The Catalog of Good Deeds: Q&A

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Every Orthodox Christian should have some holy Theophany water at home. Traditionally, the Orthodox drink the holy water consecrated on Theophany Day on an empty stomach with a prosphora after morning prayers. This water is sacred and demands utmost respect.

Saints on Holy Water

Saint Demetrius of Kherson wrote, “Consecrated water is a powerful means of sanctifying the souls and bodies of those who use it.” If we take it with faith and prayer, it can cure our physical illnesses. St. Seraphim of Sarov would always make his visitors drink some holy Theophany water after confession.

Saint Luke of Crimea advised, “Drink holy water as often as possible. It is the best and the most effective medicine. I’m saying that not just as a priest but also from my experience as a doctor.”

St. Seraphim of Vyritsa always recommended his spiritual children to sprinkle raw and cooked food with holy Theophany water, which, according to him, “consecrates everything all on its own.” Whenever anyone fell seriously ill, St. Seraphim would bless them to take a tablespoonful of holy water hourly. He used to say that there are no better remedies than holy water and holy oil.

Good to Know

The Greater Hagiasma is viewed by Church canons as a lower level of Holy Eucharist: in the cases when a member of the Church is forbidden to take the Holy Body and Blood of Christ due to their wrongdoings, the canon law usually adds, “he may drink hagiasma, though.”

It is good to know that dipping in consecrated water reservoirs on Theophany Day is a folk custom. It doesn’t make you free from sins and cannot be regarded as the substitute for the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession). Christians should do their best to participate in church services and the greatest Sacrament of the Church, i.e., the Holy Eucharist, on church holidays.

May One Sprinkle Unclean Places with Holy Water?

The power of the Cross can shield people like exorcism does. Thus, consecration has two meanings: either we use holy water to ‘fill something with grace’ or ‘to prevent any evil spirit from hiding in a certain place’ such as our bathroom.

May One Drink Holy Water After Eating?

Traditionally, people drink holy water on an empty stomach in the morning, which is understandable: first you take holy water and then your regular food. As far as the rest of the day is concerned, the Typikon (Chapter 48, Menaia for January 6) contains the following regulations:

Let it be known of the holy water: those who do not drink it because they have already consumed food, are mistaken, for God’s grace is granted for the sanctification of the entire world and all creatures. We sprinkle all places, including unclean ones and even the floor under our feet, with holy water. Where is the reason of those who do not drink it because of having eaten food?

Therefore, it isn’t reasonable to abstain from holy water because of having eaten some food. The Church does not prohibit us to drink holy water, even Theophany water at any time, and admonishes those who believe that it is forbidden to drink holy water not on an empty stomach.

Where Should We Store Holy Water?

Holy water is stored in a special vial or bottle. You can attach a note to the bottle to avoid using the water for the purposes that it isn’t intended for. You can find special bottles for holy water in many church stores.

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: https://azbyka.ru/voda-svyataya

We have received an email from someone which goes as follows:

"Hello,

I was just wondering if you could give me your opinion on a question about entering into the monastic life.

If one was married in the past and had a child, and now the two are divorced and she re-married and he has not can he enter the monastic life? Become a monk?

Thanks for your time! God Bless you!"

Here is our understanding of the matter.

We assume that you live in the United States. You are subject to U.S. civil and criminal law as a citizen of the state in which you live. Hence, whatever you do religiously, you are subject to the civil and criminal laws of your jurisdiction. The matter is the same, with the necessary changes, for whatever legal jurisdiction you live in.

Assuming that there is no impediment in regard to civil or criminal law—for example a court order concerning child support or some other matter—then according to the tradition of the Orthodox Church and Orthodox canon law (as far as we know; we are not an expert in Orthodox canon law), there is no impediment to your becoming a monk having been once married, having fathered a child and then having been divorced.

However, the question would arise of the status of your marriage in the eyes of the Orthodox Church. This is especially true if you originally married in the Orthodox Church but obtained a civil divorce. Historically, the Orthodox Church has treated the monastic tonsure as dissolving an existent marriage, and without the consent of the spouse, but it is doubtful whether today any Orthodox jurisdiction would apply this principle without an investigation of the particular situation. This is a matter you would have to discuss with the senior members of the Orthodox jurisdiction to which you presently belong.

