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Understanding the human person is key, but understanding the sin which affects all human people is also crucial. This homily is the second of five attempts to provide a foundation to guide interpretation of Pope Francis's comments that recently caused a stir in the main-stream media. Keep listening for more!
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\\nThe following is the full text of the homily:
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\\nLast week, I promised to try to address careless misreporting by the mainstream media that suggested Pope Francis had broken with many long-established traditions in the Church. The Church\\u2019s teachings are often misrepresented because they are vast and complicated because God is even more vast and even more complicated. A quick answer to the latest headlines would only cause more confusion. We must, as Christians, strive to understand that our faith, as it is lived in the world, cannot fit into headlines. We must wrestle with the complexity of our faith as it is lived in a world filled with differences
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On this great feast of All Saints Day, we are reminded that holiness takes as many forms as there are people in the world. The great saints that line our stained-glass windows show us that holiness, as it is lived in the world, takes on many forms.
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Thus, I continue to endeavour to try to answer some key questions about what the Church teaches about the human person and human sexuality so that we, as Catholics, might at least engage with the Church\\u2019s teachings and, with all hope and prayer, let it guide us in our lives and our action in the world.
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Last week, I tried to answer the question: who is the human person? I said that the human person is the body and soul that is created, loved, and redeemed by God. This week, I will try to answer the question: what is sin?
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To answer, it would be useful to return again, briefly, to something that was said last week. In the definition of the human person, it was stressed that the human person is a person and not an object. Perhaps one of the simplest understandings of sin is the attempt to treat persons like objects and objects like persons. That is to say, sin is the undervaluing of the person and the overvaluing of the things of the world.
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Our Catechism of the Catholic Church says that sin goes against reason, truth, and right conscience. Sin goes against reason because it manipulates us into seeking from a thing that which can only be given from a person (or from a person that which would more properly come from a thing). Sin goes against truth because in this manipulation, reality is distorted. Sin goes against conscience because God has given us the ability to see this distortion and reason against this manipulation, but so often instead, we choose the sin.
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Sin is not a Christian invention. That is to say, sin is not simply something that affects Christians and those who do not share Christian values are free from it. The whole world is governed by the universal law of truth, and the human person wrestles with truth through his/her reason. The human person\\u2019s conscience is the interior, God-given, guidance to virtue and away from sin.
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Sin hurts the self, the community, and God. How sin hurts the self is, hopefully, obvious. If we are made for truth and love, and sin distorts that, then we are hurt. Even the most private sins hurt the community because we bring ourselves into that community, and by bringing our brokenness, we break more. Sin hurts God, but it doesn\\u2019t break his love for us; sin makes it harder for us to love God, but God loves us perfectly always.
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Because today is a great and holy day, a day when we commemorate all the saints who have gone before us into heaven, our readings speak more about the virtue of the saints than about the hurt caused by sin. Today, we commemorate the named and unnamed saints that constantly intercede for us in heaven that, as St John says in our first reading, come \\u201cfrom every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.\\u201d Understanding of virtue helps us understand sin.
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Jesus says \\u201cblessed are the poor in spirit\\u201d so we know that we must look at wealth in the world. Wealth isn\\u2019t inherently sinful, but the choices a person makes regarding that wealth might be. An object can\\u2019t be sinful, but the way a person uses an object might be. Wealth can be used to show charity and generosity, but it can also be used to divide and rule without mercy.
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\\u201cBlessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness\\u201d is not about the feelings of a person. Feelings can\\u2019t be sinful either, but the action that a feeling drives you to do might be. Wealth shows that objects can be used for good by persons. This beatitude, that calls each and every one of us to strive for justice shows that persons might be used as objects when they are treated unjustly. Looking at the brokenness of the world should stir our feelings to do good, to do justice, to be righteous. Looking at the differences and the divisions of the people in the world might also stir our feelings to continue to foster that division, to treat groups of people like groups of objects that can all be treated the same; this cannot be allowed in the pursuit of justice.
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Jesus is the only one of us who, by His own power, lived completely without sin. Mary also lived without sin, but only by the Grace of her son. Jesus\\u2019s passion and death on the Cross is marked by the gravest and most obvious sins: violence, unbelief, hatred, mockery, cowardice, and betrayal. In the midst of this sin, though, God conquers. His passion \\u201cbecomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour fourth inexhaustibly.\\u201d (1851)
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And thus, the most important characteristic of sin is shown\\u2014that is, sin is forgiven. Forgiveness must be accepted, and in its distortion and manipulation, sin tries to convince us that we do not need to be forgiven. But since our call is a call to love perfectly, we need forgiveness.
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The Triune identity of God also reveals to us the opposite of sin. The Trinity is a relationship of perfect love and freedom that creates and redeems the world. Sin is selfish hate that lies and destroys.
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We are hurt by sin. Our community is hurt by sin. God is hurt by sin. But in the midst of this brokenness, we are saved.
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The saints lived lives that were marked by their virtue, but they would be the first to admit that their lives were also marked by their sin. That sin is forgiven is a reminder that we are constantly invited to not accept our brokenness or the brokenness of the world around us, but rather, to try to change it. That sin is forgiven is a great gift and a great invitation to meet and encounter the love and mercy of God, to try to more fully accept it.
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You have sinned; that you have sinned is as sure as the fact that you are redeemed by God. This week, pray with and about your brokenness. Pray with the fact that we are so wonderfully created, yet we often choose the manipulation and distortion of the world.
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What is sin? Sin is the brokenness of the world, chosen by each person, but forgiven by God.