it is defined as pursuit of knowledge that is not proper to your state in life.
A. Not good for them spiritually.
B. Don’t need to know.
The first sin of curiosity was the first sin ever committed. Eve committed five sins in the fall. Adam eight. Eve saw the serpent talking and new better, but instead allowed her curiosity to get the better of her.
2. Retraction: saying something that’s true in order to destroy or bring down someone’s reputation.
A. “Did you hear what so and so said?”
We get pleasure from this.
Detraction against clergy, Biship and pope? Not good for spiritual life.
3. Saying something bad about someone: three things you must have.
A. It has to be just. It has to be no more or less than what they did.
B. It has to be charitable.
C. It has to be necessary for them to know. If it’s not necessary, don’t say it.
If you are going to use your tongue, wag it at God, not others.
3. Murmuring: To separate one’s affections from another.
A. Said quietly.
B. Said to separate friends.
C. Murmuring proceeds from Malice.
4. Calumny: Lying
A. Saying something false about someone else. Done to satisfy the desire to bring someone down.
5. Contumely: saying something damaging to someone’s face.
A. Accusing people to their face of bad things.
Three things we must have to judge someone.
Authority over the person. Only God has authority over the conscience of an individual.
Justice, no more no less. No exaggeration.
Knowledge. We do not have access to the interior lives of other people.
6. Violates temperance: intellectual pleasure we get from hearing bad things about others. Must be regulated because it is harmful to us.
God has a right to public vindication of his laws.
Temperance, Modesty, is the virtue that regulates a person’s externals. Every sin committed, except for those committed in thought destroy modesty.
A. DOn’t draw attention to something that’s immodest.
B. Decorum when your externals fit who and what you are in your mind.
6. Wonder: when a person does something to draw attention to oneself.
A. Spiked hair, tattoos, etc. to make people see you as the centre of attention.
7. Supernatural prudence: the pursuit of pleasure.
A. Will what you say help someone spiritually? If not keep your mouth shut.
8. Justice: Gossiping causes damage.
A. Family destroyed.
B. Only talk if there is a necessary cause, daughter dating a moral degenerate.
C. If said to bring someone down you must make restorative justice.
A person’s reputation is like their property. If you take it without reason, you must restore it to the degree you can.
If there’s any aspect of justice you have not paid back, you’ll spend time in purgatory if your soul is save. You *must* repair the damage. You must go back to the people and tell them what you’ve done.
D. Natural justice.
If I steal something from someone, I must give it back or financially compensate.
E. Transcendent order of justice
Justice against God, repaired by making right natural justice. If that can’t be done, pray for the people you got into sin with you. If not, you could spend time in purgatory or lose your soul.
9. Charity
A. Peace, tranquility. If your soul is rightly ordered, you will have tranquility. Charity orders us to God.
B. I don’t know what’s going on with the person, so I can’t pass judgment. That’s charity.
10. Integrity: the virtue in which you always pursue in every circumstance what is the virtuous thing to do. First corrupted, last perfected.
How do you stop gossiping?
Stop being curious about what others are doing. It will disrupt your peace. It’s not worth it. The biggest mistake Even made is wanting to know what God and the angels knew.
Show mercy.
Make reparation.
Say something nice about the other individual.
Tell people that this discussion isn’t helping you advance in virtue and you don’t want to discuss it. Show a lack of interest. This will kill the other person’s need to be the centre of attention.
Pray. One effect of prayer is that as you lift your mind and heart to God, your mind begins to quiet. Your emotional and appetites calm down. We get delight when we attain virtue.
I am sorry for any typos or misspellings. I was trying to make notes during the video. The video link is:
https://youtu.be/5jQOSd7-UOE