Are you put off by the Roman Catholic Church’s insistence that you continually sin? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Can you think of any organization that has carried out as much evil over the past 2000 years? But then again, can you think of any organization that has done as much good over the past 2000 years? So why does the Church not focus on catching its faithful doing something good? Why does it insist we are all in sin?
The first thing we need to understand is that what the Church calls sin and what we call evil are two completely different things, even though most of us equate them. What the
church means by sin is simply our failure to do what it maintains is God’s Will. The Church is not accusing us of evil. It is simply insisting on the obvious, but neglected, conclusion that we are doing a pretty pitiable job of doing God’s Will. All the Alls in The Greatest Commandment and The Neighbour in The Greatest Commandment establish criteria that leave no doubt about this.
The second thing we need to accept is that it is not our fault that we are sinful. We were made that way. It is our nature to focus on Number One. We can’t simply overcome our human nature of self-centredness, judgementalism, impatience, defensiveness – the list goes on and on. It’s in our genes. If sin is not our fault, might our fault be not admitting our sinfulness and our failure to do our best to overcome it. We can freely admit our sin when we know it is not our fault. The question is, “How can we overcome it?”.
The third thing we have to accept is that no matter how much we try to overcome our
sin, we can’t do it alone. Jesus makes this abundantly clear in the parable of The Vine and the Branches. Apart from God, we can do nothing. But, with God, we can do His Will. How can we accomplish this?
The first step is to make it clear to God that we know we need His help and that we want to overcome our sin. God will not do it for us. God will do it with us. He is constantly and unconditionally waiting for us to admit each occasion of sin. We admit it by daily focusing on our sinfulness and asking for His forgiveness every time we recognize our sin. OK, but where does the joy come in?
When we catch ourselves avoiding a habitual sin, might our sense of accomplishment bring us great joy? When we confidently and faithfully ask God for His help, might we feel the joy of His love? When we realize that, although we can do nothing on our own, we can do much with God’s help, might we feel the joy of empowerment? When we internalize that God will wholeheartedly forgive us no matter how many times we continue to sin, might we feel the joy of reassurance? Might the practice of sharing with God the times we avoided sinning and the times we succumbed to sinning bring us to a joyful intimacy with God? Is this possible? The Treasure of Intimacy maintains it is. When we internalize that the more we sin, the more God forgives us, and that the more God forgives us, the more God loves us, might we luxuriate in the greatest of all loves? When we try our best each day to overcome our sin with God’s help, might knowing we are fulfilling life’s purpose by doing God’s Will bring us an incomparable joy?
St. Augustine concludes that “our souls are restless until they rest in God.” Is that rest the only true joy?
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author
of the Amazon Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.