ADMONISHING THE SINNER

Our responsibility, according to my old catechism, “to admonish the sinner” was and often seems a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Who among us is not a sinner?  Who among us does not sin at least seven times a day, mostly in thought, of course, but also in deed? Our sins may not be large or cause much damage to anyone else including ourselves, but they are sins indeed.

As such, we may not and should not take them either lightly or for granted. Just because everyone sins, even the greatest of saints, and sins every day, even the greatest of saints, does not give us leave to keep on with selfish thoughts, words and deeds. We must admit them, address them and do the best we can to be a better person, a lesser sinner, tomorrow and the tomorrows to come.

That may be the easy part. Granted, it is often very difficult to both admit to our sins, specific sins, and then work to remove them from our lives. They start small but often become a habit. Bad language is an example. But so is the tendency to always find fault, to be negative, and then to look into the mirror and see someone with the same faults we find in others. Doing something positive to rectify this is easy.

“Easy”, you say? “Try it sometime,” you say. I have. I have to because I have to admit that I am no different than anyone else. I neither like to admit to my faults, my sins and shortcomings nor do I like to work at removing them. But, again, that is easy to do when I compare it to what is also demanded of me: to admonish the sinner.

Try that sometime. Try telling someone else that s/he is doing something that is wrong, sinful, perhaps even evil. The response we will receive, or have received if we have tried it, is almost never a “thank you”. It is a “That’s none of your business” response, or a “Who are you to call me a sinner?” comeback. If we dare to proceed further and assert that it is our business to point out sinful and wrong actions while at the same time admitting we are no better than the one we are admonishing, it may only soften the blow but also may make matters worse.

It does take courage to admonish the sinner. Jesus did it when necessary at the risk of his own life and, in the end, it cost him his life. I suspect it has cause thousands of people to become martyrs, even dead ones, over the years because they believed that they had a responsibility to admonish those in power about their misdeeds. The saving grace is that none of us will probably never be in that position.

Every day we are in position to admonish the sinner. The first sinner we have to admonish is ourself, to admit our own sins and resolve to do something to address them. Then when we encounter someone doing what we know is sinful, to gut it up and speak out. It won’t be easy as it isn’t easy to admit to our own sins, but admonish we must.