contemplativeI am down in down here in the lower level of our home looking at a book I was reading last night before going to bed titled, "Knowing The Love Of God: Lessons From A Spiritual Master" by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.. I want to quote from this book this evening because it speaks to why people mess up their lives by being foolish.
"Malice of Sin
Sin is essentially a disobedience to the law of God. What does it mean to disobey God? Sacred Scripture teaches us that sin is foolishness, a vileness, the worst type of ingratitude, injustice, and outrage. Sin is an offense whose gravity is, in a certain sense, infinite. All this is true, saving the proportion, whether said of mortal sin or deliberate venial sin. We should as the Lord to help us thoroughly understand this.
Sin is first of all foolishness. St. Paul does not hesitate to affirm that those the world considers wise are fools in the eyes of God. The wisdom of the world that excuses and justified unbelief, pride, sloth, and lust is foolishness. "Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God" (1 Cor. 3:19). Considering that God has designed with infinite goodness to show us the way that leads to happiness-"learn to know Me, love Me and serve Me, and you will attain life everlasting"-are we not also foolish if we refuse to follow? We were created to answer "yes" to the divine call and instead we say, "no." Thus, while God wishes to draw us to Himself, we put ourselves at a distance from Him.
The worldly person rushes to his pleasures of the moment. He compares and contrasts his miserable goods with God and in practice, by his life and his manner of acting, he does not hesitate to affirm that such nonsense is worth more than God, more than His friendship and everlasting life. How many times he says: "Sensuality is worth more than God; money, revenge, honors are worth more than He; my judgment more than His, my little capricious will more than the infinitely holy will of the Most High." We place our childish whim in opposition to the will of God and it conquers. Is this not without doubt foolishness? Is is the foolishness of an instant but it can become habitual and then produce a darkening or complete blinding of the spirit. This will be such a blinding that the transient good is preferred without hesitation to the eternal good, the poisoned fruit to the bread of life, while the sinner finally loses the consciousness of doing evil. The sinners "have. . . eyes, but never see, ears, but never, hear" Psalm 135:16-17) and "drink iniquity like water!" (Job 15:16). . ." pg. 17,18 KNOWING THE LOVE OF GOD