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seven
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A Closer Look on Virtue and Sin
by Karmina de Jesus
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The University of Santo Tomas Publishing House
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Introduction
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Seven Heavenly Virtues
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Seven Deadly Sins
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Conceptual Photography
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One: Humility and Pride
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Two: Temperance and Gluttony
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Three: Charity and Greed
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Four: Kindness and Envy
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Five: Patience and Anger
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Six: Chastity and Lust
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Seven: Diligence and Sloth
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Conclusion
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The List of Seven Deadly Sins The List of Seven Hevenly Virtues Visual Index Content Credits
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Contents
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University of Santo Tomas Publishing House The University of Santo Tomas Publishing House (USTPH) was established in 1996 through the merger of the Santo Tomas University Press (STUP) and the UST Printing Office (USTPO). The Publishing House evolved from the UST Press, which was founded in 1593 by Fr. Francisco de San Jose, O.P. As such, it is the oldest continuing press in the world today, next to Cambridge University in England. As an academic publishing house, the USTPH has released numerous literary and scholarly titles as well as textbooks. It has won the highly-coveted honor of “Publisher of the Year” from the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) twice in a row, 2003 and 2004. In 2008, the MMC entered into an agreement with the National Book Development Board (NBDB) to institutionalize the National Book Awards. The USTPH was named Publisher of the Year by the MCC/NBDB in 2011. It is a member in good standing of the Philippine Association of Scholarly and Academic Publishers, Inc. (PASAP), the Book Development Association of the Philippines (BDAP), and the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society, Inc. (FILCOLS). The USTPH maintains its own bookstore inside the campus, distributes its titles through major bookstores, and participates in all major book fairs in the country.
Mission
The UST Publishing House’s specific role is the generation and dissemination of knowledge through the publication of outstanding works of scholarly and artistic / literary value.
Vision
The UST Publishing House is an integral part of the University of Santo Tomas, and committed to furthering the university’s objectives as globally recognized Catholic institution of higher learning. The USTPH envisions itself as a modern, professional academic publishing house, and the publisher of choice of the country’s top scholars and creative writers.
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Introduction
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Writers write to convulse the brain of the reader, to make a message out of a series of words. Images on the other hand speak a thousand language that communicates the eye, the heart, the soul and might even the brain. Photographers who capture the widespread language of humanity are the ones credited for. Photography if I may quote a few lines from Mishka Henner, “Photography is the strongest way of seeing” and “Photography is a potent and powerful force able to tell huge stories in single images”. When I created this book, I knew that the seven deadly sins overshadow the seven heavenly sins. It’s ironic that we give emphasis on what is more negative. We forget the positive aspect and create a bigger cloud on the former. I guess maybe it’s good to see both sides and see the greater message behind it Seven is a book of mundane scenarios, focusing each virtue and its contrary sin. Among these pages may you be able to take a closer look and understand the seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues. See, ponder and realize that both sin and virtue is part of our human life and that ordinary actions as they may seem might actually unearth something more, something elevant and calls the need for action -karmina de jesus
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The
Seven Heavenly Vir THE IMPERATIVE OF VIRTUE From Living for Eternity by Dave Breese
In Peter’s list of imperatives, the first to be added to faith is perhaps the rarest. It is virtue. In some ways virtue could also be called the most necessary. Virtue is the quality that places its stamp upon all other qualities in life. To fail at virtue is to fail at everything. A man may be talented, knowledgeable, capable, and characterized by remarkable ability in many ways. However, if he is not believed to be virtuous, he will hardly be trusted, even in the performance of his highest abilities. He will fail. We know from our deepest instincts that the basis of life is moral. The world, in the last analysis, is not made of bricks and stones or even atoms and molecules. It is made of a substance that, in its essence, is moral. This must be so, because the Maker of the universe is God Himself. This God, whom we know and worship, has declared Himself to be, first of all, a holy God. The people and things that will ultimately prosper in such a universe are those that are morally compatible with the nature of God. The people and things that will ultimately fail and be destroyed are those that set themselves at variance to the nature of God. It may be said of those attempting to beat the system that, when the system is designed by God Himself, it simply cannot be done.
