CHAPTER 15“If I sin, what do I do to you?” (Job

7.20)

John 20:22-23

(Jesus) breathed on them and said to them,

“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are

forgiven them;If you retain the sins of any,

they are retained”

Learning Goals

1) Define what sin is 2) Understand the difference between a mortal and

venial sin 3) We will be able to explain the effects of sin on

the sinner, and on his/her relationship with God and others

4) In this chapter, students will be able to explore the social dimensions of sin and how restorative justice answers the call of forgiveness and reconciliation

5) Examine the nature of forgiveness and reconciliation on both a personal and societal level.

Key Terms

Absolution: In the sacrament of reconciliation, the priest absolves the penitent from his or her sins. Absolution is the remission of sins pronounced by the priest.

Penance: In the sacrament of reconciliation, the priest asks the penitent to do an act of “satisfaction” or penance for his/her sins. This act serves not only to make up for the past, but also help to begin a new life. May take form in prayers, self-denial, or especially service to one’s neighbour and works of mercy.

Key Terms 2

Penitent: A person who recognizes his or her sinfulness, and touched by the grace of God, seeks reconciliation through the sacrament of reconciliation.

Repentance: The act by which a penitent recognizes his/her sinfulness, manifests contrition and resolves to begin a new life by asking God’s pardon.

Restorative justice: A process that brings together victims, offenders and the community in order to repair the harm and promote harmony. It emphasizes healing the harm caused by crime by means of naming the truth and making amends personally.

Key Terms 3

Sin, mortal and venial: Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. One commits venial sin, when in a less serious matter, one does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when one disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or complete consent.

Social sin: Personal sin gives rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to divine goodness. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. Living in a state of sin corrodes and destroys the communion and solidarity to which God calls us.

What is sin?

Sin is an intentional thought, word or deed: It is an act committed freely and with deliberation. It is not a mistake or error.

Sins are actions or omissions: that I do or do not do on purpose. Since I am the author of sinful acts, I bear the consequences of these actions which is guilt.

Sin can be venial or mortal: The Catholic tradition distinguishes between sins that are grave, or “mortal” and actions that are less grave, or “venial”.

Definition of sin in the Cathechism

1849: Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or desire contrary to the eternal law.”

2 types of sin

MORTAL SIN VENIAL SIN

1857: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed will full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

1862: One commits a venial sin when, in a less serious matter, one does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when one disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.

Sin destroys the relational…

The bible presents sin as a breach in the covenant with God.

Sin is “missing the mark” or falling short of living according to the covenantal life (presented by the ten commandments/the beatitudes)

Unfaithfulness to the covenant affects our relationship with God and with one another, and so it affects who we are.

By sinning, we are deliberately choosing to distance ourselves from God and from our neighbour.

Sin is an enduring state of hard-heartedness or moral blindness

Just as our actions can become habits that shape us into this or that type of person, so too can habitual sin reshape the core of our being.

It can destroy the humanity in our hearts, esteem the dehumanizing fantasies of our minds and close down our hope of becoming a truly loving person.

This can be described as a sinful state of mind or heart or soul.

This sinful state, or “hardness of heart” destroys our capacity to relate to others.

Sin is an enduring state of hard-heartedness or moral blindness At this point, sin can be said to have a

power over us. Instead of the grace of God moving us to

action, it is our sin leading us against others or against God, seducing us to substitute other created goods (money, power, popularity) as gods in our lives.

This alienates us from God, others, and even ourselves.

Personal sin applied to groups

Sinfulness applies to groups as well as individuals.

Groups of people can succumb to the power of sin and get stuck in their sinful ways.

Groups or institutions may try to legitimize sin by enacting laws that are an offence against God and against human dignity.

The Impact of Sin on Institutions and Society

What impact does sin have as it spreads throughout the institutions of society?

There is another face of evil that goes beyond individual responsibility and individual self-destructiveness.

Social evil can be manifest in many ways and under a variety of names: apartheid, Holocaust, terrorism, etc.

3 ways we seek to understand social evil

1) Threats to identity: Conflicts involving identity contribute to the social evil we witness.

Most conflicts come out of a preoccupation with a particular pain, a sense of being a victim of others, and a resentment about an injustice perpetrated against us. Most of these conflicts have to do with issues of identity.

