The duel between sin and grace
Our life can be described in many, endless ways. But definitely one way of describing it is the duel between our boundless capacity to sin and God’s infinite mercy. Somehow, the season of Lent highlights that aspect of our life.
Our sinfulness is tied to the way we use our freedom. Since our freedom has tremendous possibilities, our capacity to sin can also go without limits. There might be external boundaries of our sinfulness, but inside us we can recognize no borders.
I’m sure many of us, if not all, recognize this. Sometimes we get scared at the thought of what we can do, if not externally then internally. We experience what our faith tells us about our wounded nature—that we have some kind of an inherent attraction to evil. We call it concupiscence.
We many times go through the drama once expressed vividly in the Letter to the Romans: “The good which I will, I do not. But the evil which I do not will, that I do.” (7,19)
Like it or not, this is our lot. That’s why it’s good to cultivate as seriously as possible, always asking for God’s grace for without it nothing is possible, a genuine spirit of penance, a sense of our sinfulness and of our abiding effort to fight it and to ask forgiveness for it.
This is what we are encouraged to do especially during this season of Lent. We cannot deny the fact that in many places in the world today, especially in the highly secularized, developed world, the sense of sin is disappearing.
Many people are considering sin as something normal, an ordinary consequence of their freedom, and therefore a right. The only limit would be some human consideration of public order. If one manages not to mess up in public order, he can do practically anything.
Thus, in many places they have gone to the extent of legalizing abortion. Nowadays, many countries are debating the legalization of euthanasia. If what is sinful and evil is just a matter of human consensus, there can be no other way but to expect worse things.
Already, all kinds of sins of the flesh are not only tolerated but held as sign of human maturity. When priests talk about them, they distort the issue by saying that we hate people. We will always love people even as we clarify and even condemn sins, following the example of Christ.
The sense of sin depends on one’s relationship with God, who as Creator of the whole universe, is the ultimate definer of what is good and what is evil. When that relationship is left to rot, what can we expect?
Lent should be a privileged time to go back to God, to regain our spiritual and moral bearing, to strengthen our faith and reinvigorate our piety. This is how we can restore our sense of sin and develop the much-needed spirit of penance.
We need to pray, we need to confess our sins, we need to deepen our humility and simplicity so that we can clearly see the path proper for us to follow. These are human necessities we cannot afford to go without.
What is important is that we realize we need to be with God, cultivating a relationship that is always kept vibrant and engaging. Our problem sometimes is that this relationship is maintained only in the formal and external level, while the real substance and the internal requirements are ignored.
Still in all this, we have to keep our faith that where sin has abounded, the grace of God abounds even more. God’s mercy is forever. God’s delight is not in man’s condemnation, but in his conversion. He’ll do everything to effect that.
Christ himself, while about to die, appealed to his Father: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” (Lk 32,34) And he proceeded to his own painful death to achieve that divine desire.
We need to realize that it is God’s mercy that somehow limits our endless capacity to sin. Thus, Christ told us to forgive not only seven times, but seventy times seven, meaning, always.
It is through the pain and dying involved in forgiving that mysteriously transforms evil into good, converts death into life, darkness into light. If we forgive the way God forgives as shown by Christ, we are going to do a lot of wonders.
Let’s not get stuck with our sinfulness. Let’s always hope and work for God’s mercy.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
