Responsibility

one

Taking responsibility for our sin is the only way to freedom and healing!

As I look back on 2020 as well as my entire life it is a combination of untold blessings from God, from my parents and from many other people but it is also comprised of my good choices and good consequences as well as bad choices, sinful choices which resulted in bad consequences. Funny how we tend to focus in on the negative and painful. As I do this I fall into the trap of “what if…what if I had done this or not done that…my situation could have been so much better…” And do you know where this leads to? To blaming others and anger. Why? Because we do not want to take responsibility for our choices. We think we are in this or that crapy situation because of what someone else did. We are victims. (I am not speaking here about sinful and evil things that have been done to you – these are not your fault.) I am talking about the fact that by an abuse of my own freedom, I made bad choices that offended God, I hurt others, and I hurt me and caused a whole host of bad consequences that cannot be changed. What do we do now? What do we do to be healed and set free? We take responsibility, that what we do: we admit we have done wrong and failed to do right; we accept the consequences and endure what comes from them; we express our sorrow to God and to those we’ve hurt; we go to confession; and we do all that is in our power to repair the damage we have done to others and the damage we have done to ourselves by rejecting sin and forming a real strategy to take on virtue. Its time to take responsibility.

two

The first step in taking responsibility is Contrition, which means to be truly sorry for our sin. I am sorry - for making a mess out of my own life; I am sorry - for hurting and making a mess out of the lives of others; and most of all I am sorry - for offending God who loves me unconditionally. I am sorry that my sins were the direct cause of the suffering Jesus endured and the part they played in his death. I am sorry for spurning the great gifts He gave me – the gifts of freedom and Baptismal grace. Taking responsibility through contrition also means renouncing, abhorring or hating the sins I committed and the firm purpose of sinning no more in the future.

three

The second step in taking responsibility is the Confession of sins: we must admit to God and to ourselves and to those we have wronged the exact nature of our wrongs. CCC 1493 reminds us “One who desires to obtain reconciliation with God and with the Church, must confess to a priest all the unconfessed grave sins he remembers after having carefully examined his conscience. The confession of venial faults, without being necessary in itself, is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church.”

four

The third step to take responsibility is Satisfaction – that does not mean we take satisfaction for our sins – satisfaction means we are willing to do our penance, a firm resolve to repair the harm we have done by our sin and to make a strategy to reform our lives to grow from vice to virtue. CCC 1459 Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused." Every sin does damage to our soul. Repeated acts of pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, lust and so on deform our soul. When these vices become second nature our souls become vicious. To repair this damage takes the grace of God from the sacrament of reconciliation, frequent Eucharist, daily deeper prayer PLUS real thought and effort. We must form a strategy and practice repeatedly the virtues that reverse the effects of our vices. Every person is enslaved by two or three of the deadly sins mentioned just before. We call these our dominant deadly sins. Know them and form a real strategy to reverse them by practicing the opposite virtues. Our prayer and penance and good works not only help repair sin’s damage to our own souls, but also are a gift of love to the wounded Christ, and a grace that He can use to help those our sins have hurt.

five

The final step to take Responsibility is to cultivate Gratitude and Trust in Providence. The more we thank God for all that is good in our lives, the more we grow in love for Him and the desire never to turn away from Him in sin. Gratitude makes me less likely to throw it away by sin.  To gratitude we add trust in Divine Providence. God works all things for good for those who trust God. No matter what you have done or what path your life has taken – Jesus can re-create you and make you shine like the sun in the kingdom His Father. Mary Magdalene was so sinful that Jesus had to cast seven demons out of her. But once she met Jesus, His love for her changed her life and she went on to become one of the greatest saints in the history of the world. If God can do that for her then He can do the same for you.

Let’s conclude with a stanza of the poem about Mary Magdalen by Dunstan Thompson

High in the noonday sky,

     His arms thrown open wide,

Love is about to die,

     With a thief on either side.

One He has welcomed home,

     The other prefers to hate,

Like the Pharisees, who roam

     In packs and wait and wait.

The soldiers there below,

     Bored and ashamed and blind,

Rattle the dice and throw

     Their lives away like rind.

The mocking scholars toss

     Their beautiful white heads

Far off; but at the Cross

     Who reads?

His mother, calm in pain,

     Adoring, and John,

The youngest friend, remain:

     Fair weather friendships gone.

And one other. She,

     Whose sins have had their share

In blossoming that tree,

     Offers her sorrow there.

Those tears are now for Him,

     Not for herself; she weeps

Outside her life; eyes swim

     Up from their own deeps.

His gift of sacrifice

     Opens her rusted heart:

With Him she pays the price

     Of love, that suffering art.

And so triumphant grief

     Makes her the fourth to stay:

Two innocents, a thief

     And a whore, together pray.