We go about our everyday lives. Sometimes we live our faith at work and school, sometimes we don’t. It’s Lent, so we promise to give up sugar, coffee, alcohol, chocolate. Then we slip up and forget. We even complain about what we are missing. We forget about not eating meat on Friday, shrug our shoulders, and murmur “Maybe next week.” We don’t know what we are doing.

We immediately race to the shop when a headache strikes to purchase painkillers, failing to perceive any value or meaning in suffering. We allow doctors to withhold nourishment to our comatose loved one in the name of sympathy – the nursing home is getting expensive. We don’t know what we are doing

We use contraceptives and sterilization, announcing the Church teachings are backward. We celebrate abortion and euthanasia, defending our right to choose the conditions under which preferred individuals are protected. We don’t know what we are doing

We pretend to serve life and reproduction by going to any means medically possible to reproduce artificially, purposefully ignoring the high chance of failure and the added risks to the development of the embryo. We’re willing to take the risks as long as we get the child we want when we want it. We don’t know what we are doing

We ignore and excuse our weaknesses. It’s easier that way. After all, the Church offers us the challenge of the ideal – the Way of Jesus. It is not an easy path. It is not the middle of the road. It is risking our pride, our wealth, our social status. It is loving our neighbour, loving the murderer and the con artist, welcoming the child with Down’s Syndrome, forgiving our dysfunctional family members. It is taking a stand and not accepting what is relative, choosing what is right and what is wrong, facing evil and fighting it rather than letting it survive.

Through it all God understands our humanity and forgives us. He can forgive us as we may not be able to forgive ourselves. He leads us back to Himself.