The most obvious personal relationship
that is affected by sin is that between God and the sinner. In sinning a
man fails, to a lesser or greater degree, to accept God's loving gift of
Himself. He fails also to respond with his own gift of love. In serious
sin man refuses intimate friendship with God. In venial sin he dulls the
ardor of that friendship. Man, in so far as he sins, maintains that he
does not want his life to be directed by the loving hand of his heavenly
Father. He wants to be a law for himself; he wants to be the one who
decides what is good for himself and what is not. Schoonenberg observes:
"Especially in the prophets sin is an aversion from and an
unfaithfulness to Yahweh himself; hence it is placed in the heart rather
than in the wrong deed. We see that aversion, that rebelliousness, that
lack of faith which precede the act of transgressing the Law already in
the story of the sin in paradise, where it is presented as the wish of
possessing autonomously the knowledge of good and evil, of being
independently the Law unto oneself. . .”1
As we sin and fail to love God, we close
in upon ourselves. We prevent a further growth in openness to
transcendence, to God and to His grace. We block off the source of our
only real self-development and fulfillment. To the extent that we close
in upon ourselves in sin, to that extent we feel the misery of sin. This
misery of spiritual "self-enclosedness" is a faint participation in the
essential pain of hell. The damned are eternally and completely closed
in upon themselves, completely deprived of God and other personal
relationships. This, then, is hell
–
the damned really experiencing no one but themselves. Hell is God's
ratification of the choice which the unrepentant serious sinner has
himself made. This choice is one of radical self-isolation.
Sin is primarily a refusal to love God, a
refusal to be loved by Him, to be guided by Him. In sinning, man seeks
for a false fulfillment, and therefore actually becomes impoverished.
The great St. Augustine puts it this way: "For when the soul loves its
own power, it slips from the common whole to its own particular part.
Had it followed God as its ruler in the universal creature, it could
have been most excellently governed by His laws. But in that
apostatizing pride, which is called 'the beginning of sin', it sought
for something more that the whole; and while it struggled to govern by
its own laws, it was thrust into caring for a part, since there is
nothing more than the whole; and so by desiring something more, it
becomes less. . .”2
Yes, sin is an act disruptive of one's
relationship with God. But sin has other dimensions also. It is a
refusal to love other men as we should. For the Christian, sin is an
offense against the covenant life of the People of God. In some way the
sinfulness of the individual Christian makes itself felt in the
corporate body which is the Church. The Christian, in sinning, is
failing to love the corporate good of the People of God. He is failing
to contribute his share to the progressive maturation in Christ of the
total Christian community. The Christian in his sin becomes a burden to
the People of God.
Sin also is an obvious refusal to love
others in those instances when one directly harms others through his
transgression. So many sins come under this category: theft, all forms
of uncharity, social injustice, scandal, detraction. Furthermore, not
only does one man often sin against another, but he frequently leads
another into sin. In God's plan man is supposed to help his neighbor
achieve his temporal and eternal happiness, but how often, even among
Christians, the opposite is true. Not to make a positive contribution to
the true growth of others is failure enough, but to be a positive
hindrance is a far greater evil.
There is still another way in which the
sinner refuses love to his fellowmen; when man sins he makes his
contribution to the "sin of the world.”3
He thus adds to that huge,
negative weight, nourished by the sins of the centuries, a weight which
is always trying to draw man away from his God-given destiny. This mass
of sinful ugliness, this "sin of the world," always has its considerable
influence, but at times its hideousness makes itself especially
manifest. The great race riots which have tragically risen up recently
in various parts of the United States are examples of these special
manifestations of the "sin of the world." Such events are not isolated
instances of sins connected with race. In back of such tragedies there
is a long history of grave social and racial sins, of seething hatred of
white for black, and black for white. Such accumulated sinfulness in
regard to race is part of the "sin of the world."
There are many other examples of these
special manifestations of the "sin of the world." There are the world
wars and the lesser wars, with their share of unbelievable accounts of
the hatred which man can impose upon his fellowman. There are the
histories of the various crime syndicates throughout the world with all
their blatant categories of human degradation
–
narcotics, prostitution, terrorization and the rest. There are the sins
of colonialism and the sins of communism.
