CATHOLIC WORD BOOK - Knights of Columbus, Supreme Council

Signs of the Times: Contemporary events,
trends and features in culture and society,
the needs and aspirations of people, all the
factors that form the context in and
through which the Church has to carry on
its saving mission. The Second Vatican
Council spoke on numerous occasions
about these signs and the relationship
between them and a kind of manifestation
of God’s will, positive or negative, and
about subjecting them to judgment and
action corresponding to the demands of
divine revelation through Scripture,
Christ, and the experience, tradition and
teaching authority of the Church.
Simony: The deliberate intention and act of
selling and/or buying spiritual goods or
material things so connected with the
spiritual that they cannot be separated
therefrom; a violation of the virtue of
religion, and a sacrilege, because it
wrongfully puts a material price on
spiritual things, which cannot be either
sold or bought. In church law, actual sale or
purchase is subject to censure in some
cases. The term is derived from the name of
Simon Magus, who attempted to buy from
Sts. Peter and John the power to confirm
people in the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:4 24).
Sin: (1) Actual sin is the free and deliberate
violation of God’s law by thought, word or
action. (a) Mortal sin — involving serious
matter, sufficient reflection and full
consent — results in the loss of sanctifying
grace and alienation from God, and
renders a person incapable of performing
meritorious supernatural acts and subject
to everlasting punishment. (b) Venial sin
— involving less serious matter, reflection
and consent — does not have such serious
consequences. (2) Original sin is the sin of
Adam, with consequences for all human
beings. (See separate entry.)
Sins against the Holy Spirit: Despair of
salvation, presumption of God’s mercy,
impugning the known truths of faith,
envy at another’s spiritual good, obstinacy
in sin, final impenitence. Those guilty of
such sins stubbornly resist the influence of
grace and, as long as they do so, cannot be
forgiven.
Sins, Occasions of: Circumstances (persons,
places, things, etc.) which easily lead to sin.
There is an obligation to avoid voluntary
proximate occasions of sin, and to take
precautions against the dangers of
unavoidable occasions.
Sins That Cry to Heaven for Vengeance:
Willful murder, sins against nature,
oppression of the poor, widows and
orphans, defrauding laborers of their
wages.
Sister: Any woman religious, in popular
speech; strictly, the title applies only to
women religious belonging to institutes
whose members never professed solemn
vows. Most of the institutes whose
members are properly called Sisters were
established during and since the 19th
century. Women religious with solemn
vows, or belonging to institutes whose
members formerly professed solemn vows,
are properly called nuns.
Sisterhood: A generic term referring to the
whole institution of the life of women
religious in the Church, or to a particular
institute of women religious.
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