Having committed the "violent" sin of lust, Stephen fears that he has initiated a chain reaction, what Thomas Aquinas called the Seven Deadly Sins. Stephen is aware of a "pride in himself," a pride in the "greatness" of his sin, a "covetousness in using money" to buy sexual favors from prostitutes, an "envy" of those whose vices are even more serious than his own, anger toward his innocent classmates, a "gluttonous enjoyment of his food," and a "spiritual and bodily sloth" which seems to have drained his whole being.
This obsession with sin causes Stephen to conjure up a series of "if's" and "why's" pertaining to religion. He tries to demystify his faith, challenge its validity, and perhaps find absolution through a religious technicality. Unhappily, the announcement of the retreat causes him to feel the full weight of his sin. He approaches the retreat experience with a "withered" heart and a feeling of dread.
The first and the briefest of the retreat sermons urges the boys to remember God's purpose for creating mankind; afterward, they should consider the present condition of their souls and then determine their fates if they were suddenly to die and have to face Divine Judgment. Would they go to Heaven? Or to Hell?
Clearly, this challenge of purity is difficult for a sixteen-year-old boy who enjoys sex and seeks out prostitutes as often as he can afford to do so; ironically, Stephen is viewed by the priests and the other boys as one of the "elder boys," a boy whose model behavior should be emulated by the younger boys. Throughout the first sermon, Stephen feels as though his spiritual life is passing before him, and, here, Joyce graphically records the details of Stephen's vivid imagination pertaining to his death and judgment. Stephen feels particularly agonized by Father Arnall's description of a lost soul because Stephen believes that he is already a lost soul. He believes that the sermon is delivered specifically to him — that he is being specifically warned about his sins: "Every word for him!"