There is also the question of the welfare of the child—whether you have any legal or spiritual responsibility that would interfere with your becoming a monk in a particular monastery. This is again something you would have to discuss with the senior members of your Orthodox jurisdiction.

The next problem is that to become a monk in the Orthodox Church, you have to become a monk in a specific monastery–there is no such thing as an Orthodox monk of nowhere in particular. But that means that the superior of the monastery and possibly the council of senior monks of the monastery would have to be satisfied with your bona fides. They would make their own assessment of you and your marital history. Normally, a monastery is not obliged to accept any particular postulant so this will be an assessment independent of whatever the senior members of your jurisdiction decide. However, if the senior members of your jurisdiction have decided that you have an impediment then the monastery would normally acquiesce and refuse you. This phase of personal assessment will vary from monastery to monastery and jurisdiction to jurisdiction and country to country. We could only suggest that you discuss the matter with the superior of the monastery which you are interested in entering.

Finally, both the senior members of your Orthodox jurisdiction and the monastic superior together with the senior members of the monastery will want to assess the significance of your marital history for your personal psychological and spiritual condition with regard to the possibility of your entering the monastic life and of remaining in that state until death. There is no dispensation from vows in the Orthodox Church.

Hence, there is no theoretical impediment to your becoming a monk per se, but both the ruling bishop and the monastic superior would have to judge the merits of your particular case before you could receive permission.

Source: https://orthodoxmonk.blogspot.com/2008/12/can-divorced-man-become-orthodox-monk.html

The word 'fate' comes from the Latin word fatum, which broadly translates as 'God's judgment'. Therefore, the foreordained plan of our lives, which we call fate, is in fact the fulfillment of God's will with regard to each human being.

With that said, Orthodox theology has never supported the idea of fate as a steadfast course that we're bound to follow. Of course, God knows everything there has ever been, everything there is, and everything there will be. There is no moment in time hidden from the Creator. However, God's omniscience isn't binding.

Saint John of Damascus writes, "You must be aware that God knows everything in advance but He doesn't predestine everything."

The Holy Fathers say that God doesn't prescribe our actions; instead, He foreknows them. What does it mean? First of all, if there is a total predestination, there is no place for our freedom. If everything is foreordained, there isn't anything in our lives that depends on us. If we are meant to perish, we surely will, regardless of whether we do good or bad. In other words, if our 'fate' is to go to hell, there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Hence, we might as well do nothing, given that it doesn't matter if we follow God's commandments or not, if we love God and our neighbor or not.

The Orthodox Church has always rejected this line of thinking. Human freedom is a most important principle in the relationship between man and God. Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyon says that freedom is the greatest gift of the Creator, and that's why God will never intrude on human freedom.

Consequently, our fate depends solely on whether we use our freedom to serve God and people or to serve sin. Our eternal destiny doesn't depend on an arbitrary decision or sheer luck. It depends on how we use our freedom—this great God's gift that we received at the moment of creation.

By Andrei Muzolf, an associate professor

of Kiev Theological Academy

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: https://pravlife.org/ru/content/sushchestvuet-li-ponyatie-sudba-ot-kotoroy-ne-uydesh

Today we’re going to tell you what wineskins are, and perhaps, the meaning of the words of Christ will be more clear for you. Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. (Matthew 9:17).

What did ancient vessels look like?

Wineskins are leather bags of some sort, which were used for carrying liquids. People in ancient times could not use clay or stone vessels to carry water or wine with them on the go: they could break and were generally too heavy. That is where wineskins came in handy. The wineskins were bags made of animal skins (e.g., goat or camel skin). The skin was treated thoroughly and then sewn in such a manner so as to leave only one hole (where the animal’s neck had been), which served as the bottleneck. You might have guessed that wineskins came in various sizes depending on the size of the animal. They could be so huge that they held up to 18 bucketfuls of water.

New wineskins, like other leather products, were soft and flexible. That is why new wine was to be poured into new wineskins: fermentation continued within the soft vessel and the gases stretched it a bit. Old wineskins became stiff and more tearing-prone. That was why fermentation of new wine could cause them to burst. In that case, both the wine was spilled and the skins were ruined.

