First of all, thanks go to Jennifer at Conversion Diary for directing me to the Totus Tuus Ministries site where I found the post on root sins, on which the following reflections are based (pardon his spelling errors when you get there).
I guess you could just go there right now and I wouldn’t have to write anything at all here, but in case you’d like a sneak preview 
first, I’ll give you an idea of what it’s about. The basic idea is that if we want to grow spiritually we have to discover what is at the root of our habitual faults, failings, and sins, or else we’ll just go on committing them and will become stagnant in our spiritual lives. According to the author of this post, the root sin is usually one of three major sin categories, which he lists as pride, vanity, and sensuality. These are quite far-reaching in the areas of behavior they cover, much more than the common understanding of the words would seem to imply. Even though they don’t cover every possible sin, they do cover a lot of ground, more than enough for you to get to work right away! You might be surprised to learn which behaviors are linked to which sins, or that certain things you might think inconsequential are actually manifestations of a deep-rooted sin tendency.
He begins by giving a fairly extensive list of just what kinds of behaviors are included in the three main root sins. As soon as you read these lists, you will know that you have your work cut out for you. Then he suggests that you select one of these to focus on (even if two or three apply; you can’t do it all at once). With a bit of humor, he suggests that if you can’t tell what your predominant root sin is, you should select pride, since it is of the nature of pride to produce spiritual blindness, and if you don’t know your own sin, you are spiritually blind!
Next you list the concrete manifestations of this root sin in your own life, and he gives some helpful examples. Good, now you know your root sin and how it manifests in your actual behavior. But you’ve only just begun.
The most important thing is to develop the virtue that is the opposite of your root sin, so as to uproot it. He gives some examples of virtues that correspond to the three main root sin categories, so it’s easy to get started. Then you have to come up with some concrete examples of how you are going to put this virtue into practice in your daily life. If you suffer from pride, for example, and one of the manifestations of this is being too critical of others, then your program for virtue will include trying to see Jesus in others and to accept them even with their flaws. If you can never admit that you are wrong, then the antidote is to seek advice from others, etc.
Then you just have to keep following up on your program of recognizing the manifestations of your root sin and applying the remedy of the opposite virtue in practical and specific ways. The follow-up includes making this the main focus of your examination of conscience, of confession, spiritual direction, and meditation.
I think that this can be very helpful in spiritual growth, for it may be that we tend to flounder with a vague sense of our sinfulness and hence a dissatisfaction with our spiritual life and a sort of stagnancy in our relationship to God. But if we can trace our sins to a specific root cause, become more aware of the actual manifestations of it in our life and relationships, and then counter these manifestations with the practical application of the opposite virtue, then we are at the very least taking concrete steps in the imitation of Christ. We are doing the work of putting off the old self and putting on the new, for which God’s grace has already been granted to us.
If we are diligent about this spiritual work, we will make great strides toward that transformation into the likeness of God that is our essential work in this world, our preparation for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. If we don’t allow the Lord to dismantle us and put us back together according to his own design, then we are just going to remain in our same cycles of sin and failure, and our faults will become more and more entrenched until we despair of ever experiencing any growth, renewal, or deep communion with Christ, and we might consider ourselves hopeless. The opposite extreme is to think we don’t need to do any sin-uprooting at all, thinking: “God loves me just the way I am.” To this I would counter with the famous saying: “God loves you the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay the way you are!”
So what have you got to lose, besides a bunch of sins? Lay the axe to the root, as St John the Baptizer preached. In beginning this program myself, I can see that it will take some struggle and self-denial, a disciplining of self-serving tendencies and a conscious effort to put others first. But this is all part of living the Gospel of Jesus, which we as Christians are supposed to be doing anyway. Perhaps, then, you ought to take a look and give it a try. Everyone you know is likely to thank you for it! And best of all, it will bring you closer to God and farther away from sin. Such a deal!
