Through My Fault

In the beginning of the Mass in the penitential rite we all say:

I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault; therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

Reflecting on the first part of the rite, isn’t it a bit harsh to say “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault?” Does this take into account extenuating circumstances and therefore different degrees of responsibility? Why are we called to repeat “through my fault” twice and then to say, “through my most grievous fault”? Surely, we can’t help how we think and feel? Some days our thoughts and emotions go in one direction while what we want to do goes in the other! A person through their upbringing and as a result of the way they were treated may have an attitude of bitterness toward others who have hurt them and so struggle, understandably, in being able to forgive other people. They will have invariably developed different “addictions” to deal and cope with difficult emotions — including smoking, drinking, or eating excessively. To state that their struggle to forgive, as well as the other sins that they have committed, is through their fault, through their fault, through their most grievous fault — isn’t this harsh and an unloving view of their personal reality?

Perhaps it is, if seen on its own, without the light from heaven. The point is the person will have made a lot of “invisible” choices that they have not consciously seen or perceived. What I mean by this is the countless opportunities throughout each day to respond to people who are offering help in many different ways, that could slowly shift the hardened and bitter attitude. They will only be fully seen, understood and acknowledged in the full light of God’s grace. The gradual ascent into the full light for all of us is always little by little. When the light is fully turned on at the end of our lives and the room of our soul illumined, then we will begin to see and understand all the seemingly irrelevant moments that have passed us by. This is the light that the saints experience where they accept willingly all responsibility for their choices, even their inadvertent falls. It is the fullness of truth in sight of God’s immense love for us.

Conscious Awareness of the Choices We Make

People who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) experience both the infinite love of God as well as the absolute reality of their lives as viewed and seen by him. It is important to remind ourselves that mercy and truth go hand in hand like faith and reason. A significant aspect of NDEs is the person’s acute awareness of the choices they have made in their life. In their life review they see the many opportunities (graces) available to them, and how if they had responded differently, they would have come closer to doing God’s will. In addition, a salient feature of NDEs is the person vividly sees the ripple effect of their actions and how they have far-reaching consequences.¹

What is significant is that the poison of sin dulls not only our conscience but our acute awareness of the choices we make. It is as if a gray and darkened veil is placed over our whole being with the effect being that we don’t perceive or see certain things. We may have 20/20 vision, yet not see or perceive, and therefore understand, the many choices we make which significantly impact on ourselves, others, and our relationship with God. This vision is only truly restored through the Holy Spirit abiding intimately within our soul. Without the Holy Spirit we develop all kinds of psychological theories that seek to justify people’s actions through family, social, and biological factors. This is not to deny that childhood trauma, peer influence, and head injury significantly contribute to the choices a person makes in life. The person living a criminal lifestyle, for example, will be in a state of mortal sin and so not see and importantly appreciate the countless opportunities where people have offered them help. Their perception that they could have chosen differently will be dulled and their understanding that they could have broken the cycle of crime inhibited. It is only a repentant heart filled with the Holy Spirit that will be able to see and respond to these opportunities.

This is the same for each one us, not just someone who is living a criminal lifestyle. Every single day of our lives is filled with choices that we make that we are not consciously aware of making. We can maliciously gossip about someone in a group situation and quietly justify it as harmless and just fitting in with the group. We will inevitably not see the ripple effect of our actions, specifically the effect of our participation in group gossip on the victim, our soul and indeed the group. We possibly do not envisage how this gossip spreads to the point that many other work colleagues will be influenced by the words we speak. As a consequence, the victim may internalize the coldness felt by work colleagues and feelings of mistrust that he perceives. Without being aware of the actual content of the gossip, the victim’s internalizing of others’ negative reactions leads him to become withdrawn and depressed. As he is a father of three, this impacts on his children, with his sullen mood depriving his children of the once joyful and carefree father.

The soul and its vision is only restored to full health through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Compare the soul sunken in sin and unaware of their choices with the soul abandoned to God’s loving will. As described vividly by Servant of God Father Walter Ciszek, they see the hand of God in all the daily circumstances, people and situations that we encounter.

There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God’s will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see his will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from him, because he was in all things. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in his will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny, I was relieved as a consequence of all responsibility. I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God’s sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul.²

It took Father Ciszek to be subjected to torture and imprisonment in a Russian Gulag to discover through powerful lived experience what abandonment to God’s providence really means. He saw God’s creative, loving hand in all the concrete details of daily life. God’s will for the saints is not some abstract concept out there in the ether somewhere, but in the nitty-gritty details of life.

The critical point is that we have to be filled with the Holy Spirit to truly see the details of daily life and the numerous choices we face each day to follow God’s will. We have the choice whether to continue to subtly ignore and churn over unpleasant thoughts in our heart toward the work colleague we dislike, or quickly to walk past the homeless people we encounter, pretending to be occupied with other business. How about the person who cuts us off on the road? Do we respond aggressively or seek to replace the initial angry response with a short prayer? All these “invisible” details of daily life are God’s creative hand inviting us little by little to truly die to self. The familiar passage in the Bible is a truly radical invitation. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

The Communion of Saints

In reflecting on the penitential rite that we make at the beginning of every Mass, we can at a first glance only see the beginning part which is a focus on ourselves. We only truly come to know ourselves in relation to other people and through our relationship with God. In coming to know God more intimately, we discover how he is desperate to help us in countless ways to become the child of his kingdom, which he has predestined us to become. It is not only God who comes to our help but in essence the whole of heaven. It is the outpouring of love from our heavenly homeland that we can miss if we remain enclosed in the first part of the penitential rite. The second part of the rite states, “. . . therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

Through prayer we gain the help from God that we need as he communicates his invisible graces which enable us to be healed from the deep wounds of sin in our souls. The Virgin Mary and all the Angels and Saints know fully what help we really require in order to achieve our end goal in life: holiness. In heaven we will be loved by everyone with a love that is beyond what we can comprehend. As described in the catechism below there is a wonderful exchange between the Communion of Saints, which comprises the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory, and us, the pilgrims on earth.

In the communion of saints, “a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things.”³

What is the Catechism referring to when it mentions “an abundant exchange of all good things”? Just as we do not easily understand and see the ripple effect of our actions on Christ’s mystical body, so it is difficult for us to comprehend the flow of grace from heaven. We do not know the people on earth or the saints in heaven who pray for us “to the Lord our God.” Their prayers win the graces for us to persevere in our journey of faith, to hear God’s voice in our conscience and to respond to suffering without bitterness and resentment. And of course, to see all the opportunities presented to us by the creative loving hand of God, as well as the grace to respond charitably in thought, word and deed. It is only in heaven where we will know who prayed for us in the Communion of Saints, as we too will take up the baton and intercede for others as we pray “to the Lord our God.”