When people feel that their identity is threatened, they will go to great lengths to remove that threat. Violence often follows.

2) Rivalries: What happens when two people or groups desire the same thing that they consider indispensible to their existence?

The ensuing rivalry can escalate to completely dominate their lives.

The frustration of these desires can easily lead to violence.

For example: the rivalry between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, which ultimately lead to the slaughter of 800,000 people.

3) Need for scapegoats: The call for a scapegoat emerges whenever a community suffers violence or whenever a catastrophe overwhelms a community: e.g. a child is abducted, a car bomb explodes, there is a SARS outbreak, detrimental aftermath of a war

There follows an immediate explosion of emotion and an automatic search for a culprit; who can I blame?

The surrogate victim has become the scapegoat for all the violence or misfortune and is expelled from the community.

The scapegoat is made to look like an outsider who introduced the violence into the community. The “cure: is to rid the community of this person or group.

These 3 categories may not explain all the violence that occurs in the world. More important, are the ways in which we must seek to overcome violence, by arriving at reconciliation through forgiveness.

The Gift of Forgiveness

Class Discussion:

When you’ve deeply offended someone, is it hard to say you’re sorry? Why or why not?

When someone has deeply offended you, and tells you that they are really sorry, is it hard to forgive them? Why or why not?

Can you forgive someone who hasn’t asked for forgiveness? How?

What qualities does it take to ask forgiveness? To offer forgiveness?

Just because we forgive, does it mean we have to forget?

Forgiveness between Individuals

Forgiveness is not…1) Forgiveness is not to tolerate the wrong

that the other did to me. I do not have to accept injustice in order to forgive. What is wrong remains wrong even after forgiveness is given.

2) Forgiveness is not to forget what happened. It does not mean that I erase the wrong from my memory, as if it never existed. I cannot change the past, but I can give the opportunity to start fresh in the future.

3) Forgiveness is not to give up my right to justice as though forgiveness were a legal category. Forgiveness goes beyond the balancing of rights.

4) Forgiveness does not invite someone to hurt me again. I need not fear that if I forgive, I am just giving a license to the abuser to continue the hurt.

Forgiveness is…

1) Forgiving is God’s work. It needs the power of love that comes from God.

2) Forgiveness is the first step towards repentance. We can give forgiveness and we can receive forgiveness.

3) Forgiveness makes both the victim and the wrongdoer into new persons. Repentance includes a commitment to the righting of wrongs and a turning away from evil doing.

4) Forgiveness in our Catholic tradition is best understood in the narrative of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Accepting God’s forgiveness or that of others may not come easily. That is why we remember and revere the story of the cross.

5) Forgiveness is eschatological. Only when God is revealed completely in Christ in the fullness of time will forgiveness be complete and our broken relationships fully healed.

6) The Church is the ambassador of forgiveness and reconciliation. In the sacrament of penance, or reconciliation, the Catholic Church celebrates God’s gift of forgiveness in a personal and individual way.

The sacrament of penance

Over the centuries the Catholic Church has responded to the Lord’s commandment to forgive.

The introduction to the right of reconciliation reads, “in the sacrament of penance the Father receives the repentant son who comes back to him, Christ places the lost sheep on his shoulders and brings it back to the sheepfold, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies this temple of God again or lives more fully within it”

The reconciliation of penitents can be celebrated at any time of day, but it is desirable that the faithful know the day and time the priest is availably for confession.

The Season of Lent is most appropriate for celebrating the sacrament of penance.

There are 3 rites for the celebration of the sacrament of penance in the Catholic Church:

1) The rite of the reconciliation of individual penitents

2) The rite of reconciliation of several penitents with individual confession and absolution

3) The rite of general absolution, which is used only in rare and exceptional circumstances.

Restorative Justice: a call for forgiveness and reconciliation

Restorative justice emphasizes healing the harm caused by crime. It seeks to name the truth and to make amends personally.

Restorative justice brings together victims, offenders and the community in order to repair harm and promote harmony.

The process is based on the respect for the dignity of everyone affected by the transgression.

The goal is to build understanding among all the people involved, to encourage accountability, and to provide an opportunity for healing.