Holiness occasioned by sin

WE need to remind ourselves that holiness can be
occasioned, (not caused, of course) by sin. And so we have to devise a
spirituality that recognizes this very important fact and acts on it
accordingly.

            Just a reminder: it’s God’s grace and our correspondence
to it that cause holiness. But anything, everything, even our problems
and sins, can be and should be an occasion to attain a certain degree
of sanctity. With God, everything will always work out for the good.

            Let’s be wary when we only develop a spirituality that
restricts itself to the practice of good things and yet is helpless
when faced with the ugliness and effects of sin and evil in oneself
and in the world.

            That would be a spirituality that is not realistic, that
chooses to ignore a salient if unwelcome aspect of our human condition
here on earth. It is prone to fall into self-righteousness, rash
judgments and fault-finding.

            It is also prone to the tricks of hypocrisy and deception
if only to cover the unavoidable inconsistencies in our spiritual and
moral life. It cannot help but drip of sanctimony, the caricature of
holiness. Besides, it tends to turn off people especially when its
flaws get widely known.

            It’s a pity, because with the temper of the times when a
great majority of the people are saddled with all kinds of sin and
anomalies, not only of the small and transitory ones but rather of the
big and often persistent and vicious kind, there’s a clamour for a
spirituality skilled in tackling this unfortunate situation.

            We need to have a plan or program of spirituality that can
be attractive to sinners and people in trouble who, in spite of their
predicaments, still have a longing for what is objectively true, good
and beautiful. This practically refers to all of us.

            It should be a spirituality that knows how to dispense
mercy and the means to cure or at least give relief to our spiritual
and moral predicaments. It should have a pharmacopeia that is able to
attend to a great variety of spiritual and moral conditions that we
can fall into as we go through life.

            Let’s never forget that we are all sinners, and yet God
loves us still, even to the point of becoming man and offering his
life on the cross, practically assuming all our sinfulness just to
recover us. In a certain sense, there is something in sin and evil
that attracts God to us.

            Our spiritual life should capture this divine logic and
behaviour that certainly sees sin as evil and yet is not scandalized
by it. Rather, it should fill us with sorrow and contrition, rushing
to God asking for forgiveness, instead of running away from him that
would worsen our condition.

            God’s love is always greater than the malice behind our
sin. More than that, it is capable of drawing good from evil. This
truth of our faith should be spread more widely, not to spoil us by
abusing the goodness of God, but rather to instil hope in us who are
struggling with all kinds of sin and their consequences.

            We should also not lose sight of the fact that sin, if
properly reacted to and handled, can somehow expand our perspective,
enrich our wisdom and make us more identified with Christ who, as St.
Paul once said, made himself like sin without committing them.

            Sin should be avoided at all costs. But when it comes,
when we fall into it, we should not aggravate the situation by fleeing
from God who is all eager to forgive and comfort us, and to give us
all the means to bring us back to our original dignity.

            We should avoid keeping to ourselves. With God’s
forgiveness, we can start the way to full recovery, going through the
process of atonement and reparation for whatever damage our sin may
have cause, and developing the appropriate virtues and learning how to
tackle our weaknesses and temptations more effectively.

            Let’s remember that the Church which is holy because of
its founder, its doctrine and sacraments, etc., is also a family of
saints who have been sinners but who struggled all the way to the end.

            Some of our great saints have been big sinners before. We
can cite the example of St. Paul, for one. He was a vicious persecutor
before his dramatic conversion which was an effect both of God’s grace
and his quick correspondence to that grace.

            Let’s hope that we can develop a spirituality that knows
how to take advantage of our sinfulness!