I’m going to say something that we don’t want to hear: all of us, every single man, woman and child in the world, are sinners. We don’t want to hear that. We want to believe that we’re just fine, that everything we do is OK, that nothing is right or wrong so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Look at the messages coming out of our culture: nothing is wrong, unless it offends political correctness. Behaviors and actions that were once avoided and shunned because they were considered sinful are now held up as normal and encouraged. Living together outside of wedlock, gay marriage, abortion, and euthanasia are no longer wrong in the eyes of our culture. The only sins in our world today is failure to protect the environment or have too many children or, worst of all, be judgmental against someone’s sinful lifestyle and choices.
Yet, despite the message our culture is trying to cram down our throats, sin does exist. Sin is not merely doing something that hurts someone else, it’s living contrary to God’s design for our lives. God, who created us from nothing and keeps us in existence out of His unending love for each of us, has a plan for each of us individually, and for all humanity as a whole. When we act contrary to that plan, we tell God that our plans for our lives are more important than His plans. We cut ourselves off from Him to follow our own paths away from Him.
This is what happened during the Exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt. After leading the Israelites out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, God took Moses up to the top of the mountain so that the Law might be given to Moses and the Israelite people. During this time, as the Israelites were waiting at the foot of the mountain, they became discouraged and began to doubt that God would ever lead them to the Promised Land. They turned their backs on God, fashioning a false god to worship and give credit for leading them out of Egypt.
When we sin, we are like the Israelites, turning our backs on God and finding a false god to worship. This false god might be power and authority, earthly pleasure and possessions, wealth and esteem from others, or any other number of earthly things which draw us away from the one true God, our heavenly Father who loves us and wants us to come to Him.
Through our sins, we act like the son in today’s Gospel who turned his back on his father and lived “a life of dissipation.” He blew his entire inheritance on fleeting earthly pleasure and ended up with nothing, just as we do when we fall into sinful actions and behaviors. Sin is empty pleasure that doesn’t last, and we end up worse off after we sin than we did before. Sadly, for many sins, we may not even realize how much worse off we are until it’s too late.
There is hope, though, for us poor sinners. God is always willing to forgive our sins and welcome us with open arms. Just as the father ran to meet the son in the Gospel passage, God our heavenly Father is waiting for us to turn back to Him and ask for forgiveness. Jesus even promises us that there is rejoicing in Heaven every time sinners repent of their sins. We just need to approach God our Father with humility.
We see this forgiveness in every reading. Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites and God forgives them. The father throws a great celebration when the son returns from his sinful life. St. Paul even talks about the sinful life he led before his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus.
God is ready and willing to forgive. In fact, St. Paul reminds us that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Our Lord’s mission here on Earth was to call all sinners to repentance, which is why He reached out to the sinners of His time, but we might feel like St. Paul who “acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.” We might not realize that some of our actions are sinful, or may not believe that we even sin at all. This is why I ordered the pamphlets from the Fathers of Mercy that contain an examination of conscience. The purpose of an examination of conscience is to help us know what actions and behaviors are sinful, find those sins that have rooted themselves in our souls, and to bring them before God in the Sacrament of Confession.
I want to make this abundantly clear: the normal way that God forgives our sins is through the Sacrament of Confession, instituted by Jesus Himself and offered by His priests acting in Persona Christi (in the Person of Christ). The only times that would be exceptions to this are dire, life-threatening emergencies that are unavoidable and unforeseeable. The common example would be reciting an Act of Contrition as an airplane is going down and about to crash. Fortunately, these circumstances are extremely rare, and many of us may never have to face these kinds of emergencies, so reception of the Sacrament of Confession is essential – it’s a must – for every Catholic, whether we want it or not.
We need the wonderful and powerful Sacrament of Confession because we all are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. He is always ready and willing to offer that forgiveness out His great love for all of us. Will we be humble enough to accept it?
