375. Twenty-third Saturday of Ordinary Time
Meditations no. 339 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Humbly recognizing our venial sins.
In St Paulâs first letter to Timothy, the Apostle lets a heartfelt utterance escape from the depths of his soul: The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners. St John Chrysostom comments: Paul did not say âI was a sinnerâ but âI am a sinner.â Before God, his sins were forgiven, but Paul did not forget them. What God had cancelled out, he himself acknowledged.
The humble and straightforward recognition of his sins, on the part of a person whom our Lord called his chosen vessel, leads us to consider the reality of sin in our own lives. St Paul considers himself the least of the Apostles, but he also feels the command to evangelize. Just as you and I do, our Father writes. You will have an idea of your own situation. As for myself, I can say that Iâm a poor thing, a sinner who loves Jesus Christ. By Godâs grace we donât offend him more, but I feel capable of every evil committed by any other man.
It is an undeniable fact. St John writes: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Venial sins, which truly offend God even if only in a slight manner, are present in our lives: omissions of charity, resistance to grace, pride, sensuality, selfish attachments, laziness, and so on - so many bonds, perhaps thin threads, that retard or get in the way of our union with God. They show ingratitude and disobedience to God the Father who created us and adopted us as his children; they show indifference to God the Son who ransomed us at the price of his blood; and they hinder the action of God the Holy Spirit, who wishes to dwell in our souls.
The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil. Alongside Godâs light, the dark shadow of sin dwells in our hearts too. Our Father stressed: My children: donât be ashamed at having shortcomings; donât give in to cowardice because you have in your heart the fomes peccati (the âtinder of sinâ), the very material which makes the flame of sin rage.
Do not be startled, because a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again. Failures will not be lacking in our spiritual struggle. But we must react immediately to our faults and errors, making an act of contrition which will come to our hearts and our lips as quickly as blood comes to a wound, effectively fighting the foreign body, the germ of infection.
Trusting God and distrusting ourselves.
In a world which is almost oblivious to sin as an offence against God, we should strive, as our Father wrote, to keep alive the sense of sin and generous atonement, in the face of the false optimisms of those who, enemies of Christâs cross, measure everything in terms of progress and human energies.
Such people commit the great sin of forgetting about sin, which some even think they have got rid of altogether.
Only complete blindness could prevent us from recognizing the reality of sin in our own lives and in the world around us. For each of us, our Father wrote, is like that giant statue in Sacred Scripture: The head of this image was of fine gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. May we never forget this weakness of human foundations. That way we will be prudent and humble. And we will escape the fate that befell that enormous statue: A stone was cut out by no human hand, and it smote the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces; then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found.
Listen, my children, to what the Holy Spirit says to us through St Paul: Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
God has done so much for us: he has granted us the gift of life, made us his children and members of the Church, and given us our vocation to the Work, with the promise of happiness if we are faithful. And the more affectionate people are, the more conscious they become of the occasions when they fail to be refined and loving.
Therefore if people are truly in love with God they fight with determination against all deliberate venial sin, which they come to abhor. In addition, they know full well that if they do not commit mortal sins it is thanks to Godâs grace. St Augustine wrote: You say that you have sinned little: why is this the case? What providence watched over you? ⌠One person committed many sins and became a great debtor; another committed few, since he was led by Godâs hand. Give credit to God for forgiving the sins of the first; give him credit also for the fact that the other did not commit those sins.
The best way to avoid serious sin is to trust in God and not in our own strength, and to wage a decisive struggle against all deliberate venial sin. Our Founder wrote: Your âfeet of clayâ wonât shatter, because you acknowledge your weakness and are prudent. You well know that God alone can say: Which of you convicts me of sin?
When night falls, and I examine my conscience, I review the balance for the day and conclude: Pauper servus et humilis! A poor and humble servant! And I repeat: Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies! (A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not spurn!) This is not play-acting either. If God sees that we sincerely consider ourselves to be poor and useless servants, that we are humble and contrite of heart, then he will not turn us away. He will draw us very close to himself, to all the richness and strength of his most lovable Heart. And we will attain a good divinization: we will recognize that all the good we possess comes from God, since left to ourselves we are nothing, we have nothing, we can do nothing.
Sins are healed with the medicine of contrition and penance.
Do not treat lightly your small and frequent sins, for they can mount up and crush you, St Augustine warns. See how water seeps through the cracks in the shipâs hull, and little by little fills the hold. If it is not bailed out, the boat sinks ⌠Similarly, our small sins, from which no one is free, seep unnoticed through the cracks of our human weakness and mount up. Imitate the sailors, who bail out the water until the ship is dry: may your hands not let up from good works either. But despite everything, the shipâs hold will fill up again, since the faults in our human nature persist. And again we will have to bail out the water.
This is the job we have to do, to abhor venial sin, struggling without giving up. Thus any defeats we suffer will be in small things, on the periphery, never in something big: a small lack of love, set right by a new act of love and renewed self-giving. Itâs a struggle in little things, and heaven will smile when thereâs one of those falls, if we keep fighting.
Our Lord wants us to seek him out, so that he can cure us and give us more strength every day. He awaits us, particularly in the sacrament of Penance and our continual acts of contrition. We must return to God as soon as possible; always go back. I go back many times a day, and some weeks I even go to Confession twice, sometimes once, sometimes three times, whenever my peace of mind needs it. I am not over-pious or over-scrupulous, but I know whatâs good for my soul.
In many places nowadays, individuals without piety or doctrine are advising people not to go to confession. They attack the holy sacrament of Penance in the most brutal fashion. What theyâre doing is a travesty: just a few words, everyone together, and then the absolution. Thatâs not the way, my children! Love oral confession! And not just the confession of grave sins, but also the confession of venial sins, and even of our faults. The sacraments confer grace ex opere operato - by the power of the sacrament itself - and also ex opere operantis, depending on the dispositions of the recipient. Besides reviving the soul and cleansing it from the sins and faults it may have committed - of thought, desire, word or deed - confession produces an increase of grace, it strengthens us and gives us more weapons to win this internal, personal victory.
Our Blessed Lady is the perfect model for identifying our will with Godâs. Mary will help us flee from venial sin and to draw impulse even from our very falls. Our Father wrote: Bury with your penance, in the deep pit which your humility will have opened up, your negligences, offences and sins. -Just so the gardener buries, at the foot of the tree that bore them, rotten fruit, dried twigs and dead leaves. -And what was useless, or rather, what was harmful, makes a real contribution to a new fruitfulness.
Learn to draw, from falls, an impulse: from death, life.