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Fr Robert McTeigue’s terrific piece posted yesterday, Why Do You Repeat Your Sins?, explored the sinful habits that we find ourselves facing day to day. To illustrate this, he used a brief, poetic autobiography by Portia Nelson in which she describes repeating your sins as falling through the same hole in the sidewalk every day. Fr. McTeigue commented:
“I walk down another street.” That sounds very much like the last line from the Act of Contrition we learned as children: “I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.” The problem isn’t with the resolution, or with God’s grace. The problem is that we do not always look closely enough at the circumstances of our sin or the motivations for our sin. Consequently, we should not be surprised when we repeat our sins.
Repeating our sins is hardly the most surprising thing we might find in our faith, but it is no less poignant. It is important not to accept the fact that you may repeat your sins after repenting. Is it worth confessing sins that we know in our hearts we are not ready to turn from? What do you think?
And today we celebrate...
