Sin Of Omission

I can't remember where I first learnt this, but I may have been exposed to this a few times during Catholic Catechism Classes or some talks that I have attended. I have always been mindful of this sin but, for me, it is really the most difficult one to fight against.

This is also referred to in the Common Catholic Prayer, the 'I Confess'... the portion that reads "and in what I have failed to do".

Here's Wikipedia's explanation of it...

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Sin Of Omission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission

In Catholic teaching an omission is a failure to do something one can and ought to do. If this happens advertently and freely, it is considered a sin.

The degree of guilt incurred by an omission is measured like that attaching to sins of commission, by the dignity of the virtue and the magnitude of the precept to which the omission is opposed as well as the amount of deliberation.

A person may be guilty of a sin of omission by failing to do something which he is able to do and which he ought to do, by reason of a cause for which he is entirely responsible, as when a person knows that drinking to drunkenness will incapacitate him, and yet drinks.

Saint Paul the Apostle refers to this sin directly when he states "For I do not do the good I want ..." (Romans 7:19).

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Saint Paul the Apostle
Romans 7:19-25
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
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