Coming Home to the Wide Open Door of the Father
How do we recognize when we are in a state of sin? The easy answer is we’re still breathing. This is not to say all our actions are sinful, that is a Gnostic view of our human nature, denying all good and grace and truth and beauty, seeing only the animal essence of our existence. In modern parlance, we must recognize that most of our actions and inactions are more nuanced than we might care to admit. We tell a story to amuse, to please, to persuade, to receive praise and to show off cleverness. Some of those motives can be more worthy than others. Only God knows our true reasons for all of our actions and inactions, and we glimpse all of them dimly except when we really look inward in preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Think of it as an act in spiritual Spring Cleaning. We allow a lot of incidental sin to build up just in the course of a single week, let alone months, snarky comments about a colleague, gossip on the phone, a fit of temper on the beltway, an ungenerous response to a spouse. Like dust bunnies, eventually, these little sins collect and dim the light of a soul, such that it forgets it is of the Divine and resigns itself to being less and less bright. Sin begets more sin, and eventually, the sins become graver and more damaging. Our spirits become duller, stiller, they mirror Dante’s vision of Hell, where in the deepest recesses, all is cold and frozen, unable to grow or move towards God.
We all know the tale of the Prodigal Son. The parable illustrates just how difficult it is for us to make a genuine assessment of ourselves and our failures. Staying in a state of sin, refusing to avail one’s self of the sacrament out of guilt or embarrassment or theoretically, the virtue of not being a hypocrite is like sitting amongst the pigs, wanting to eat their fodder, or sulking in the fields, wishing the banquet wasn’t happening. We mistake guilty feelings for genuine remorse. We then try to rationalize our refusal to seek forgiveness “I’m still going to persist in this act of sin; I don’t think it should be a sin, or I’m not sorry even if I know it is a sin.” Like both sons, we suffer from pride, preferring to be spiritually hungry rather than to go home to the God that will feed us in abundance. We do not want to enter into our Father’s House. Sin precludes us from joyfully accepting His generous love.
Fortunately for us, the grace of this uniquely Catholic sacrament is TRUE blanket forgiveness. This spring, recognize true spiritual hunger and go to the spiritual feast. When we feel the prickling of the Holy Spirit to check the times when this sacrament is offered, we are already starting on the road to our Father’s house, and He doesn’t even wait for us to get to the door before He’s preparing a robe and a ring and a rich meal for our arrival. His Doors are Open and always waiting for us, all He has is Ours, if only we will come.
Spiritual Hot Cocoa
Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at 
