« Mary, Mother of the Church | Home | Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary »
Sin
By Peace | August 17, 2008
The Definition of Sin
Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbour caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”
Sin is an offense against God:”Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.” Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become ‘like gods’, knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God’. In this proud self-exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.
It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal — so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ fight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgivenss of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.
Mercy and Sin
The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners. The angel announced to Joseph,”You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption:”This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
“God created us: but he did not will to save us without us.”
To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
As St Paul affirms,”Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us “righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin:
Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit”. Thus in this ‘convincing concerning sin’ we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.
Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church
Seven Deadly Sins
Confession of Sins
History of Sins
Venial Sins and Mortal Sins
Topics: Church, God, Teachings, View All |
