FRUIT UNTO HOLINESS

A REFLECTION FOR THE 7TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Sorrow for our sins is something that is drummed into every Catholic boy and girl from the moment they’re capable of rational thought.  We learn that it’s just not enough to recognize when we’ve done something bad.  We actually have to be sorry that we did it.  It’s one of the requirements for a valid confession, for without sorrow for our sins we are refusing to acknowledge that we really did something wrong.  If it was wrong, then I should not have done it.  Therefore, I should regret having done it.  I should be sorry I did it.

Sometimes, we have a twinge of guilt because we don’t “feel” sorry.  But let’s appreciate the fact, please, that sorrow is so much more than mere “feeling”.  Sorrow for sin is an act of the will, by which we confess our regret for having offended the God we know to be infinitely good and deserving of all our love.  For confession to be valid, we must at least regret having done wrong because we fear the consequences of our sin.  Tears, emotions, sentimental inspirations—all these are sublime gifts from God if we’re blessed enough to experience them, but they are in reality only the confirmation of our actual repentance, and a help in resolving to do better in future.

To help instill in us the true sense of enormity our sins entail, St. Paul reminds us in today’s Epistle what those sins accomplished for us.  He asks the rhetorical question, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?”  Those terrible things we did that now, when we look back, fill us with such shame and horror that we were capable of acting like that… They tempted us with some perceived good at the time, obviously.  We wanted something, and we disobeyed God’s law in order to get it.  And now, looking back, what did we really achieve by our sin?  Are we better off today because we did this or that?  Better yet, let’s place ourselves on our deathbed and imagine we’re about to meet our Maker, our Judge.  What then will we think of these terrible acts we committed?  What “good fruit” have we to show for them?  “For the end of these things,” says St. Paul, “is death.”  True death, eternal death, death from which we shall never rise again to be happy with God in heaven.  “For the wages of sin is death.”

All God asks is that we be sorry for our sins, that we confess them with true repentance, and that we resolve not to commit them again.  This is the gift of God to us, his children, that we have our “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”  Indeed, “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Let’s be sorry then, that we keep messing up so badly.