In the coming months children will celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation for their first time, and some—perhaps many, I regret--- will not return for many years, if ever.
Jesus, the Divine Mercy, will wait in the
confessional, eager to offer His healing salve to bruised and wounded hearts,
but His wait will be long.
Why?
I believe the simplest answer is this: Mom and Dad
have left the Lord waiting. They have neglected the care of their own souls
through avoidance of the confessional. Children learn how to view and live life
from their parents.
And why do parents leave the Divine Mercy waiting?
I believe there are basically two reasons.
Why We Make Jesus Wait
The first has to do with our culturally influenced view of sin, and the second, with our understanding of God.
First: We have a fuzzy concept of sin.
Blessed John Paul II talked of a societal loss of
the sense of sin.
We simply are out of touch with the reality of sin.
We may acknowledge that sin exists in a larger context--- for instance, the
atrocities committed by the Nazis--- but we are not as cognizant of the more
"common" sins.
Let’s be honest: What sins, save the
"biggies," such as the large scale, brutal acts of the Nazis, or extreme cases of abuse and
murder, are not commonly celebrated and elevated to the object of humor in the
entertainment industry? Activities that were once the cause of scandal and shame
have become the fodder for popular sitcoms. What used to make us turn our heads
in shame because it demeaned the human person now incites us to raucous
laughter.
Today, people don’t sin so much as they make
mistakes, or “mess up.” We hear a lot of popular excuses for selfish choices.
“He is like that because he grew up in an alcoholic
home. It’s not his fault.”
“She wouldn’t treat her children that way if she
had experienced a more loving home environment when she grew up. She can’t help
it.”
"What's wrong with what they're doing, as long
they are consenting adults?"
To speak of sin gets one labeled as a religious
fanatic or prude.
And if it is no longer fashionable to speak of sin,
what is the point of speaking of contrition and forgiveness and reconciliation
and penance?
Our loss of the sense of sin may stem from our
culture’s love affair with relativism, in which current values and even public
opinion determine what is true. Now we are seeing vividly how the government
can be seen as a sure arbiter of good and evil--- take the current
administration’s resolute lionization of Planned Parenthood--- and what is more
shifting in its values and ideologies than governments?
To acknowledge that there is objective truth, and
therefore objective good and objective evil, is not a popular stance to take in
a society that worships “tolerance,” which has been redefined to mean something
like “acceptance of anyone else’s view even if it means I must give up my own.”
True tolerance of course, is the practice of civility in the context of an honest and open
dialogue between people with differing ideas and beliefs. It certainly does
not mean compromising or “selling out” one’s convictions.
To acknowledge that we commit evil is to
acknowledge that some acts are objectively evil, and therefore, intolerable.
And to acknowledge that some acts are evil and intolerable is to recognize
boundaries that should not be crossed. Recognizing that there are boundaries
implies a responsibility to keep them. And that is problematic for a culture
that adores its freedom--- but in another incidence of cultural redefinition,
this so-called freedom really means license. True freedom is the ability to do the good and to be what one truly is, whereas license is the ability to do whatever one wants.
To cultivate a sense of sin, an awareness that sin
is real and that all are capable of committing it, is to move toward moral
responsibility. That requires real effort, and many find that undesirable. It
requires engagement and involvement in the human experience outside of one’s
bubble. It may even require that one step out and take a stand, or challenge
moral evil at the risk of persecution or mockery (or--- oh no--- the accusation
of being "intolerant!").
It is easier to stay disengaged, and let be what
will be.
Also, another contributor to this lack of a sense
of sin finds its roots in the greatest obstacle to the spiritual life: pride.
We don’t like to look at our personal defects in the mirror, much less
acknowledge they are serious. Facing our own darkness is not pleasurable, and
Lord knows how addicted we are to pleasure.
To do an examination of conscience before bed at
night used to be part and parcel of the Christian life. Now many will look at
you quizzically if you use that phrase. It is easier to ignore the reality of sin and refer
to it by other, benign names. We seem to sleep easier this way.
Within the milieu of the “dictatorship of
relativism,” using Pope Emeritus Benedict’s apt words, it is easy to forget the
simple and essential truth: We are sinners, and only God can save us.
Returning to this fundamental truth, the heart of
the Gospel, really, is the first way to draw people back to the sacrament of
mercy.
In Part Two, we will explore the second reason the lines to the confessional are short. It gets down to something deeply personal: one's image of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment