What Sins?

There is a story about a man who repeatedly begged God for forgiveness for a sin that he had committed countless times. As he eagerly listened for the Lord’s reply, the Lord finally spoke to him: “You are forgiven, my son.”

“But, Lord,” the man queried, “how can you forgive this sin so easily, after all those other times I failed in the same way?”

And the Lord asked, “What other times?”

That homey dialogue might well dramatize what Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3:22-23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

In the early centuries of the Christian era, debt certificates and other documents were written on papyrus in a slow-drying ink. Soon after such a certificate was written, it could be completely erased without a trace by wiping it with a wet sponge. That was probably what Paul envisioned as an analogy to divine forgiveness when he wrote in Colossians 2:!2-14; “[God] forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.”

[In a previous article] I referred to Henry Ward Beecher ‘s analogy between sinners and flowers. The unrepentant thief died next to Jesus as a “closed flower,” while the “good thief was open to receive the “dew” of the saving blood of the God-man dying a few feet away. No one ever asks, concerning the “good thief, “Where did his stolen loot go?” But no one needs to ask, “Where did his sins go?” He was privileged to a divine beneficiary of God’s mercy at the climactic moment of all of salvation history – a moment that prototyped the perennial choice of acceptance or rejection of God’s love. That “bad” day on Calvary thus came to be called “Good” Friday.

There is no crime or sin so terrible that it can dim God’s longing to grant forgiveness. And once forgiveness is granted, there is no place for sin to go. Like yesterday or last year, it’s gone!

A little-known proclamation from the Council of Trent is certainly encouraging to any thoroughly repentant person: If anyone, because of love for God, sincerely repents of all past sin and also intends never to sin again (underscore that word intends), then not just all the guilt but even the aftereffect of that guilt is also remitted (see CCC. #1472).

The aftereffect of guilt is primarily the temporal (that is, noneternal) purgatorial suffering due to sin. Removal of the accumulated purgatorial debt by God’s marvelous mercy occurs only if the sinner’s trust in God’s mercy is absolutely unwavering and intense with the deepest sincere intention never to sin again. The act of the will (intention) is effective even in the presence of the act of the intellect by which the soul knows it will not remain sinless for the rest of its life.

Sins committed after the moment of contrition will have to be dealt with separately. Subsequent purgatorial debt may follow any of thousands of possible ways of failing, such as not embracing generously and lovingly God’s will in the timing of one’s death or the deathbed agony itself. But God’s mercy is available even then, and the efficacy of the Council’s proclamation applies also to the dying penitent.

We can with confidence embrace the psalmist’s words as our own life song: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long” (Psalm 23:6).

This excerpt is from the book The Awesome Mercy of God, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Books. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.