Let us think of the sins which some call light: although they are not mortal, they are still of great severity; and we fall into them from weakness and lack of willpower. A sin that seems to be light is not such in itself, nor in comparison with mortal sin. For example, a lake is called small when it is compared to a large sea, although in fact it is not small at all, because it contains a lot of water. In the same way, a small sin seems small only in comparison with mortal sin, but taken in itself, it is a great evil. Because both minor and major sin stem from the same source – the violation of the Divine law, as the Evangelist John says: "Everyone who commits sin also commits iniquity; and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). And, according to the Apostle James, whoever keeps the whole law and sins in one thing becomes guilty of all things (James 2:10).

So, my beloved, how can we call our ordinary sins small—for example, lying, or when we say, "Of two evils, let us choose the lesser, lest the greater may happen"; Or anger, indulgence in church piety, envy, sorrow, which we feel when our neighbor is ahead of us in virtue, idle talk, carelessness in words, satiety of the belly, pleasure of taste, and the like? How can the sins that incline us to great evil be small?

Let us not consider that these seemingly petty sins are not contrary to the will of God and do not distance us from the divine glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are in error, in delusion, if we believe that some common sin, for example, idle talk, is not evil in the eyes of God. For the Lord said very clearly about him: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37). How can we say that our inappropriate laughter is not contrary to the will of God, while our Lord, when He became Man, not only never laughed, but, on the contrary, wept four times? He also said in His teaching: Woe to you who laugh now! for ye shall weep and mourn" (Luke 6:25). Basil the Great in his rules for monks defined a week of excommunication for laughter, inappropriate conversations or joking words: "If anyone makes jokes or laughs inappropriately, let him be excommunicated for one week."

How can we say that gluttony, drunkenness, and lying are not contrary to the will of God, when the Lord Himself said that He would destroy all those who speak falsehood (Psalm 5:7), and that the satiated would hunger: Woe to you who are satiated now! for ye shall hunger" (Luke 6:25). And here is an image of how small sins damage virtue and diminish divine grace in us: if a fly gets into fragrant myrrh, but it is quickly extracted from it, then the fragrance of the myrrh will not be damaged, but if the fly remains in it, then the incense will turn into a stench, as the Holy Spirit said through the mouth of Ecclesiastes: "Dead flies spoil and make the fragrant oil of the myrrh stinking (Ecclesiastes 10:10). 1).

So it is with small sins, when a pious and virtuous soul does not cleanse itself of them, they cause it great harm, because if they remain in it for a long time, then it begins! incline one's will to them, and then the purity of virtue and the fragrance of divine grace are removed from it, and the attainment of the perfection of such a soul becomes a very difficult matter.

These sins make the soul filthy and hateful: before God. For if only one evil thought is abominable and hateful in the eyes of God, as the Inductor says: "Evil thoughts are an abomination in the sight of the Lord" (Proverbs 15:26), and if thoughts alone, when they are evil, separate the soul from God, and false reasoning distances it from God (Wis. 1:3), then how much more is that accursed soul separated from the love of God and becomes abhorrent to His infinite goodness, who actually commits these "small" sins?

We need to flee from these "small" sins, because if we intend to please God and not give up "light" sins at the same time, then what can be more hateful to Him than our desire to unite Heaven with hell, darkness with light, fire with water, and holiness with evil?

These sins, although they seem small, have a great gravity, because they offend the All-Holy God. In the same way, the greatest evil done by any creature is trivial in comparison with that inflicted on the Creator. Let us be ashamed of the ease with which we commit actions that are displeasing to God. Let us fulfill the commandments of the Lord – all without exception – and let us resolve not only not to commit these small sins, but also to completely prevent our hearts from inclining to them. If we happen to fall into them through the weakness of nature and will, then we will not allow our heart to be carried away by them, but let us hate them, repent and confess them, and ask the Lord to strengthen us with His grace, so that we may not fall into them again.

Let us also think about the multitude of evils that "light" sins bring into our souls. As illness weakens the body, so small sins remove from our soul all good and weaken it, destroying the virtues that give a person the fragrance of holiness. Each sin, although it seems light, removes us from the fruits of spiritual life, places us far from the Holy Mysteries and hinders our unity with the Lord Christ, just as the prophet Isaiah says: "Your iniquities have made a division between you and God" (Isaiah 59:2). This small, seemingly venial, sin makes our soul cold to love, mortifies piety, dries up tears of tenderness, quenches repentance, and prevents the grace of Christ from dwelling in us. However, an even greater evil is when we easily pass from small sins to serious, mortal sins that completely destroy an unfortunate person. These sins render the good habits of the soul impotent and prevent them from receiving help from God.

Let us now dwell on how we pass from small sins to major ones. It seems to us unimportant to carelessly examine someone's beautiful face. But let's see what sins are born from this. Contemplating beauty gives reason for impure thoughts to attack us. At first they begin to attract our attention, then we have a determination to attain pleasure, then we actually commit a sin, its repeated commission gives rise to a habit of it, the habit gradually turns into a permanent custom, the custom grows into the necessity of sinning, such a state gives rise to despair, and despair plunges a person into eternal torment.

The Lord gave the Nazarites a commandment not to drink wine and not to eat not only ripe, but even unripe grapes, and also not to drink their juice. And this is because the one who eats unripe grapes gradually develops a taste for ripe grapes, from it to grape juice, from juice to wine, and from wine to drunkenness. Now we see what the long chain leads to, beginning with a "light" sin. He who does not pay attention to small sins falls into great ones, as the Holy Spirit says in the Wisdom of Sirach: "He who values small things will gradually fall into decay" (Sir. 19:1).

Finally, St. John Chrysostom says that although the seeds are small, large trees grow from them, and foxes are small animals, but they destroy the entire vineyard. In the same way, small passions, like foxes, devour clusters of virtues, a person gradually becomes corrupt and falls from small sins into great ones.