From an Adherence of Sin to a reality of Grace!

From an Adherence of Sin to a Reality of Grace!

A theme that affects all of us, but one that too many do not adhere with.   Volumes of pleas that exist for anyone who falls into sin are there for our reading, but how many actually open the pages of wisdom that waits for us to absorb their proverbial essence?

With closest custody, guard your heart, for in it are the sources of life.  Put away from you dishonest talk, deceitful speech put far from you.  Let your eyes look straight ahead and your glance be directly forward.  Survey the path for your feet, and let your ways be sure.  Turn neither to right nor to left,  keep your foot far from evil.  (Prv 4: 23 - 27).

Simple,  yet very straightforward quotes by an unknown author and they go directly to the heart of man when his attentions are not always of a moral decision.  Who among us is keen enough to seek out wisdom especially when the attraction to pleasure, sexually, wanton behavior towards wealth, or lifting oneself above God’s grace?  I doubt that any of us,with a free will, are in that position of keeping ourselves morally correct.  The failure towards supplanting ourselves through treacherous failures are numerous and no one without God’s grace can overcome the attraction. 

Of course, throughout history man has only proclaimed that God could have eliminated the presence of sin, keeping us free from failure.  Sin is not something that God instituted, but he did allow its presence to humanity’s weakness.  Why?  

But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning?  St. Leo the Great responds, “ Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those  the demon’s envy had taken away.”  And St. Thomas Acquinas wrote, “There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin;  God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good.  Thus St. Paul says, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more;”  and the Exultet sings, “O happy fault…..which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”  (CCC 412).

Can we place an identification of Sin here?  Sin is an offense against God:  “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”  (Ps 51: 4).  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 free 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-exultation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation. 

(CCC 1850). 

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’ flight.  However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.  (CCC1851).

Ralph B. Hathaway