Where else does the Holy Scripture mention wineskins?

We read an interesting story in the Old Testament. Residents of Gibeon came to Joshua to make a peace deal with the Israeli people. Trying to fool the Israelites, they wear old clothes and take old wineskins with them, so that Joshua could believe that they had made a very long journey. They had to do so because God had forbidden the Israelites to make peace with their nearest neighbours (the Canaanites, to which Gibeonites belonged). Israeli elders were fooled, and the residents of Gibeon had their way thanks to this trick. When their trick was discovered, they could not be punished with death because the elders swore to keep them alive. Although Joshua didn’t exterminate the liars, he turned them into slaves: Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. (cf. Joshua 9:23).

We learn more about the characteristics of the wineskins from the Psalter of King David, For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet do I not forget Thy statutes. (Ps. 119:83). It points at the fact that the leather vessels were blackened with smoke and became very dark. The Psalmist basically uses this image to point out that he has become black from grief.

The Meaning of the Parable of the Old Wineskins

It is especially important to pay attention to the context of this parable. Some disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus why his disciples didn’t fast. He responded with this parable, thus making it clear through simple images that one cannot lay a serious burden on someone who isn’t ready for it yet. Saint Ignatius Bryanchaninov explains it perfectly, “It is not only sin that is devastating for us. Even good actions can be harmful when we do good at a wrong time or out of measure. Thus, not only hunger but also eating too much food or consuming food, which doesn’t correspond to your age and physical needs, can be bad for your health… The Lord used this parable to emphasise that acts of virtue must by all means correspond to the condition of the actor, or else they will damage the actor and perish, that is, they will be to no avail and will turn out to be harmful for the soul, in contrast to what they were intended for.”

By Ilja Alekseev

Illustrations by Irina Savritskaya

St. Elisabeth Convent

December 6, 2018

Question: I was Baptized five years ago. I have never been to Confession. I want to confess during the Great Fast. Is it necessary to remember and tell about what I did before Baptism? I’ve heard that when a person is Baptized, then he is considered clean before God and doesn’t need to confess what was before Confession, even if it was something horrible: I had an abortion. Is this the case? After all, the soul of my killed child exists all the same. Could Baptism have taken this sin from me? Do I need to talk about it at Confession?

Answer: In the Mystery of Baptism, man is cleansed of all sins, regardless of age. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:3-8). This truth is consolidated in the Symbol of faith: “I confess on Baptism for the remission of sins.” St John of Damascus writes: “Therefore, the forgiveness of sins is give through Baptism to all equally, and the grace of the Spirit according to the measure of faith and pre-cleansing.”

If a sin (including mortal ones) were after Baptism, forgiveness is given to man through sincere repentance. St Dimitry of Rostov writes: “Are sins always forgiven if we repent of them according to the necessary correction? Always; at the same time, when the sinner calls out to the Lord with a contrite heart, he is heard by Him, like the publican, Zacchaeus, Manasseh, David, the sinful woman, etc.

Source: http://ishmaelite.blogspot.com/2010/06/sins-before-baptism.html

Question: What does the following phrase from the First Catholic Epistle of St. John the Theologian mean: “All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not unto death” (1 Jn 5:17)?

Answer: Every departure from the commandments of God and breaking of the law of God (in deed, word, and even thought) is a sin. In another place in the same catholic epistle the Apostle writes: “sin is lawlessness” (1 Jn 3:4). Sins are conscious and unconscious, committed by ignorance and carelessness. Among conscious sins mortal sins are given special place. To them belong: conscious and intentional apostasy from faith, obstinate denial of God, hatred and ill-will to people (“The one not loving his brother abideth in death,” 1 Jn 3:14), bold condemnation of the commandments of God. They are committed in the deep inculcation in man of sin and attachment to evil. Mortal sins exterminate in man love for God and make man dead to the reception of Divine grace. The greatest sin is that against the Holy Spirit (c.f., Mt. 12:31-32; Mk 3:28-30; Lk 12:10). It is not forgiven.

