Reflection This Week
NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY

   Every time we say the General Confession, we profess our sinfulness. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we give thanks that our sins are already forgiven. It is one thing to know or believe (take your pick) that our sins are forgiven because Jesus died on the cross for our sins or because of God’s unconditional love (again, take your pick); it is altogether something else to do something about those sins.

   We are all sinners: no exceptions. That is a given. How great a sinner we might be is important but in many ways it is also irrelevant. A sin is a sin is a sin. There is, to be sure, a difference in degree of our sins and our sinfulness; but that, too, is irrelevant. In the end our sins are forgiven. It is in the meantime that is what is truly important.

   In the meantime, in the here-and-now, what is important is not so much that we acknowledge our sinfulness, that we even publicly confess that truth and that fact, nor is it that we give thanks for God’s mercy and love, miserable sinners that we are. That is all well and good, important and necessary. Rather, what is truly important is, first, that we name those sins, and, second, that we actually do something about them. The latter follows the former.

   Neither is easy. To acknowledge our sinfulness is easy. No one of us would ever dare to stand in public – and certainly never before our God – and proclaim him- or herself to be sinless. We would be either laughed off the stage, considered a fool or both. Even if we could make such a claim, we would bring about the end of sinless life through the sin of pride.

   To name our specific sins, however, takes pride’s remedy, namely humility. Of course we are not asked to publicly name our sins for any and all to hear. Were that a requirement for celebrating the Eucharist, I dare say the church would be empty of both people and priest. While we will all freely admit to our sinfulness to anyone who might ask or even do so unasked, we become mute when it comes to publicly naming those sins.

   Why this is so I will leave to the experts in human behavior. Those experts will tell us, however, that it is vital for our spiritual, emotional and even physical well being to name our sins, our specific sins and not simply confess our general sinfulness. Theologians would agree. For if we fail to face up to our particular sins, the very present danger is that those sins will become even worse. By the time we finally admit that we are over weight, we are already thirty or forty pounds over that limit.  So it is with our sins.

   This is not to rant and rave, not hellfire and brimstone. It is simply a reminder to all of us, myself especially, that while confessing general sinfulness is good and even necessary, there are times, regular times, when we need, nay, must, take some specific time to examine our conscience and honestly name our sins. Again, that will never be easy. No one ever said it would. Then, and this is of equal importance, we must determine what we must do, what changes in our lives we must make, to reduce the degree of those sins. That will not be easy either; but it will not happen until we specifically name those sins. WJP