John, isn't the essence of envy the desire to take away what another person has and keep it for yourself, thus taking your pleasure not only in possession but also in depriving another of something they possess. That's why envy is an evil that surpasses jealousy. Or, am I just being pedantic insisting on a clear definition of a vice when you are turning it over imaginatively hoping the reader will see a bit of it in himself?

WRITE ON JOHN ZMIRAK, WRITE ON!!!

this is the best piece in the series. I found myself described and I didn't like what I saw.

Off to confession.

Dear Deal,
I certainly don't mind pedantic distinctions--they're part of my stock in trade! I was taking a broader definition of envy, that included Schadenfreude (taking glee in the ruin of others). The "good" that others have which you covet can be something as nebulous as a sense of well-being, or social respect. The diminution of others can make one feel better, even if what they lose can't be transferred to you. In the great Competition, anyone else's loss is the Envious person's gain. As John Donne wrote, "No man is an island."

I agree with Deal Hudson's accurate definition of envy. I would like to point out that not all who experience "envy" are able to take away from the person envied what they have and although this is not possible for them they are still guilty of evil in the same respect a man that looks at a woman can also lust after her without actually speaking it, or engaging in any outward activity.

So, the author is accurate and correct to point out our secret way of consoling ourselves when someone else has more, then suffers some loss is correctly the sin of envy.

Jealousy is limited to grieving what the other has because we perceive we have less while envy envisions the other loosing what they have or being glad they suffered in some manner as if that brings justice some how because of the previous's lack.

All in all, a great article. I only wish it could have treated the examples more in depth. I sense that envy is rampant in our day including our Church and religious orders! We enter His courts with thanksgiving, which is the cure for jealousy and anger!

I like your cultural references to how envy works in our society. You are smart, well-read, and clearly know Catholics pratice of the faith.
I like the way you showed how envy works in our hearts.
According to the Cathechism: 2538 the 10th commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart.
St. Augustine saw envy as a "diabolical sin" From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity. " 328 St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job 31, 45: PL76, 321

Envy is something I have been aware that I "suffer" from for a long time. I am 63 and remember my mother calling me out when I noticed that a neighbor had bought a new car when the old one was barely 2 yrs old. Hearing me whine "Why can't we get a new car?" made my parents nuts. They never could say "We don't have the money" which I would have at least accepted as a reasonable answer. Instead, they would browbeat me about my motives and how unkind, tacky etc I was to point this sort of thing out. Also, they usually would point out an aspect in the "haves" revealed by some ethnic slur. "Pushy ----!" Resentment at another's success was unspoken, just below the surface, until their child asked a simple question and opened the floodgates.

None of these angry scoldings stopped the green monster from growing within me. Today, my husband of 40 yrs will absolutely lose it if I say that someone we know has gone on a European vacation for the third time in 2 yrs and I have renewed my passport twice in 20 yrs without going abroad once! He hollers how envious I am and how unattractive he finds this in me, but at the same time, I notice how damn superior he feels for not being an envious wretch like me. (Maybe if we didn't spend so much on vodka and cigarettes we could actually go somewhere!) Which sin is the greater? What are these folks named above so afraid of that they have to stifle someone saying something bothering them in a very direct way? It would be better to get to the bottom of the problem than to try and mask it by impugning the motives of a loved one, IMO.

I thought envy was sadness at the sight of (perceived) good fortune/blessings of others, that you don't have.

I bet I could write that well, ..... grrr!

Mr. Zmirak, I am envious of your writing ability!

John Zmirak (or an editor that can make this happen),

Can we get a compilation of this whole series? Maybe a master list of links to each of the articles? I have far too much sloth to search through the archives to send each one to some friends.

Thanks!

Good idea, Andy -- I'm sure we can put together a "special edition" Inside Digest of the whole series. I'll get right on that -- er, tomorrow.

My opinion is that envy in its reality and depth can destroy. We are a Catholic family with a 37 year old severely disabled (mentally and physically) child, who we both care for without a single person coming in and helping us. We do not envy our neighbors, friends, etc., who 'envy' our home, its contents, the mercedes (which is never driven since we are always inside the home caring for our child), the landscaped lawn which we do ourselves. We have never had a phsician, hospital, pharmacy, debt that has not been, by the grace of God, taken care of. After 40+ years of marriage, we have been tested and dare say, we daily offer up every minute to please God, conforming our wills to His will. Happiness is not in the plush home, fancy auto, paid for home. Yet, it brings out the brut 'envy' in those around us who waste their time trying fruitlessly to determine how the 3 of us make have such an 'unworldly mundane life. LIVE for reaching paradise for which we were created! Everything else is nonsense. Our son is the TRUE gift from God!

Wow.. I needed a great laugh and obviously I need a deeper confession of my own envious ways often cloaked in not so well intentioned spiritual superiority.We need more seeking sinners at the door of the brothel (of course metaphorically speaking)than those in the church pew thanking God we are not like them!

Thanks for slapping my face with truth and being the mirror exposing my pimples or should I say "spiritual acne"?

I needed to see the puss as I work out my salvation with fear and trembling one Hail Mary at a time.

God indeed have mercy on all of us as we scratch and crawl our way to our heavenly home.
Vanessa

I find envy a fascinating subject because there is a lot to learn from it. Having struggled and suffered from it for many years, I finally decided to use it for good. I purchased a book written on the subject from a Conservative Rabbi, entitled "The Kabbalah of Envy," in which he uses Jewish texts to flesh out the topic and discuss the subject matter, its impact and solution. From his work, I learned to use envy to discover what was important to me (I now view envy, not as a sin that is inconquerable and something to fear, but as a signpost directing me to what is important to me.) After all, you don't envy anything or anyone that doesn't have tremendous meaning for you at that time. Later, you might find out what you were envying wasn't as important to you at the time you thought it was, but it was important to you then.