rtues
17 MINERVA EXPELLING THE VICES FROM THE GARDEN OF VIRTUE by Andrera Mantegna
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The
Seven Deadly Sins THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS From Greed by Elda Rotor
The notion of the Seven Deadly Sins did not originate in the Bible. Sources identify early lists of transgressions classified in the 4th century by Evagrius of Pontus and then by John of Cassius. In the 6th century, Gregory the Great formulated the traditional seven. The sins were ranked by increasing severity, and judged to be the greatest offenses to the soul and the root of all other sins. As certain sins were subsumed into others and similar terms were used interchangeably according to theological review, the list evolved to include the seven as we know them: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Anger, and Sloth. To counter these violations, Christian theologians classified the Seven Heavenly Virtues—the cardinal: Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude, and the xii EDITOR ’S NOTE theological: Faith, Hope, and Charity. The sins inspired medieval and Renaissance writers including Chaucer, Dante, and Spenser, who personified the seven in rich and memorable characters. Depictions grew to include associated colors, animals, and punishments in hell for the deadly offenses. Through history, the famous list has emerged in theological and philosophical tracts, psychology, politics, social criticism, popular culture, and art and literature. Whether the deadly seven to you represent the most common human foibles or more serious spiritual shortcomings, they stir the imagination and evoke the inevitable question— what is your deadly sin?
19 SEVEN DEADLY SINS by Elizabeth Shafer
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CONCEPTUAL P
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PHOTOGRAPHY Conceptual Art developed in the 1960s and aims to emphasize the idea over the art object. This is to free the artist from the gallery. Conceptual art is of course tied intimately with photography since the conceptual art performance leaves no object and thus must be documented by photography. This begs the question of course of whether or not the photograph is the object of the art. -Kim Taylor
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CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY From the online book Photographic Psychology: Image and Psyche by John Suler
cific visual form with substance. It propels the concept it represents towards the concrete physical world. What Does It Mean, and to Whom?
We live in age of conscious concepts and images. Consider images in magazines that attempt to sell us a “concept car,” or celebrities and politicians who worry about how visuals in the media convey a concept of who they are, what people often refer to as their “image.” The words concept and image sometimes seem almost interchangeable. This is because the visual image provides a powerful pathway for the expression of a concept
The conceptual photographer strives to bring a message to the viewer. It might be a political statement, a social commentary, or , (…) the portrayal of a psychological idea about people, relationships, and emotions. The viewers’ task is to figure out what the message is. The photographer encourages them to ask themselves, “What does this photo mean?”
Photographers are particularly effective. A picture is worth a thousand words, which means a variety of ides can be condensed into a single photo. Photographs also offer a seemingly more real, tangible depiction of concepts that otherwise seem abstract or elusive. For all of these reasons, pictures are used extensively in advertisements, movies, videos, magazines, and books to convey an idea. Conceptual Photographs often appear on instructional presentations and textbooks on any subject matter you can imagine. However, our educational system emphasizes the refinement of conceptual thinking via language and Tsemantics, while paying relatively little attention to the development of visual literacy, that is, how we create and analyze images as expressions of an idea.(...)
Some conceptual photographers work hard at making the answer to that question as specific as possible. They want the photo to convey one particular idea regardless of who is looking at it and what that person’s background might be. They might even claim that the meaning of the image is exactly what they intended and only what they intended. If you see a photo of a sickly looking man, grasping his chest, coughing up smoke, with a lit cigarette in his hand, the message is clear: smoking is bad for your health. Rather than simply presenting a conceptual “ fact,” some conceptual photographers persuade people to think a certain way about an issue, and may even encourage them to change their feelings and beliefs about it.
The “Concept” in Conceptual Photography
Other conceptual photographers take a different approach. In the photo they offer up a general concept, but they design the image in such a way that viewers might interpret the meaning more subjectively, according to their own expectations, feelings and backgrounds. The photographer steers viewers into a conceptual ballpark, the encourage them to decide for themselves what in particular the photo might mean. (...) The purpose of these kinds of conceptual photographs is to get people to think about a particular idea, usually by drawing on their own feelings, expectations and memories.
What is a concept anyway? The dictionary will tell you that it’s a generalized idea of a thing or a class of things. It’s an abstract thought in the human mind rather than a concrete, tangible entity in the physical world. (…) Conceptual thinking can operate through visualizations. Even though a photograph is a representation of a particular thing rather than a generalized idea about things, it isn’t that particular physical thing itself. You can’t sit in photography of a chair. We could therefore argue that a shot of a chair, or of anything, is a very simple form of conceptual photography because it’s not the actual thing, but a rep- The process of “projection” is similar to what happens resentation of that thing, a representation that has been when people view the more ambiguous types of conceptaken away from or “abstracted” from the real world.(…) tual photographs. The photo presents the container of a general concept or idea, but then people fill that containThe image in particular plays a pivotal mediating role in er with their own personal meanings. Some artist would the intersection of language and physical reality. In con- say that this is what their work is all about- to open a door ceptual photography, we take a generalized idea based to an idea, allowing people to enter and explore on their on the meaning of the words and transform it into a spe- own.
