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The Answer to the BURNING QUESTION of the Week
By Paul Dion, STL

Here 's the Burning Question:
What is the worst sin?

Here is the answer that can be found in the Gospel:

(Matthew 12:30-32):
Jesus said:
"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
To commit the unforgivable sin is to sin against the Holy Spirit. Since the Spirit is credited as the one who gives us faith to call Jesus our Lord (cf. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, as well as 1 Corinthians 12:3), sinning against the Spirit is obdurate rejection of the saving message that the Spirit brings. It would not be quite accurate to say that the sin against the Holy Spirit is simple unbelief. All persons are in a state of unbelief before they are called by God, and God by his Spirit graciously brings us out of this condition and into relationship with him. In the Gospel we see people who are being called out of unbelief to belief through the miracles performed by Jesus before their very eyes. Yet, they refused to come to the faith.
Let us call upon you to read once again the sharp words of Jesus to the pharisees at the end of chapter 9 of the Gospel of John:
"Then Jesus said, 'I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.'
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, 'Surely we are not also blind, are we?'
Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains."

To make ourselves blind, and to perservere in our blindness out of human refusal to see is the worst insult that can be directed to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is also the worst thing that we can do to ouselves because it shuts us out of heaven by our very own stubborn doing.