I’ll Come Around Some Day: Sin and Sanctity

The next sin is that petty kind which blocks all small goods. This sin is, like sin tends to be, one largely of pride. It is the sin that denies us joy at another’s happiness because it is not our joy. It is the sin that reduces mass attendance to modest dress rather than presence and continued rectitude of the heart. It is the sin that encourages us to judge another because of their lack of social graces. It is the sin that manifests itself in a hundred small ways, building a wall between us and God and our neighbor with tiny, brittle stones. It is the sin that is easy to ignore, because we aren’t so bad you know. It is the sin of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians that suggests “we alone can and must make ourselves good.” These sins are best fought by praying for faith. Faith, according to Cessario, is when we are

Being practically convinced that God loves you because he is good and not because you are. Otherwise, at this point, people would simply give up in despair, because they would falsely conclude that even if salvation is promised, it is not possible for one tempted in this or that way. Such a Pelagian understanding of the Christian moral life reveals an even more pernicious premise, namely, that one need achieve a certain state of holiness before meriting God’s love.

Yet, we do not need to be holy to receive God’s love; we need to know ourselves and ask forgiveness for our sins. In fact, without knowing our sins and asking for forgiveness, we will never be able to receive God’s love which makes us holy. Christ comes like a doctor not to heal the healthy but the sick, but we must know that we need Him. We need to stare into the infinite seeming abyss of our minds with honesty, seeing who we really are, and faith, knowing who God really is. We must honestly acknowledged the truth about our petty sins and how deep those roots go. We must also pray for the Holy Spirit to give us faith that even when we are honest, God loves us; that it is His love, the love that led Christ to die on the Cross, which will save us and return us to Him.