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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.� - Aristotle
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umility bears the quality “the reverence a person bears toward God, which prevents one from claiming more than what is due to a person according to a divinely appointed lot.� The virtue of humility reminds us to low disposition, meaning we are able to surrender our capacity to put on first priority the Lord’s sake. It seeks to put away personal greatness to an orderly love that stems out from appreciation of the gift of life with our neighbors. Nurturing the virtue of humility makes us grow in peace, knowing to be of help to others. More than that brings out goodness of other virtues such as knowledge, honesty, courage and more. To nurture humility, one must be fast to recognize others more than the need of himself. Take away the pride of power, accomplishments and other statues that owes recognition back to us. There should be gratitude towards God in all his creation and blessing that helps us to achieve our success and that without him, we are nothing. Lastly, humility calls us to be realistic individuals. Being true to our own strengths and weakness awakens our self-awareness of who we really are.
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ride is so much a part of us. Pride P feeds our self-admiration, to continuously be ahead of others. We do everything to physically look good. Vanity according to the dictionary is inflated pride in oneself or one’s appearance. Inflated pride suggests that there is pride, and likely an obsession to appearance or other attributes as the source of that somewhat overarching self-approval. Narcissism as well enters the picture which tells us as an overestimation of one’s talents, a need to be the center of attention, blatant disregard for others and emotional manipulation. The way pride drives people to oblivion to one’s flaw is wrong. If you think you are ahead of everyone, Pride has taken you for a fool. When what you perceive of yourself no longer conforms to reality, Pride is feeding you. According to the book For Dummies, Pride is the key to all other sins, because after you believe that you’re more important than you actually are, you compensate for it when others don’t agree with your judgment. You rationalize your behavior and make excuses for lying, cheating, stealing, insulting, ignoring, and such, because no one understands you like you do. In your mind, you’re underestimated by the world.
pri de
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he virtue of temperance concerns T pleasure and the ability of a person
to restrain or discipline himself. Temperance enables us as a person to set parameters for virtuous Living. The dictionary defines temperance as moderation or self-restraint in action, statement, self-control. It is
the habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion, especially in the use of alcoholic liquors. Abstinence and sobriety is the moderation of the pleasures of the table. According to Ronald Siegel, in positive psychology, the virtue of temperance is associated with protective traits that help you avoid excess and stay on track in the face of temptations.
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he virtue of temperance concerns pleasure and the ability of a person T to restrain or discipline himself. Temperance enables us as a person to set parameters for virtuous Living. The dictionary defines temperance as moderation or self-restraint in action, statement, self-control. It is the habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion, especially in the use of alcoholic liquors. Abstinence and sobriety is the moderation of the pleasures of the table. According to Ronald Siegel, in positive psychology, the virtue of temperance is associated with protective traits that help you avoid excess and stay on track in the face of temptations.
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eat, and the God who created what we eat. Looking at the way gluttony has evolved, overconsumption of food can be seen normal from the rise of fast food chains and eat-all-you-can buffet restaurants. The true threat of gluttony is it leaves us as S. Michael Hondmann say, “Physical appetites are an analogy of our ability to control ourselves.” Indeed we do not live by bread alone. To include lightly, Obesity is mistaken for gluttony but this is not the case. People with excess body fat carry the burden of gluttony, but weight doesn’t necessarily justify this. Feasting and fasting almost sound too familiarly. During the season of lent, fasting is a spiritual discipline that teaches us to give up food for n excessive indulgence in the a certain time. Fasting actually inpleasures of food and drink is what crease our appreciation towards magluttony means. The book Proverbs terial goods in its rightful place. Fasttells us to, “ Put a knife to your throat ing does not do violence in the body if you are given to gluttony (23:2)” but puts it to health and equilibrium. The excessive intake or desire to eat dulls the appreciation of the food we In gluttony we find comfort from eat, the way we eat it, with whom we food and the fullness it brings. This
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Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us
-Peter De Vries
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harity is a theological virtue by C which we love God and loving God
means loving our neighbors the same way. It’s a theological virtue meaning it was given to us at baptism together with faith and hope. Learning to give is what the virtue of charity wants to instill in every person. Sharing what you have to others is almost the same as being a blessing to them. Turning into charity, rather than focusing on always getting something, we find happiness and look forward to the generous gift of heaven. Truly, charity is more of having happiness than the person who acquires power. Happiness in comparison is the kind of wealth that sets a person free, while greed increases gold deep down inside we are impoverished inside. Growing in charity, we should find time to be of help to others. Secondly, when you give, give everything you can offer and don’t ask anything in return.