The Holy Apostle John the Theologian is saying that one should pray for those who have not sinned unto death. For those who have sinned unto death, he does not give instruction, but also does not immediately forbid it. Their stubborn rejection of the truth, disbelief, obduracy and hardness in sin makes prayer for them, as a rule, fruitless. The most effective medicine for them is affliction. The question is appropriate: why not send all sinners such afflictions? The Lord, Who knows the condition of every heart, knows to whom to send afflictions, and who would sin even more if sent afflictions. And Divine love is extended unto such people. Since the lot of such unrepentant sinners is not identical, their punishment will be according to the degree of transgression, since God does not want that their afflictions to increase. For those, who are capable of spiritual growth, afflictions are a great and salvific act of God’s mercy.

Source: http://ishmaelite.blogspot.com/2010/06/sins-unto-death.html

Q: I read that the sins that you name during your confession will not be recorded by the Satan and will not be brought to light after you die. Holy Fathers and some priests recommend to confess thoroughly and precisely. You and some other priests recommend to confess only roots of sins. My question is: If I confess only the roots of my sins, will certain instances of my sinful actions, words, thoughts and feelings be remembered in the afterlife?

A: Repentance is the mystery of God and human being working together to change the life of that human being. It’s a creative process. Repentance makes one acknowledge his wickedness and inability to fight that wickedness. The individual is inclined to change himself but knows for a fact that he cannot do so using his own power. At that point, he asks for God’s help. Practically speaking, if I repent of drinking, for instance, I have to be adamant in my willingness to quit, and do everything I can to quit, and ask God to help me quit drinking. Saint Mary of Egypt gives a good example of proper repentance. She went into the desert and quit drinking. She spent seventeen years in the wilderness struggling with thoughts about wine and drinking. She yielded fruit of repentance and achieved not only liberation from her sinful passions but also the heights of holiness with God’s help. However, she did not confess her sins to a priest. She told Zosimas about her life just one year prior to her death, and she didn’t mention all details, she did not confess in church, and there were no special rituals.

Confession is a church ritual that corroborates one’s personal repentance. This ritual can be void. If I believe that it’s enough just to name my sins and make a list of them on a paper sheet, the Sacrament isn’t going to take place (and neither will forgiveness be granted). You can cough out the list of your sins without the penitential feeling, and it will be totally useless or even harmful, if you mistakenly believe that all your sins are forgiven just because you mentioned them by name.

The practice of “detailed confession” is not about repentance. It’s about the monastic practice of disclosing one’s thoughts and seeking spiritual guidance. A novice or a monk comes to his elder daily and discloses all his thoughts in the tiniest detail, and tells him about all events that happened during the day. The wise elder gives him advice on how to improve his spiritual standing and how to fight sins. The spiritual father is like a doctor who analyses his disciple’s symptoms, prescribes the right remedies, and supervises the process of recovery. This kind of communication takes up an awful lot of time, which is impossible to accomplish in a parish setting. First off, not every priest can be a spiritual father. A newly-ordained 25-year-old dude won’t be able to give you a sound advice. He hasn’t defeated his own sins yet, so he doesn’t know how to treat yours. Secondly, if you start spending two hours with a priest every day, the priest won’t have the time to listen to other parishioners and to pay attention to his own family. Your husband will also most likely be suspicious. Finally, if you just imagine that everyone who wants to confess talks with a priest for just ten minutes (not two hours) on Saturday night (not every day), listening to 20 confessors will take up 200 minutes, or three and a half hours. If the confession happens during the All-Night Vigil, when is the priest going to serve? If the confession starts after the Vigil, at what hour will you get home—especially if you bear in mind that you’ve got to attend the Liturgy the next day! Of course, if the priest has enough time to listen to you and give you his advice, you should seize this opportunity but be aware of what I’ve said.

It seems to me that the priests who demand a detailed report from their female parishioners are either too curious of the female parishioners’ private lives (believe me, they don’t haunt men with so many questions during the confession) or they have an exaggerated opinion of their counseling skills, or they simply don’t understand the essence of what they do and try to copy what they’ve read in some old books. With that said, I can be completely wrong. I’ve tried to explain my take on it. You can ask other priests to give their opinion on the question that you’ve asked, and then you’ll be able to decide which answer is the most suitable and useful for your spiritual well-being.

