A MAP OF LIFE what things are right and what wrong. Yet without such knowledge how can he so act as to reach his goal? The task of achieving the end for which one is created is like any other task: it must be done in the right way. Certain actions will help the achievement, certain will hinder it. We can only know if we are told. God who made us has told us: His Church which enunciates His truths likewise enunciates His laws. Nor is conscience thereby annulled: conscience is the practical moral judgment of the intellect. Now the intellect which knows that the Church is giving God’s law will naturally judge that it is right. The Catholic who unquestioningly accepts the moral law as taught by the Church is following his conscience unswervingly. SIN The Catholic therefore knows the law of right action. But knowledge is not enough. A man may know and yet disobey. Such disobedience is sin. Sin is, quite simply, breaking God’s law. And in that lies its enormity. The breach of God’s law may be a small thing or a great. It may be a failing in a comparatively trifle — silly and weakening to the soul; or it may be a definite rejection of God. The first sort — ^venial sin — is still sin, yet it will not break the friendship that exists between the soul and God : it will not therefore damn a man’s soul. The second sort we call mortal: having committed such a sin, to die without repent94