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Do you think of sin as though it pertains merely to religion and nothing else? Do not let that word “sin” slip through your mind as though it is some abstraction that the Church has dreamed up as an excuse for her own existence. Multitudes of people who know little and care less about the Church and her message are firm believers in the reality of sin. Why is it that government, at every level, spends millions of dollars to maintain police forces, jails, prisons and courts of law? The basic reason is sin. Why is it that automobile manufacturers equip their products with ignition keys, door locks, and various security devices increasing the cost of every car by several hundred dollars? The primary reason is sin.

Sin is not a religious intervention. It is a tragic reality, the deepest problem of our personal and social lives. We would have to deal with it even if we burned every Bible, boarded up every Church, and silenced every pulpit.

And what is so wrong with sin? What is so tragic about it? Is it the dire consequences that it brings on the lives of the guilty? That is bad enough; but it is not sin at its worst. Sin at its worst is its suffering not upon the guilty, but upon the innocent. That is always sin at its worst, when it brings its curse upon the innocent.

Have you ever seen a little child, or even the picture of a child, who has been beaten and abused? If ever you do, you will never again be able to think and speak of sin as if it were a religious triviality.

You see that every sin that we commit builds a cross on which someone innocent will hang. So, we all need to be saved from our sins and consequences. Make no mistake about it – all of us are in need of and are searching for salvation of some sort. Why do we have schools? To save us from ignorance. Why do we have jobs? To save us from poverty. Why do we have hospitals? To save us from sickness and accident. Why do we make friends? To save us from loneliness. All of life has something to do with salvation; it just happens that we don’t always call it that.

Thus, the Church is concerned with the ultimate issue of saving us from wrongness to rightness. Our message of salvation is aimed at that root problem which lies at the root of all human problems. The Bible calls it sin.

We have made our bed of sin and, in a sense, must lie in it. But the Divine Love of God in Jesus has come to spend the night with us. Through the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, Jesus offers us salvation. Through Confession and the Eucharist, Jesus saves us from sin and its effects and brings us to new life.

How truly blessed are we that salvation can be ours for the taking. So, stay close to the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist.