Knowing that I did the deed

I may think it modesty when I draw back from declaring myself the chief of sinners, but it is more likely a failure of imagination. For what sinner should I speak of if not for myself? Of all the billions of people who have lived and of all the thousands whom I have known, whom should I say is the chief of sinners? Surely I am authorized, surely I am competent to speak only of myself? When in the presence of God the subject of sin is raised, how can I help but say that chiefly it is I? Not to confess that I am chiefly the one is not to confess at all . . . and by our making of excuses is our complicity compounded . . . - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

For over two decades, I have had not the slightest qualm about declaring myself the chief of sinners. For the longest time I soaked in that judgment, luxuriated in the balm that this knowledge was against the wrong that I had done, the hurt I had inflicted upon one who should have been able to utterly trust me. Thankfully have I finally accepted the grace that many loved ones strove to impart to me, that I might grasp it as my own despite my unworthiness - for after all, if any of us were worthy it would not be grace.

About the chief of sinners I do not know, but what I know about sinners I know chiefly about me. We did not mean to do the deed, of course. The things that we have done wrong seemed, or mostly seemed, small at the time. - ibid.

And if it did not seem small, at least by the end, I nonetheless had my own excuses for it, in a sense. Though I did not blame my actions upon the dysfunctions in which I was raised nor the abuse I received, still I excused my actions as being beyond my ability to control. (Omitting entire course of therapy learning how lack of control is actually the application of unhealthy control.) So yes, what I did seemed small at first, then grew into something undeniably big but nevertheless excused. I am so grateful to be free of that dynamic.

Now I find that the sin that remains seems small in comparison to that of my past. It is a different facet of the distorting lens of comparison. If I compare myself today to where I have been, then my sin seems small. This is, as Fr. Neuhaus emphasizes elsewhere, a matter of minimizing the great transformation in holiness with which God wishes to bless us. So the things that I do are not small. The sins of act and of thought - the entertainment of negative thoughts, that is, not the passing ones - make me less than the person God is calling me to. The purpose of this truth is not that we might flagellate ourselves over our shortcomings and become scrupulous in our dealings with ourselves and those around us. It is to call us to open ourselves to the grace of God at work in practical ways to transform us into what we cannot hope to be on our own: the very image and likeness of Christ shining the light of his love and mercy on everyone around us.

All the trespasses of all the people of all time have gravitated here, to the killing grounds of Calvary . . . . It was not only for our sins, but surely for our sins, too. What a complex web of complicity is woven by our lives. Send not to know by whom the nails were driven; they were driven by you, by me. 
Is there a perverse presumption in confessing that we did the deed? There could be, I suppose. But there is also prudence. - ibid.

Good Friday makes us uncomfortable when we consider our role in it. But considered rightly, this discomfort is good for us. If it calls me to turn away from those things that make me less of a vessel, less of a mirror, less of a servant of God's love than the One I follow would have me be, then it is a good thing. When I realize that this calling is not a burden upon me but an unfathomable gift to me, it is a very good thing.