Q: There must be a reason why Holy Fathers recommend naming sins clearly so as to be ashamed of them. Why do you think they recommend it?

A: This is meant to help a person to struggle with his sins. If you’re ashamed, the feeling of shame will help you to stop and not repeat the sin the next time. So yes, you should name some sins in plain terms, especially if you’re ashamed of them. But please don’t describe them in detail! First of all, take pity on the priest. Sadly, his profession makes him a trench latrine for everyone to dispose of their filth. But I don’t think you should overuse it. Hope you understand. Moreover, if you struggle with a certain passion, detailed memories of your feelings, sensations, emotions, and actions related to that passion will likely cause an upheaval in your soul, which is already sick, isn’t it? You should act wisely.

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

The Hell is a vast territory, which God specially designed to torture the sinners. There are pans with boiling oil, cauldrons, demons with pitchforks, and unquenchable fire… In short, it’s the lake of fire. Is it true that the worse the sins of a dead man, the more terrible the suffering that his soul has to endure after death?

The Church doesn’t teach about any frying pans. That is what Saint Isaac the Syrian writes about the reason for the human suffering in hell: “I tell you, those who suffer in the Gehenna are lashed by the whip of love! How bitter and cruel this torment of love is! …The sadness that strikes one’s heart for sinning against love is more frightening than any other possible punishment. The idea that the sinners in hell are left without God’s love is incongruous. Love is born out of the knowledge of truth, which (as everyone agrees) is disseminated among all humans. However, the power of love has two opposite effects: it torments the sinners, even as we have to suffer certain afflictions from our loved ones here on earth, and makes those who did what they were obliged to do happy. That is why, in my opinion, the torment of hell is actually repentance.”

The Lord is angry with sinners and punishes them with various diseases and troubles while they are still alive, and sentences them to eternal torture in hell after they die because sin makes God angry or offended, right?

Sin is an action that contradicts our very essence as human beings, and thus it is no accident that such an action inflicts pain. As far as God’s attitude towards sinners is concerned, this is what St. Anthony the Great has to say, “…God is never happy and never angry because joy and anger are passions. It is foolish to think that the Deity may feel good or bad due to our actions. God is good and He always does only good. He never harms anyone. He is always the same. When we are good, we can interact with God due to our association with him; when we become bad, we are separated from God because we become different from him. When we lead a virtuous life, we are close to God; when we become evil, we are far from him; it doesn’t mean that He is angry with us: our own sins don’t let God shine through us. Our sins connect us with our tormentors, the demons.”

Are we responsible for the sins of our parents?

Depends on how you define responsibility. If you mean legal responsibility, of course not. Only the “author” of a certain sin is responsible for it before God, people, and his own conscience. However, the sin-inflicted damage of human nature can be inherited from one’s parents. A vivid example is inborn alcohol addiction, which an alcoholic mother can transmit to her unborn child.

Why do I have to bear responsibility for the sin of Adam and Eve?

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), a contemporary Greek theologian, writes, “…the Holy Fathers make it evident that it’s not Adam’s guilt that is inherited but the consequences of his sin, i.e., corruption and death. Adam’s sin made human nature weak and corrupt, and therefore, it is natural that every human being, as an inseparable part of this nature, cannot avoid the prevailing corruption… Therefore, based on all those assumptions, we can speak of inheritance of mortality but not guilt, as Western theology claims.”

Why do people in the Church commit sins?

It’s because the Church is the spiritual hospital. People in the Church sin for exactly the same reason that patients who stay in a hospital are ill. Saint Ephraim the Syrian used to say in the 4^th century that the Church is not only the assembly of the righteous but also the crowd of penitent sinners. There are spiritual diseases that cannot be cured straightaway. With that said, the sinners who go to church hate their own sins, shed tears and do their best to get rid of them, while those very sins can constitute the main purpose and meaning in the life of a person who doesn’t go to church.

Is retaliation for one’s sin in Christianity the same as the law of Dharma in Eastern religions?

