I suspect this piece is slow on developing comments precisely because it hits all of us right between the eyes. I'd like to hear from anyone who has not experienced the scars of sin.

Thanks for a most thoughtful (and hopeful) lesson.
Robert N G | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 1:29 pm | #

How do you heal the scars of sin? Thanks.

I am alone, I suppose, in thinking this is a pretty wonky metaphorical question?

I thought scars were generally regarded as evidence of an already healed wound?

Of course I get the general drift about visible/invisible damage caused by sins. But surely a scar is what remains after a wound has been repaired?
Jody Tresidder | 10.01.07 - 1:38 pm | #

A scar is not a complete healing. It is a permanent reminder of the wound.
Robert N G | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 1:52 pm | #

Must be briefer than this deserves; Dawn is absolutely right, one could write many books.

A scar is not only permanent reminder of a wound but often a painful one. In the case of sin, Satan and the world grasp onto our scars and try to make us believe all sorts of horrid things: we can't stop sinning, our sins are too big to be healed, sin has made us irredemably ugly and hopeless, they're not our fault. Evil desires to deepen our wounds, to make us hurt ourselves and each other; Satan is well content to leave us bereft of healing and also bereft of any pleasure the original sin might have provided.

In addition to everything Dawn mentions, you might also try frequent participation in mass, frequent reception of Our Lord and frequently praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy - do all three everyday if possible. The mass and Christ's body and asking for Christ's mercy is gloriously efficacious.

St. Therese of Lisieux can help with spiritual childhood (a child transgresses but still trusts his parents' love) and St. Augustine.

God bless you.
Drusilla | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 3:18 pm | #

Read something every single morning from Scripture & every single night from Faustina's Diary. You'll get some new insight each day that will help you but you have to keep at it. Jesus tells Faustina: You know what you can do. Do it & I'll do the rest.
G | 10.01.07 - 6:54 pm | #

One thing to remember:

We all have crosses to bear. For some of us, they are the consequences of our sins. We must trust God that our sins have been forgiven, and that we suffer because it will be best for us in the long run.

"You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: 'My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.'
Endure your trials as 'discipline'; God treats you as sons. For what 'son' is there whom his father does not discipline?
If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards.
Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live?
They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness.
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed."
Mary | 10.01.07 - 8:33 pm | #