In one of his chapters, the Rabbi said that there is an antidote to envy. I took his words to heart and learned you can move past envy, but it takes courage of heart and a willingness to confront painful feelings. The antidote to envy, the Rabbi wrote, is to give the other person - the one you envy so desperately - the space to be happy with their blessings. You actually allow yourself to feel happy for them that they are successful. When I learned this, I started to apply it and found that when I was happy that someone had something that I so desperately wanted, it made me very sad and I cried. But after crying out my pain for that person's success, I suddenly felt free. I did this again and again until I suddenly realized I don't have to be trapped in the prison of feeling angry at someone else's success. Now, when I start to feel the feelings that come up with envy - something that happens rarely now, Thank God, I immediately apply this little bit of wisdom and open up a space for that person(s) happiness.

So, is envy a sin? Yes. A sin means to "miss the mark." To envy means to miss the point about God's blessing in our lives. But envy can be a gift, if it is used to draw one closer to God and to pray for others successes. When it is used that way, it doesn't have to dominate your life. It can transform and heal. That is what I have learned about it.

Thanks, everybody, for your kind and insightful responses. Margaret, I think Andy is getting at is that it would be useful if the site as a whole offered AUTHOR archives, for each of its writers. (Not just me, for heaven's sake!) That's a very common Web feature, and I think readers would find it useful. Once it's set up, it's automated....
Cheers,
John

John:

You may be underestimating envy's danger. As is the case with all capital sins, such as pride and greed, envy is not a stable condition. If we make no effort to control envy, it will slowly grow stronger. Powerful envy again has disastrous effects both to the envious and to those around them.

Among the effects of strong envy is that it reverses people's instinctive emotional reactions: what causes sorrow and suffering to the envied produces "natural" joy to the envious and vice versa. English does not have a word for this reaction, but just about all central and eastern European languages have a term for it -- I usually use the German "Schadenfreude."

The practical effects of this reversal of instinctive feelings are quite devastating because -- in Skinnerian terms -- it makes people experience others' sufferings as reinforcers. As a result, truly envious people go out of their way to hurt others. In the Bible, "Schadenfreude" motivates devil's efforts to tempt humans to sin; Satan works so hard, because he wants to experience the pleasure he gets from seeing people suffer punishment for their sins.

The instinctive reaction also produces a way to detect strong envy, which was often mentioned in old sin manuals: observe people's faces when they hear the news of other's successes or misfortunes. What is the first emotion that flashes on the face? Is the emotion the same they would have experienced if the event had happened to them? If it is anything else, the person is envious. (If he later verbally expresses some other reaction, he is also a hypocrite.)

Andy, John, and anyone else looking for quick links to the rest of the articles in this series: They are now listed at the end of each article (see below John's bio). Full author archives are on our list, so stay tuned...

Hey everybody,

Tossing a grenade into a crowded field:

Envy is the sin to which egalitarianism (rather than a belief in the equal dignity of all human beings before God) inevitably leads. Others have pointed this out: Plato, Dante, Tocqueville. Read the relevant chapters in 1 Corinthians from the point of view of the envious egalitarian. Thomas Aquinas will insist that community itself is impossible without hierarchical order (hence the ranks on ranks of angels). I had a conversation with a student about this yesterday: he's a conservative communitarian, and because he's a communitarian, he says, he tends to favor measures to promote equality. The devil's in the details, as far as such measures are concerned; some I could support, and some I'd oppose. But I told him that an insistence upon equality was actually destructive of community -- unless we specify just what kind of equality we are talking about, and why.

Since this is the 'Year of the Priesthood' under the patronage of St. Jean Vianney (Cure of Ars) his sermon 'On Envy' may be of interest to this discussion:

http://www.purgatory.ca/avoid-envy.php

Blessings for all from Our Lord Jesus Christ through His Beloved Mother Mary, Queen of All Hearts.

ENVY sees everything from a position of what isn't. It is man seeking perfection of desire absent an object of desire. The home that is only 4,000 square feet as versus the neighbor who has five. Envy does not want equality of outcomes, only others to have less or be proven lessor.

Satan wishes to be above God. Man above others, and because there are always those richer and thinner and more beautiful or more educated or more professional, there is never an end to targets. Envy cannot tolerate happiness and humility. It distrusts both and presumes neither actually exists because a person so consumed by Envy presumes all others have the same sort of damaged prism through which they view the world.

To me, Puddleglum is more a creature of grudging duty than one of envy. He is like us, the unwashed masses who hear the word of God and slog through life being pushed and prodded by the Spirit to achieve more than we might otherwise have been willing to do. We participate in God's plan despite our lack of trust in the Lord and fallen nature.

Though if he nursed a lurking desire to have been in a better Chronicle of Narnia like Fledge or Puzzle or Reepicheep and that those other more beloved characters might have taken his place and been stuck slugging through the marshes and learning the constelations of Narnia, then you might say he has a touch of Envy.

I always thought that envy was related to what others have that you wish you had, and jealousy was holding or withholding to an unreasonable degree what you DO have from others due to smallness of spirit. (Like a jealous husband). Though I do understand what God means when he says "I am a jealous God."... He won't brook our sharing of affection with anyone or thing but Him.