During this Lent & Easter Season I am reading daily meditations from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, from a book called, "Lent and Easter, Wisdom from Fulton J. Sheen." It's published by Liguori. It's a book with short daily reflections for each day through Easter. This past week, for Day 2, the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, the quote from Fulton Sheen was:
"The worse sinners are nice people, who, by denying sin, make the cure of sin impossible. Sin is very serious, but it is more serious to deny sin. That is why those who very often deny sin become scandal mongers, tale bearers, and hypercritics, because they have to project their real guilt outside themselves to others. And this gives them, also, a great illusion of goodness. It will be found generally true that the increase of fault finding is in direct proportion to the denial of sin." (Fulton J. Sheen, audio tape, "Sin")
Archbishop Sheen brings out a valuable lesson here for all of us. We are all sinners and are called to daily examine our consciousnesses in order to find out how we are in relationship with God and with others. Do we give to God the love and respect that is due to him as our creator? Do we love others as he commands us, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:39)
We are all sinful creatures, called daily to repent and realize that we are in need of God's forgiveness. We are called to love God and our neighbor.
One way to realize our need for God and to receive the forgiveness that God has to offer is by going regularly to the sacrament of confession. It is there that we will realize that God is the center of our lives and that we are called to love him and to love and be forgiving of all those God has put into our lives.
Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
I think that one solution to the problem of fault-finding is that whenever we are tempted to find fault with others, ask ourselves if there is any way we might be guilty of that same fault. Then we will be more inclined to be charitable in our attitudes and words toward others. Or as JESUS said in the Gospel, before we seek to remove the speck from another's eye, remove the beam from our own.
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