Jesus calls us to be honest with ourselves and repent of our daily sins
By Father Michael Van Sloun - For The Catholic Spirit
Tuesday, 02 June 2009
This reflection on sin by Father Michael Van Sloun follows the completion of his 10-part series on reconciliation.
Penance
Father Michael Van Sloun
Repent. Turn away from sin. Jesus had such a deep concern about sin that he began his preaching ministry in Galilee exhorting: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Sin is real. Its effects are devastating. Every person is a sinner.
Commission and omission. We sin against God and neighbor in many
ways. There are sins of commission. We do evil things. We make bad
decisions, choices. We say mean things, do mean things. We lie and
steal. We are selfish, greedy and impure. There are sins of omission.
There are good things we should do, but fail to do. There are times we
should help, but do nothing, times that we should speak up, but we are
silent.
The lack of awareness of sin. We, like the Pharisees, often are
blind to our wrongdoing. Jesus said, “I came into this world for
judgment, so that those who do not see might see” (John 9:39). Jesus
wants us to be healed of our spiritual blindness. He desperately wants
us to open our eyes, look inward, examine ourselves, see the sins that
we have committed, admit them, regret them, confess them and quit them.
The insidious nature of sin. One of the worst aspects of sin is
our lack of personal spiritual accountability. We often deceive
ourselves when it comes to our wrongdoing. We minimize: “What I did
really wasn’t that bad.” We make excuses: “It really wasn’t my fault.”
We blame: “It was someone else’s fault.” We make exceptions: “In my
case the rules don’t apply.” We are in denial; “I didn’t do anything
wrong.” We desensitize ourselves by committing a sin so often that it
no longer bothers our conscience.
A reality check. One definition of mental health is to be in
touch with the real world. By extension, one definition of spiritual
health is the ability to be in touch with our thoughts and deeds, and,
with a well-formed conscience, to be aware of both the good and bad
that we do. It is spiritually delusional to think, “I am without
fault.” We are fooling ourselves if we go to confession and say, “Bless
me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last
confession. I missed my morning prayers four times and my evening
prayers three times. These are all my sins.”
The blunt truth. Even the greatest saints fall victim to sin
almost every day. It is nearly impossible to get to bedtime without a
single sin. Even the holiest person will find something: an impatient
moment, an unkindness, a harsh word, a dirty look, a malicious
thought, an impoliteness, something dishonest, an act of
self-indulgence, a bit of laziness or a harbored resentment. When we
examine our conscience at the end of the day, there is always
something to be found. Jesus wants us to be honest with ourselves and
to repent.
Father Michael Van Sloun is pastor of St. Stephen in Anoka.
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