At a Catholic college I went to as an undergraduate I had an acquaintance who was to me the very model of the corporeal man. He drank to much, he ate only what he liked which mainly consisted of junk food and he was a womanizer. It seemed to me that he had no moral scruples of any kind. However, he was "Catholic" like me to some degree. I am putting "Catholic" in quotes for good reason. I said he was Catholic because he would go to church. He would show up late, typically. Sometimes just before Communion. Then out the door he would go, back to his life of debauchery.
A friend of mine and I caught up with him one day and asked him, if he wouldn't restrain himself morally in any way, why would he bother to go to church? He responded with absolute incredulity, "For the sin pill." Read on there is more.
My friend and I figured out that this was how he regarded the Host of Holy Communion at Mass (church service). He went on to explain that he lived his life the way he did knowing that he was doing bad, but then he would go to communion and some how this act, like taking an aspirin for a headache, made it all better. Suddenly sin free, he was emboldened to start all over again. It seems stupefying that someone raised Catholic and supposedly taught by Catholic nuns and priests could get sin and the nature of forgiveness so wrong.
My dealings with this individual lead me to remember how I came across my view of sin and forgiveness. I remembered that I to like my fellow college student wanted to believe that confession, where Catholics tell there sins to a priest, was my "Sin Pill," but it turned out that
Father Rogan had a different idea and wasn't going to let me off hook so easy.
I had stolen a ball from a friend. It was a red rubber ball a little bigger then tennis balls with a spongy feel to it. Peter was not taking care so that it wouldn't get stolen or lost. He had had this ball for a week or so and it wasn't new to him anymore. He started neglecting it. Well, he left it out on the play ground and forgot to pick it up when the bell rang. I saw it there so I picked it up and put it in my desk. I knew I was doing a bad thing but I wanted it and he didn't seem to care for it anymore. Never the less, I did feel guilty. I told myself that there was no problem. "I'll just go to confession and cure myself of the sin and guilt".
You can just imagine my shock when, Father Rogan asked me if I still had the ball. I responded sheepishly that I did. He told be to give it back. "But Father," I said "I'm going to confession." That must of triggered the Sons of Thunder in him, because a long lecture ensued right there in the confessional, and it was loud too. He talked for what felt like an hour about remorse and rectification, about my soul and the actions of free will and my responsibility in my actions. It all sounded like blah, blah, blah and I had to promise him that I would return the ball, plus say 3 whole Hail Marys and an Our Father. I did return the ball and say my penance, feeling cheated of the good thing I had going with confession being my cure for all of my miss deeds that was until....
About a week or so later, I was at my desk next to Annie Potts and we were drawing a class assignment. I had a cup of colored pencils on my desk for that purpose when Shina Eton knocked into my desk and spilled the contents of my pencil cup into the space between my desk and Annie Ports'. Shina immediately said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I am so sorry," clasping her hands together below her mouth and shaking all over. I got up from my desk and said gently, "Its OK, I forgive you, now clean it up." I meant to say, "help me clean it up," but, "now clean it up," was what actually came out of my mouth. I turned towards the floor to gather my pencils; Annie, the sweetie, was reaching down from her desk and sticking her legs straight out trying to pick up pencils, when I heard Shena assert, "I said I was sorry," and stomp away.
At that moment, the words that Father Rogan had spoken to me in the confessional, hit me like a frozen beam of insight that penetrated my very soul. That without remorse and rectification not even he could forgive me. That for those sins that were not possible to rectify, there would be time to pay in Purgatory. Shena wasn't sorry about what she had done she was sorry that it had occurred. I knew it was an accident caused by her own negligence for not watching where she was going. She was still responsible for it. She, however, thought that the words, "I'm sorry," were her sin pill. They weren't. I forgave her, but, I did not take away the consequence of her negligence. I couldn't, that was her part. Only she could rectify her wrong and show true remorse by helping to pick up the pencils that had fallen to the floor. Only then would she receive spiritual forgiveness.
It was at that moment that I became a Catholic in the truest sense of the word. I suddenly understood how God is around us, how he interacts with us and why he gave us free will. It was a moment so minor in outward appearance that no one noticed its importance, not even Annie Potts, and yet it was a moment that changed my life.
Forgiveness is something we can do for others on a temporal plain. To receive forgiveness, true forgiveness requires that we are truly remorseful and practice rectification. Otherwise, our sins continue to mount while we take psychological sin pills. It is not that we steel balls and forgive ourselves that makes us Christians; that just makes us sinners, sinners who can achieve hell if we continue down that path. What makes us Christians is that we return red rubber balls, feel remorseful for the injuries we've caused and ask forgiveness of God and each other.