No, it’s not. Indeed, there is the idea in Christianity that retaliation for one’s sin is natural. This is what St. Mark the Ascetic writes about it: “Generally, God has decreed that every action, good or bad, must be followed by a natural consequence. The reward or retaliation is not invented for every occasions separately, as some people who are ignorant of the spiritual laws believe.” At first glance, you might think that there is a direct analogy of this teaching with the principle of Dharma or with atheist determinism, where every event in the life of the world is an inescapable result of preceding events. However, this analogy is superficial. According to Christian doctrine, apart from spiritual causes and effects, there is also the omnipotent God who is capable of tearing up the connection between human sins and their apparently unavoidable results. Figuratively speaking, Dharmic religions teach that if you shoot an arrow, it will always hit the target even if you suddenly realize that the arrow is directed at your own son. Christianity teaches that God can ward that “arrow of sin” off even if it is almost too late.

Why does the Church demand that I confess “thought crimes”? I can’t control my thoughts

It doesn’t mean that you have to repent of the never-ending “train of thoughts” that’s so often filled up with so much garbage. Only the thoughts that you “entertain in your heart” can be sinful. Confession of all sinful thoughts is doomed to failure: we commit these kinds of sins too often. There is a better way to ward them off: an immediate prayer of repentance and an outcry to God for help is the most effective means against the countless sins that every one of us commits in our hearts all the time. You don’t have to wait for a formal confession to ask God for help. Saint Theophan the Recluse stated in no unclear terms that “with regard to minor sinful movements of the heart, thoughts and the like… here’s the rule: as soon as you notice something impure, you must purify it with repentance before the Lord. It will suffice but if your conscience signals that there’s something wrong still, you can mention that thought during your evening prayer with a contrite heart, and that’s enough. This kind of sins is cleansed by heartfelt repentance.”

Why does the Church divide sins into mortal and non-mortal ones?

The Old Testament lists several sins that couldn’t be atoned by animal sacrifice. They devastated the soul of the person who had committed them so strongly that according to the Mosaic Law, the person who had committed one of those sins had to be punished by death. Among those sins were murder (premeditated or not) and forced sale into slavery, which was regarded as its equivalent; idolatry; adultery; fornication and various sexual perversions; sorcery and false prophecy; irreverence towards parents and elders; failure to observe the Sabbath and religious holidays; blasphemy and sacrilege. The New Testament Church abandoned the practice of death atonement for these sins. However, the name “mortal sin” which can be found in the New Testament points at the profound spiritual damage that was punished by death in the ancient Israel. A mortal sin changes the sinner’s life. There is some part of his or her soul that dies forever because of it.

Why do people tend to commit the same sins that they’ve confessed over and over again?

Saint Augustine described this situation with extreme precision: “I was asking You to make me chaste and I said, Please make me chaste and moderate but not now. I was afraid that You would hear me immediately and cure my evil passion at once: I preferred to satisfy it rather than extinguish it altogether.” If our souls are attached to the sin, it remains attractive and desirable. The Lord inspects our hearts, not our words. If we confess our sins hoping that the Lord won’t hear us, the Lord won’t cure our sins against our will. He will let us fall into that sin again and again and again… However, you still have to repent of that sin because if you have to go to a confession and tell a priest about your sin, you will have to overcome the barrier of shame. This shame frequently has a therapeutic effect because it calls for our effort. Seeing our effort, the Lord gives us the chance to see how ugly our sins really are and begin to loathe them. Only then can a genuine repentance and liberation from those sins be possible.

How can I denounce one’s sin and not be angry with the sinner?

It is possible only if that sinner is a person whom you really love and whom you can sacrifice your own life for. Saints loved everyone equally, like God. If you aren’t a saint but you see someone else’s sin and are willing to help that person to improve, pause and try to be honest with yourself: what are you ready to do for that person and for his or her improvement? How dear is that person to you? It’s not enough to help another person to see his or her own sin. You must help them to defeat that sin by being around and by taking up some slack. It means that you’ll inevitably have to bear some repercussions of his or her sin. You will have to suffer on his or her behalf and carry his or her burden according to the law of love. If you’re not prepared to do so, refrain from criticizing someone else’s sins and take care of your own sins instead.

Source: https://foma.ru/10-voprosov-o-grehe.html

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