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March 15, 2022Perhaps we have at one time or another experienced or reflected upon that common feeling of excessive guilt bordering on scrupulosity often referred to as “Catholic guilt.” It is a phenomenon that can plague both practicing and non-practicing Catholics alike and can be the result of shame over past actions or a general sense that one is inherently bad. It is especially burdensome when it begins to feel as if one’s sins cannot be forgiven or as if there is no hope for ever meeting the high moral standards the Church holds. In some ways Jesus’s words for the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel describe this scenario well: “They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.” The season of Lent, sadly, can mistakenly be interpreted in this way as a time to reinforce guilt over our sins through penances and fasting.
But while this phenomenon is certainly real and must be addressed honestly, the readings today show that it is a distortion of the moral life, one which Jesus came to rectify. Rather than use sin as a weapon to fill us with shame and despair, God sees sin as that which keeps us from living our lives in freedom and goodness. The reading from Isaiah encourages us to cease doing evil in order to make justice our aim and to begin doing good; in other words, there is a positive and fulfilling purpose for our lives that God is calling us toward, even when sin gets in the way. But God is not like the Pharisees – he does not simply identify our sin and then leave it to us to figure out. God humbled himself in Christ Jesus, who took the lowliest place on the Cross to forgive and heal the wounds of sin. It was through Jesus’s humility that our scarlet sins became white as snow. So, we have a God who has experienced the ups and the downs of human life and does not ask the impossible of us. Lent, therefore, is not a season to be filled with excessive guilt, but to turn back to the Lord and let him take on our burden to heal it. Let us then take this day to reflect on how God wishes not to shame but to heal us, and how we can grow more patient and merciful with our neighbors and ourselves as we progress on the path of holiness.
