April 17, 2025

I. What is Sin? Dear Friends, we have certainly experienced God’s love – the Father’s love. But our response to God’s love can be of two types. We can say ‘yes’ to God and become loving persons like God, or we can say ‘no’ to God and become sinful. That’s because the essence of love is freedom. Fulton J Sheen says: “How could we really love if we were forced? Is it not the possibility of a ‘no’ that gives so much charm to our ‘yes’?”

Sin is saying ‘no’ to Father’s love. The prodigal son said ‘no’ to his father’s love (Lk 15:11-32). So love is a risk. Every parent knows this. Yet every parent loves the child, because it is worth taking the risk for the proper growth of the child. We too may say ‘no’ to God, and sin. But it is important for us not to lose the sense of sin and to realize that sin is really a terrible thing; it is not worthy of one who has been shown so much love, and it must make us also feel ashamed of ourselves, and once we realized it and become aware of it then we will never want to commit sin at all.

Jesus came to make us, first of all recognize and become aware of sin, which is the cause of all that is evil in the world, and then to free us from it. Let’s consider some of the obstacles and misconceptions that prevent us from seeing our sinfulness:

1. We too sin and are often not aware of or do not want to acknowledge that we have sinned. Some people act as if they can never go wrong: self-righteousness – which is the worst enemy of growth in spiritual life. Jesus condemned it most - together with hypocrisy. (Lk 11:37-52). So the first obstacle to seeing our sinfulness is self-righteousness. (Jn 9:39-41)
2. Secondly we may have distorted notion of sin itself. Often we condemn as a grave sin what Jesus would not think of as grave, while we absolve ourselves easily of the sins that Jesus would consider as grave. So in the second point we shall allow Jesus to show us the way from the Sermon on the Mount as to how we should recognize what is evil in us, and how we should live in love.
3. A common mistake we make when considering sins is to mistake feelings for sins. Feelings such as anger, jealousy, sexual passion, sadness, depression, fear, worry, discouragement – these are not sins. Sin lies in our decisions, not in our feelings. For example, the feeling of jealousy not a sin in itself. The question is not: Do I feel jealous? All of us do feel jealous sometimes. The issue is: Have I spoken or acted against someone because of my jealousy? Let us remember that jealousy could lead to sin but jealousy as such is not a sin. The same can be said for other emotions.
4. Another misunderstanding is that often we think only of sin as doing something harmful – the sin of commission. The sin of omission is as serious as could at times be more serious than the sin of commission. Einstein said: “The world is a dangerous place to live not because those who do evil but because of those who watch and let it happen.” In Jesus’ story of the last judgement people are condemned not for adultery, murder, etc. but for not reaching out to help someone who needed that help. The way we treat or don’t treat our fellow men and women decides whether we are sinners or not, and to what degree.

II. What is Repentance? The consideration of sin should not lead us to despair or feeling of guilt. Guilt hates oneself, not the sin. Jesus wants us to hate the sin, not the sinner. That is not what the consideration of sin should lead to. It is meant to lead us closer to God who is ever ready to forgive the repentant sinner. So we should not be hard on ourselves if we have gone wrong. See how Jesus dealt with Zaccheus; see how he dealt with the Samaritan woman.

On the contrary, the consideration on sin should lead us to repentance. That’s what Jesus desires. He says that there is great joy in heaven over one sinner repenting. That’s why too; Jesus’ first message is “repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

1. What is repentance? And what happens when we repent? Repentance is the turning away from sin, and then turning towards God. Becoming aware of our sin and then re-tracing our steps back to God. Repentance is the first step in freeing ourselves from the bondage of sin. The sinner’s initiative is important. Sin is our initiative, so repentance too must be our initiative, God’s grace being presupposed. Zaccheus is a good example of true repentance. Let us take Lk 19:1-10.In the case of Zaccheus, by climbing up the sycamore tree and thus humbling himself in accepting his smallness, he made himself accessible to Jesus. He wanted to see Jesus. But he was short in stature, so he accepted this fact and climbed the tree. He did not mind acting like a child. In turning away from sin we need to humble ourselves, to accept our smallness, our sinfulness. For this we need to become aware. It is only when we are aware of our sin or our wrong doing can we correct it. We must become aware of it by ourselves (like the prodigal son) or else someone should point it out to us, only then can we come to awareness and repent. That’s what happened to Zaccheus. Till he encountered Jesus he was not aware of his sins. But once he became aware of his sin he repented and effectively too. 

2. The two main sins of Zaccheus were greed and cheating in his money transactions. Now that he became aware of his sin, he re-traced his steps back to God. His promises to Jesus reveal a total reversal from sin and offered re-payment to the victims of his greed and cheating. Till then he went on acquiring more and more money by hook or by crook to satisfy his greed. But now he promises to give away half of his property to the poor. So instead of adding he is subtracting to give up greed. So also in the second sin of cheating. Till now he cheated people by extracting more than what they are due to pay as taxes. Now that he has repented, he gave back to those whom he cheated, four times over the amount he cheated from them. So Zaccheus truly repented. He took the means to effectively reverse the trend towards sin. When we repent this is what should happen to us. We should take the means to reverse the trend of our wrong doing. 

3. So the first step in repentance is to be humble and simple like a child, to accept our smallness and become aware of our sinfulness, and give up self-righteousness and snobbish attitudes. The second step is to go in the reverse direction from sin and move towards God. The Prodigal son did just that and what a welcome he received from his father! When we repent in this effective manner we too will be given a warm welcome back home, because Our Father loves us much. In fact his love is always there whether we repent or not. But it is felt by us and experienced with joy only when we repent and come back to him. 

Reliance on God’s love does not diminish our own responsibility. Renewal of heart is both God’s gift and our human response towards a new life. Someone has said: “The brightness of the Sun does not give us light if our eyes are blind; streams of living water will not quench our thirst unless we fill our cup. “So in concrete, if we want to experience in us the joy, the love, the bliss of the Kingdom of God, then we must repent. How will we do it in practice? If for example, I was vengeful before, then after repentance, I will not retaliate, rather I will, as Jesus says, show the other cheek. I will keep on loving him even if he hurts me. If for example, I was jealous of a person, because she is popular and the jealousy reveals itself in speaking ill of her, then I must make it a point to speak well of her and feel happy that she is popular. 

It may be a good exercise to each of our short-comings after examining our conscience and reverse that short-coming by an act of love. When I am able to do this then the joy, the love, the power of Christ and his Kingdom will begin to fill my heart and I will become a new being like St Paul: I begin to feel strong where before I was weak, I begin to be relaxed where before I was tense, I begin to be free where before I was rigid, I begin to be loving where before I was cold and indifferent, and my whole life gets transformed like Zaccheus’ or Mary Magdalene’s or Paul’s and I start being a new person, for now I have repented and possess the power of the kingdom within me. 

To conclude: All sins are sins against love, because there is only one commandment, that of love (Rom 13:8-10). In prayer examine your relationship with others. Whatever you do to them, you do to Jesus/God (Mt 25:40). When you keep someone at a distance, you are keeping God at a distance; when you are indifferent to someone, you are indifferent to God. The one who hates another is already dead. The experience of unconditional love of the Father has the power to transform one’s heart and make one a son/daughter of God. This is fulfilment of the New Covenant: creation of a new heart through forgiveness of sins by the Holy Spirit (Jer 31:31-34). With this new heart, the heart of a son/daughter, one is able to avoid sin in the future (1Jn 3:9) and to love like the Father – the good and the bad (Lk 6:27-38).