September 17

Unhappy souls almost always blame everyone but themselves for their miseries. Shut up within themselves; they are necessarily shut off from all others except to criticize them. Since the essence of sin is in opposition to God’s will, it follows that the sin of one individual is bound to oppose any other individual whose will is in harmony with God’s will. This resulting estrangement from one’s fellow man is intensified when one begins to live solely for this world; then, the neighbor’s possessions are regarded as unjustly taken from oneself. Once the material becomes the goal of life, a society of conflicts is born.