On the First Sunday of Lent of the year 2000 John Paul II, in a penitential liturgy, asked forgiveness of God and the world for the past sins of the church. 

The church, like Peter after hid denial of Jesus, is confused and dismayed, accepting the judgment of Christ, hoping that its repentant love with be accepted by Jesus as was Peter’s. 

This points to something crucial.

Each of us shares the fate of his brothers and sisters; each of us is justified by the righteous and bears responsibility for the sins of sinners.  We have received a legacy of sin and will pass it on. 

When we make pacts with the evil in us, we enter into agreement with evil itself and, in the measure we do so, we ratify evil as such and all its fruits.  We become responsibly for the Inquisition and the Holocaust, for the hypocrisy of the hypocrites, for the abominations of the pedophile priests and stonewalling bishops.

To pretend that another’s sin belongs only to that other, and that I am not responsible for it, is in itself a sin against communion. 

If we bear the burdens of one another, we have much to be ashamed of, but it is only be assuming responsibility for the sins of all, with its humiliation and shame, that we can contribute to the collective pardon.

For the corollary of this solidarity in sin is solidarity in pardon. 

When forgiveness is accepted by one, mercy is extended to all.  Pardon is never a strictly individual affair.  It is a participation in the Great Mercy that embraces all of humanity.  By becoming greatly pardoned, we shall obtain yet greater mercy and not just for ourselves but for all.

In St. John’s account of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus challenges those who were without sin to cast the first stone.  No one does, nor does Jesus, for he has assumed the sin of the adulteress.  Her sin has become his and is consumed. 

Although we cannot fully assume the burdens of others because of our own burden of sin, we can still participate in the pardon offered to all in the measure of our compassion. 

This is the opposite movement from the shifting of our evil to others to exonerate our own depravity.

This does not mean that we must fall into the morbid guilt complex and self deprecation. ”Where sin abounds, grace super abounds” and the Holy Spirit is given so that, in all truth, we might enter into the life of the beatific Trinity. 

It is only when we realize something of the depths of our sinfulness that we can measure the abyss of the Love with which we are loved.  This is the ultimate source of true Christian peace and it is in this peace that we learn to discern; in this peace an authentic humility and blessed realism can take root.