Is there a difference here between the Catholics and the Orthodox? I suspect the latter would replace "offend" with "separate us from", but I don't quite follow from there. Perhaps because I've heard little to nothing of "mortal vs venial sins" from the Orthodox here.
"Is there a difference here between the Catholics and the Orthodox? I suspect the latter would replace "offend" with "separate us from", but I don't quite follow from there. Perhaps because I've heard little to nothing of "mortal vs venial sins" from the Orthodox here."
Ah, this is one of your arcane Western problems. Imputed or infused "righteousness" has little or no meaning in Orthodox theology. In fact, I can't think of an eastern Father, off hand, who spoke at all about this. Remember, our concept of ancestral sin is quite different from your Augustinian "Original Sin". The East has never had the view that mankind was utterly depraved after the Fall or perfect before the Fall. A Calvinist FRiend informed me some years back that we Orthodox ar "synergists", in other words, we cooperate with God's grace to advance in theosis...or we don't on both counts. In this we believe that by the Incarnation, the Crucifixtion and the Resurrection, Christ, by destroying the bonds of death, restored us to the original potential we had before the Fall, the possibility of becoming divinized, theosis. Justification and Righteousness are usually used only by Orthodox writers who are trying to put Orthodox theology and sotierology in terms Western Christians can understand. But they really don't fit. I suppose the best I can say is that Justication is a gift of the Holy Spirit to those who respond to the Gospel with Faith. God also helps those who cooperate with His grace to become righteous. Righteousness is similarly a gift of the Holy Spirit given to those who live a good, just and blameless life. But we can never earn any of this by our own merits. We can merely chose to cooperate or not. These gifts transform the Christian. As +Symeon the New Theologian wrote:
"Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?' says the wise Solomon. And I say: can he, who has in his heart the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit burning naked, not be set on fire, not shine and glitter and not take on the radiance of the Deity in the degree of his purification and penetration by fire? For penetration by fire follows upon purification of the heart, and again purification of the heart follows upon penetration by fire, that is, inasmuch as the heart is purified, so it receives Divine grace, and again inasmuch as it receives grace, so it is purified. When this is completed (that is, purification of heart and acquisition of grace have attained their fullness and perfection), through grace a man becomes wholly a god."
And as +John Chrysostomos preached:
"The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the fall, and a return from the alienation caused by disobedience to close communion with God. This is the reason for the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, the pattern of life described in the Gospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so that the man who is being saved through imitation of Christ receives the old adoption. For perfection of life the imitation of Christ is necessary, not only in the example of gentleness, lowliness, and long suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, says, `being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.' How then are we made in the likeness of His death? In that we were buried with Him by baptism."
Oh, and we make no distinction between mortal and venial sins. Our purpose is to become like God and thus share in or come into communion with His uncreated energies (but not His essence). Not being like Christ is to "miss the mark (Christ)" which is what the Greek word "amartia", sin, means.
Actually, I think the use of the terminology, "offend God" is a bow to Protestant misunderstandings of some supreme notion of being "separated" from God.
The Orthodox, AFAIK, do not distinguish between mortal and venial sins; and the distinction is even a dangerous one for modern times. A better distinction would be between "grave" sins and "venial" sins; a "grave" sin being one with the severity to be mortal, but not necessarily the requisite deliberateness or knowledge to be mortal.
The Catholic distinction is based on the notion that certain sins, if deliberate, chosen of free will, and with full understanding of their severity, signify a refusal of grace.