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reed is the love of money. AnyG one who wishes to acquire the power
it brings will do anything. According to Paul (1 Tim 6:10 ), “for the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows�. There is nothing wrong with money. However, when it starts to control us, the power that come along with it becomes an illusion of happiness. The threat of Greed promises security and convenience, and who would give up that kind of power? Rich in gold and leisure, but what is left for the greedy person? Here is what frederick Buechnener has to say, The trouble with being rich is that since you can solve with your checkbook virtually all practical problems that bedevil ordinary people, you are left in your leisure with nothing but the great human problems to contend with: how to be happy, how to love and be loved, how to find meaning and purpose in your life. In desperation the rich are continually tempted to believe that they can solve all these problems too with their checkbooks, which is presumably what led Jesus to remark one day that for a rich man to get to heaven is about as easy as for a Cadillac to get through a revolving door. Today, we are accustomed to think buying is a ritual to satisfy our deepest needs but it’s not. The power of greed makes it easier to think that money brings us on a pedestal that allows us to play God. The truth is having more than what we need separates us from the real creator.
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Greed is not a financial issue. It’s a heart issue. -Andy Stanley
52 indness is always a good idea, K the virtue that enables us to store back our faith in humanity. It’s true that there is always news of murder in our televisions, but once in a while there are also viral works of kindness that greet us. There is something about this virtue that directly touches the heart. An act of kindness walks out of line most of the time, sometimes it seems like it’s inherent to be caring to complete strangers when the need arises. If there’s one thing that can be popular all throughout, I hope it is kindness. Never miss a chance to catch kindness and share it to others. Kindness is hard. It’s not fair most of the time but it’s a choice to be a kind person. Kindness is favor without return and you know what they say about these things, it works completely the opposite. So the next time you do an act of kindness, don’t ask for reciprocation because the truth is it will return in multifold.
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Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude
-Confucius
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nvy can explain the relationE ship we have with social media, how
numbers can actually trigger jealousy. We now live in a physically high substandard society where appearances matter, the famous people that we look up to and desire to acquire their kind of living. Envy is the unhealthy longing for possessions, abilities and status of another. Envy is prevalent in our culture that emphasizes self-worth but the moment someone precedes the ladder, our first instinct is to drag them down. Comparison is the thief of joy, words from Theodore Roosevelt. It is comparison of what we have to others that make us unhappy. We don’t need to measure what is greater because sometimes having just what you need is better than having none.
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atience is not rushing into anger, P patience is being able to wait, and patience is a virtue. Our problem is that we always want instantaneous results to all the challenges we meet, forgetting that patience is required. Everything about we do is hurried and hectic, the value of time is neglected enormously.
The virtue of patience is the ability to put our desires on hold for a time. It doesn’t mean that we have plenty of time to waste, rather, we learn to value persistence while waiting. Coping with hardship we are able to endure well while waiting. Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. It means reining in anger and holding back the unkind word. It means resisting evil, even when it appears to be making others rich.
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Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrate strength -Edward G. Bulwer-Lytto
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The hellish habit of anger points back to our love of our self. If you look to understand what makes people angry is when you have caused them insults or injury, an attack against their guard. What Cain did to his brother Abel is the first recorded mortal sin after the original sin. Falling out the grace of God, he killed his brother out of jealousy, the sin of envy. Cain killing his brother is the sin of Anger. Thus only justify that two wrongs don’t make it right. Anger clouded with personal judgment makes it wrong. Often, we see criticisms as daggers to our character, an attack against us calls for fear and vulnerability.
