Mea Culpa

So I need to make a clarification based on multiple people's responses to multiple posts.

When I write something that is about the internal life, specifically about what constitutes sin, I do not write it for someone in particular. I cannot ever say whether someone is in mortal sin, and I can rarely say if someone is in sin (because even involuntary sin is still venial sin, that is a judgement call one can make). As such, my writings are designes as, at most, guides to suggest how one might examine one's self.

What this means is that if you felt yourself attacked in my blog, it was not intentional. I might have been attacking a situation you are in, think yourself in, or appear to be in, but much of the time I probably did not even know of the situation (sometimes I do, and sometimes that knowledge begins a thought process that results in a post, but most of the time those post look nothing like the original situation).

If, for example, I post about people gossiping and you do, I am probably not writing directly to you but it applies to you. On the same hand (if I can use that phrase) people might think you gossip a lot and have said so, but you do not believe it to be gossip. I am likewise not writing to you but it may or may not apply to you, depending on whether or not those other people are correct. But I am not making the judgement on whether they are or not.

My goal is to be as broad and focused as possible, writing posts that can reach a variety of people but engage a single issue and drive it home. Because of this, my posts will apply to situations in people lives, often things they do not want to think about and often things they are harrassed about. My goal is neither to harrass nor point fingers, but just to present my understanding of an issue, which very well might be wrong in the end.


Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Guide us with your prayers and lead us into a full understandig of the great will God has in store for us and by your prayers may we never stray from what is right.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.