The "sin of the world" with its stark and
bold manifestations is a sickening reality. But a reality it is. And
each man's sinfulness adds a little to this universal world sin. Each
man's sinfulness contributes to sin's divisiveness. Man is intended to
help Christ progressively unify all creation more and more into Himself.
When man sins, he contributes to the disruptive and disunifying force of
the "sin of the world."
Sin, then, because it is a failure to love
God, man and the world, is selfishness. Sin seems to offer some sort of
happiness, or advantage, or fulfillment. But this is a delusion. Sin can
accomplish none of these things, because man's only real happiness and
fulfillment comes from his authentic relationship in love with God, his
fellowman and the rest of creation. Sin works against all these
relationships.
Sin is so hard to understand because it is
an absurdity. But if we are to grow properly in the Christian life, we
must have some basic realization of what sin is, and of God's attitude
towards sin and the sinner. Our best source for such a mature
realization is given to us in the crucified Christ. In this figure we
can know all the Father wants us to comprehend concerning sin. First of
all, Christ crucified tells us very starkly of the overwhelming
heinousness of sin. We know that sin is overwhelmingly evil because it
alone could nail Incarnate Goodness to the cross. Secondly, Christ
crucified speaks to us concerning the justice of God. God's justice does
ask satisfaction for sin
–
yes, even that satisfaction which is the death of His Son. Thirdly, and
very importantly for us poor sinners, the crucified Christ speaks to us
unmistakably and overwhelmingly of the Father's great love and mercy
towards us. Because of this love and mercy we can be so positive about
human existence, for great as is the power of sin, the love and mercy of
the Father, incarnated in His Son, is infinitely greater. This is our
peace and consolation.
God's love and mercy moves the sinner
toward repentance, and when the sinner repents, God's love changes him.
In Isaiah the prophet we read: " 'Come now, let us talk this over, says
Yahweh. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.' " (Is
1:18).
Included in our sorrow for sin is a
resolve to take the proper means and precautions to avoid sin in the
future. One of the reasons we fall into the same sins with the same
frequency is that we tend often enough not to go to the root causes of
our failures, and, consequently, we often fail to apply the more
efficacious remedies. All this not to say that we should become morbidly
introspective in looking at sinfulness. However, without succumbing to
this type of introspection, we all must allow for appropriate
self-examination and self-knowledge.
Part of this self-examination and
self-knowledge includes the manner in which I handle temptation in my
life. The proper attitude toward temptation lies between two extremes.
The person at one extreme is overly fearful of temptation, concentrates
too much on avoiding it, and can even tend to equate temptation with
sin. Such an attitude toward temptation breeds a negative mentality
toward the Christian life, and detracts from the peace, joy and
happiness which Christ wants us to experience.
The opposite attitude is that which is
careless towards temptation. To take reasonable and grace-inspired
precautions against temptation is not to be negativistic, but realistic.
It is to realize that I am a sinner, and that there are various ways by
which I can be led to sin. I cannot avoid all temptations, but out of
loyalty to Christ, man and the world, I should not recklessly bring
temptation upon myself.
Despite our best efforts there will always
be some sin in our lives, unless God were to give extraordinary graces.
There is only one human person, as far as our certain knowledge goes,
who has been preserved from all sin. This person is Christ's mother,
Mary. Let us remember this very important point, however. The Church's
teaching that we cannot avoid all venial sin without a very special
assistance from God refers to semi-deliberate venial sin. With God's
ordinary graces we can avoid all fully deliberate sin, both serious and
venial. It is this fully deliberate sin which is such an obstacle to our
proper growth in the Christian life. Finally, let us remember that as we
grow in Christ, even the number of semi-deliberate sins become fewer.
-
The Sacrament of
Penance
All of us are sinners, and God in His
mercy has made special provision for this fact. He has given us the
sacrament of penance. It is fitting
–
in fact necessary as regards serious sin
–
that the Christian incarnate his sorrow for sin through this sacrament.
This is in keeping with the incarnational and sacramental dimensions of
our life of grace. These dimensions impel us to exteriorize or incarnate
our interior life of grace. The central focus for such exteriorization
is the Mass and the sacraments. This exteriorization satisfies both our
corporeal and social nature.
Copyright
© 2014 Shepherds of Christ.