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People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness -Proverbs 14:29
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Chastity is having a pure heart, a
heart that desires no evil. In comparison to the sin of lust, Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being (CCC 2337). Therefore, chastity gives reason to our sexual appetites which allows us experience freedom from ridiculous thoughts and nourishes love in our relationships. It also protects our human body as sacred temples that should not be tainted. In order to take care of our bodies, maybe it’s time to look on the clothes we wear especially for women. What you wear attracts the kind of response from another person. The way you dress kind of mirrors what is inside. And then the use of media, the internet in particular. Sometimes being fixated on the consumption of lustful images becomes a normal thing to our eyes which should not be the case. Chastity also encourages reflecting on our relationships and asking if it upholds love and sanctity within this friendship.
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Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul -Charlie Chaplin
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The Catholic Church believes that
it’s normal and healthy to be attracted to and to appreciate the opposite sex. That’s not lust, and it’s not considered a sin. What makes it a sin is its disordevred desire for sexual pleasure. Lust destroys the power of Love. We commit this sin when we use others, for instance engaging in lust. It blinds us believing that it is love and destroys our ability to love purely and wholeheartedly making us selfish. In Matthew 5:28, Jesus said that ‘whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ A person who is lustful not only use the other person as an object of his desire but also takes his appetite on top priority. It diminishes the importance of a person and should be asserted from Kant that a person should never be treated as a means to an end, but always as an end in herself. Love is the acceptable opposite of lust. As lust is hasty, shameful, and dirty, love is patient, honorable and pure. Love nurtures and capably generous, it doesn’t ask for more than what it needs. Remember that lust leads to destruction and love is all about construction.
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People confuse ego, lust, insecurity with true love -Simon Cowell
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today needs to reinforce today.
Diligence counteracts
the sin of sloth through the desire to do more, progress and act to accomplish more. It is determined to be in direction of righteousness. This virtue puts love into action and strengthens our morals. It enables us to do more of our time, the kind of virtue that the youth
Proverbs 13:4 says, “The sluggard [lazy person] craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.� The message is actually simple, if you work hard, chances are you get what you want and if you are breeding the sin of sloth, it only means that you are not doing anything. We often complain how hard it is to do things because of our complacency of the amount of hours there is a day. Repeated action of work becomes a habit and that is the same way we nourish the virtue of diligence.
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di li ge nce
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Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going -Jim Rohn
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azy to move, too bored L to function, sleep all day are
just a few statements I’ve seen from twitter, sounds like they got time to waste. Sloth diminishes the importance of the help we can render if we do work. Intelligent Life Magazine captures the meaning of sloth as Camila Batmanghelidjh be-
lieves that sloth is the deadliest sin. According to her, perhaps the contemporary word for sloth would be “complacency”: the condition in which we don’t aspire to greater things. I’m not talking about material enhancement, rather an inner lack of ambition or responsibility for yourself and for others—a lethargy of the spirit. It doesn’t look like but all our actions have influence to others. When you give in to not doing, you also forget to notice and you eventually forget to care. Time is wasted and the talents blessed to every individual are not used wisely. Sloth is a sin of waste, wanting more rest and relax, with no desire or intention of making a sacrifice for others.
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We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty
-Quintillian
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An honest look inside all of us is the first step in attaining a good character. Choosing right over wrong is always an honorable act. Having virtues does not happen overnight, it is perfected over years of walking with God and consistenly measuring up to the standard given. Everyone is called to nurture their virtues especially when we think of what is happening in our society right now. Times have changed and instilling values are neglected through convenience found in our modern era. On the other hand, sin will always be a temptation that we have endure, a challenge and guide to all of us. Sin is clever in tricking the young generation with its countless opportunites to do the act. The existence of virtues are our ultimate answer to fight against the sins of temptation.
Nurture your values and kick the habit of shamelessly sinning Consider a life that is abundant in virtues, for in nurturing them we will be righteous and more than happy than the momentary bliss the sins can give. Remember that wealth gained in dishonety cannot be measured to the amount of goodness a pure heart can offer.
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conclusion
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The
Seven Deadly Sins
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The Seven Deadly Sins
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The
Seven Heavenly Virtues
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The Seven Heavenly Virtues
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seven
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Content Credits The author wish to thank the following people for their kind permission to use the words, illustration and photos in this book:
ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE 14 Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue by Andrera Mantegna PAGE 15 Seven Deadly Sins by Elizabeth Shafer WORDS PAGE 14 The Imperative of Virtue From Living for Eternity
by David Breese PAGE 15 The Seven Deadly Sins From Greed
by Elda Rotor PAGE 20 Conceptual Photograph From Photographic Psychology: Image and Psyche
by John Suler
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