We have all experienced the pain of guilt. It is a function of what we call the conscience, one of the great gifts of the mind that God has given every human being, the others being: intellect, free will, and memory. When the conscience is properly formed, it acts as a guide for our actions. It acts as an internal moral ‘compass’ that recognizes and judges the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad. It also functions in a way that impels us to do the right thing and to avoid what is wrong. When we do what we know is right, we feel satisfaction, even happiness. When we do something that we know is wrong, we experience feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse.
Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, human beings have known the intimate internal struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, guilt and innocence within their own conscience. The Good News is that the story of The Fall also begins the story of God’s gracious and merciful love for every one of us, which found its culmination in Jesus Christ and the victory of the Cross. On that tree, Jesus bore the weight of all of the sins of humankind in a supreme act of sacrificial love, making it possible for us to return to that original innocence we were made in and for. Though we often stumble, fall, and lose our way, in Jesus, we have seen the merciful love of God.
The psalmist understood this experience of guilt and shame very deeply. But he also knew the gracious and merciful love of God. He expresses these experiences very powerfully in Psalm 32: 1-7. He writes: “Happy the man whose offense is forgiven, whose sin is remitted.” He describes the inner turmoil of a guilty conscience and the shame we feel with crystal clarity, because he knew the pain of guilty shame personally, and what happens to us when we try to suppress those heavy feelings. He puts it this way: “I kept [my guilt] secret and my frame was wasted. I groaned all day long for night and day, your hand was heavy upon me. Indeed, my strength was dried up, as by the summer’s heat.” Have we not known this heavy weight of God’s hand within our own consciences on many occasions? Though the feeling of guilt is painful for us, in a very real sense, it is a gift. It forces us to see ourselves clearly in the light of truth/reality. To pay heed to our conscience is wisdom; not to pay heed to it is foolishness. When we sense our guilt, we are at a crossroads. We are brought to a point of true freedom. Do we choose to listen to that voice within and turn back to the good, or do we let our feelings conquer us, giving them control over our lives? Each of these choices will have its own consequences.
The Psalmist speaks to the proper remedy for our guilty conscience, saying: “But now I have acknowledged my sins; my guilt I did not hide. I said: ‘I will confess my offenses to the Lord.’ And you, Lord, have forgiven the guilt of my sin.” In recognition of our personal guilt, and in humbly turning to the gracious and merciful love of God, we experience the liberating power of his forgiveness. In our free choice to admit our sins and to confess them, we also receive the gift of God’s grace to strengthen us in our efforts to be and to do good. As the Psalmist says: “So let every good man pray to you in the time of need. The floods of water may reach high but [the one who has experienced the love and mercy of God and turned back to the good] the waves shall not reach. You are my hiding place, O Lord; you save me from distress. You surround me with cries of deliverance.” Grace!
In guilt there is much sorrow and shame, a heavy burden indeed. On the other hand, in recognizing my guilt, and in confessing my sins to the Lord, there is the reward of great joy, for in doing so I am liberated from the weight of my shame and at the same time, I am empowered by God’s grace to turn away from my sinful habits and to know and to choose the good more and more often. In this, I am ‘surrounded by cries of deliverance.’ The prophet, Ezekiel, speaks of God’s gracious mercy this way: “Though I say to the wicked man that he shall surely die, if he [listens to his conscience] and turns away from his sin and does what is right and just, giving back pledges, restoring stolen goods, living by the statutes that bring life, and doing no wrong, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the sins he committed shall be held against him; he has done what is right and just, he shall surely live” (Ez. 33: 14-16). Gracious and merciful is the Lord, indeed: let us turn to him with confidence.
A final thought. Free will is directly related to the conscience. The conscience comes to know and understand the difference between what is really right and what is really wrong throughout the course of a lifetime. When we are children, our conscience is formed by the influence of our parents in the home, by our faith communities, and by our culture. When we are adults, the burden of forming our conscience and conforming it to the moral good and away from that which is not good shifts to us. With our free will, we can choose to live in accord with the dictates of the conscience formed by the wisdom of the Gospel, or not. It is possible, through the misuse of our free will, to choose to defy our conscience, over and over again. It is possible to do this so often as to become habituated to the lies of our own rationalizations. Doing this, we are in danger of actually numbing, or even silencing, our conscience. It is then that we become a true danger to ourselves, to others, and to our own immortal souls. A culture made up of and led by such individuals becomes a true danger in many forms to the innocent, the powerless, and to those who willingly follow the law of God in their daily lives.
Lord, for our impatient and angry words and deeds, for our words and deeds of selfish grasping, for our unkind words and deeds, and for those sins for which we are most ashamed, give us pardon and the graces we need to choose the good more and more often. In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
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