🚫 Vice vs. Virtue: Why You Keep Committing the Same Sin (Fr. Mark Beard)

Father Mark Beard delivers a powerful and direct homily on the universal spiritual struggle: why we keep committing the same sins. He emphasizes a core theological truth: you must not only stop a vice, you must immediately start a virtue to take its place.

The Spiritual Vacuum:
Stop Doing, Start Doing (0:00): The homily opens with the clear command that there is something we must stop doing (vice) and something we must start doing (virtue).

The Demon Returns Sevenfold (1:10): Father Beard references the Gospel parable where a demon leaves a man (cleanses the house), but because the house is left empty, the demon returns with seven other demons to possess the man completely. The number seven signifies completeness, meaning the man is now totally lost.

The Problem is Not Filling the Hole (2:10): He explains that the reason we go to Confession for the same sins over and over is that we are simply getting rid of the vice temporarily but are not filling the spiritual vacuum with a virtue. If the hole is not filled, the vice will grow and grow, leading to the Seven Deadly Sins and breaking the Commandments.

The Call to Virtue:
Replace Vice with Virtue (1:02): Every vice must be replaced with its corresponding virtue.

If you judge (a vice), ask for the virtue of Justice (treating others as you wish to be treated).

If you gossip/slander (a vice), ask for the virtue of Prudence (saying the right thing the right way).

If you are angry/addicted (vices), ask for Temperance (self-control) or Fortitude (courage to persevere).

The Danger of Distraction (0:36): He calls out pornography as the "dominant demon all the way into grammar school" and identifies gossip/slander as "mind boggling" because we have 40,000 words yet choose the two that violate the Commandments.

To stop committing the same sin, you must ask God for the virtue to take its place. What vice are you ready to replace today?