When after some days he returned to Capernaum, the news went round that he was at home: and such a crowd collected that the space in front of the door was not big enough to hold them. And while he was proclaiming the message to them, a man was brought who was paralysed. Four men were carrying him, but because of the crowd they could not get him near. So they opened up the roof over the place where Jesus was, and when they had broken through they lowered the stretcher on which the paralysed man was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven".
Now there were some lawyers sitting there and they thought to themselves: "Why does this fellow talk like that? This is blasphemy! Who but God alone can forgive sins?" Jesus knew in his own mind that this was what they were thinking, and said to them, "Why do you harbour thoughts like these? Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, "Your sins are forgiven", or to say, "Stand up, take your bed and walk"? But to convince you that the Son of Man has the right on earth to forgive sins" - he turned to the paralysed man - "I say to you, stand up, take up your bed and go home". And he got up and at once took his stretcher and went out in full view of them all, so that they were astounded and praised God. "Never before", they said, "have we seen the like". (Mark 2:1-12).
If faith in terms of openness to God is a prerequisite for his Holy Spirit to infuse us and bring us to wholeness, a like openness to our deeper selves, that which borders in fact on the unconscious mind, is necessary for the power of the Spirit to penetrate to the depths of the personality. Amongst the superficial blocks in faith are, as we have seen, pride, hostility, and resentment. A deeper and more pervasive hindrance is the guilt that clouds our peace of mind and prevents us being fully receptive to the love of God on which our very existence depends. Until we have come to terms with the guilt that lies deeply in the soul of all rational creatures, we cannot be fully open to God's love for us: his love is always available, being constant and unconditional, but we all too often occlude its full impact by closing the shutter of the mind in self-deprecation born of feelings of unworthiness.
Guilt is the subjective response to the fact of sin. "For all alike have sinned, and are deprived of the divine splendour" (Rom. 3:24). St Paul adds that we are justified - brought into a right relationship with God - by God's free grace alone, through his act of liberation in the person of Christ Jesus. Our guilt deprives us of the divine splendour, and only when we seek pardon, which is in fact free to all who are humble enough to ask it, can we re-enter the full healing relationship with God. The proof of God's grace lies in the assumption of sin by the Son, Jesus Christ, so that he is with us in our agony and brings us with him to his resurrection, a presage of which occurs in the sacrament of baptism.
To many contemporary thinkers the very Concept of sin is outmoded. What was once regarded as sinful behaviour is now seen to be a reaction against the authority exerted against us by the powerful figures of our childhood, especially our parents and teachers. This conditioning, which is an inevitable part of our education to full adulthood, can undoubtedly assume a dictatorial role that stultifies the full flowering of the personality. The Freudian super-ego is formed by such a constellation of authority figures that leave their permanent impress on the unconscious. In this way any action that contravenes the criteria of acceptability laid down by the super-ego brings with it a feeling of guilt that can cripple one's will and thwart the journey towards self-actualization. Another feeling of guilt may follow one's departure from the well-known beaten track of a conventionally acceptable life to a hidden destination devoid of the assurance of comfort. To quit one's peer group on economic, political or religious grounds not only leads one into a wilderness of ostracism but also fills one with a feeling of having betrayed those previously close to one; indeed, the feeling of betrayal is probably projected psychically on one by those whom one has left. Guilt feelings have therefore to be confronted directly and analysed rationally. They may be rooted in frank sin, as we shall see, or else they may be merely childish throwbacks of which one must be relieved and disembarrassed, often with the help of a counsellor or psychotherapist.
But there is a third source of guilt also, one that is related to one's present behaviour and one's treatment of other people. This applies especially to the betrayal of colleagues and the casual discarding of those no longer of use to one. It can be called existential guilt, a guilt that derives from one's actual relationship with the world around one. There is a central focus in all of us which we call the soul, or true self. This is the seat of an innate morality that determines human behaviour and choice of a level higher than merely selfish acquisitiveness based on such rudimentary demands as nourishment, shelter, and physical comfort and security. This innate morality recognizes elementary justice, of which even a small child is acutely aware. If it is unfairly accused or deprived, there is, as it were, a raw area inside its personality that cries out for the balm of justice, and its pain will not be assuaged until that justice is forthcoming. In the parable of the importunate widow and the unscrupulous judge (Luke 18:1-8), the callous judge eventually attends to the widow's complaint in order to get relief from her constant pleas for justice. So long as the core of the personality is in distress and its sore rankles, there will be a central disruptive focus that will wreak havoc on the rest of the person - body, mind and emotions. The two events in our lives that injure the soul directly are an injustice done to us and a sin we have committed against another person. Personal injustice that is not remedied leads to a resentment that in due course may warp the entire personality. Personal sin that is not acknowledged and confessed leads to a guilt that puts the person progressively out of communion with all people, and not only those he may have actively injured: so close is human solidarity that to have hurt one person is to have assaulted the whole community. In terms of the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mat. 25:31-46), what we failed to do to another person, however humble, we failed to do to Christ also.
It is incidentally in this context that we are told not to fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but to fear him rather who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Mat. 10:28). Unrelieved resentment and unforgiven guilt damn the soul. Whether the soul can ever be finally destroyed is doubtful, since it, like the body, is God's gift to us. But it may experience unmitigated hell until it, like the Prodigal Son, comes to itself in its abject misery and calls for help. Thus all those who sow the seeds of hatred in others, especially the purveyors of vile propaganda that sets members of one race, religion or social class against their fellows of a different background, are especially to be feared. The bodily destruction that may follow in the wake of organized hatred is nothing as compared with the injury sustained by the soul both of those who perpetrate the outrage and those who suffer under it.
The soul, furthermore, cannot be brought to health by purely psychological means. Divine grace alone can exorcise the spirit of resentment on the one hand and guilt on the other. But competent psychotherapy can bring the person much closer to receiving the unconditional love that comes from God. To begin to face one's past life and present difficulties in the presence of another person is the beginning of healing, for it requires a basic humility even to come to someone else for counsel. Indeed, the sacrament of penance - the confession of one's sins before a priest and the granting of absolution that follows it - is a most powerful healing aid. I doubt whether there can be any effective healing, and by this I mean one that is progressive and persistent, until the person is cleansed of his guilt and resentment so that he can be fully open to God's grace.
When our consciousness is blocked by guilt we cannot face ourselves or those around us. Until we have opened ourselves to God in humble confession, the block remains and the Holy Spirit in all his power is denied us. This denial, I repeat, is due to our own recalcitrance and not the judgement of God, whose nature it is always to have mercy. The act of confession and the absolution that always follows it reconciles man to God, for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). But can resentment be confessed and healed? After all, guilt accrues from our own past sinful actions, whereas resentment is the attitude that injustice evokes in us. On the surface it is quite justifiable to feel aggrieved when we have suffered an injury due to the evil actions of another person. The effect of these actions may leave a permanent mark on our personalities - a scar, as it were, on our souls - and although the very ground under us may cry out for justice, as Abel's blood did from the ground in which it was shed (Gen. 4:10), recompense still seems never to be forthcoming. In this respect one thinks especially of the countless millions who suffered hell in prison camps in this present century. The great majority died, and they carry on their work in the life beyond death. But what of those who remained alive and had to sustain themselves in this world? Can they ever come into right relationship either with God or with their fellow men?
Resentment itself is as destructive as guilt. It rapidly assumes the continuum of a vicious circle and leads the person in its grip to the very depths of hell. There are three possible means of escape from this downward spiral: a realization of the many benefits one still enjoys despite the wounds of the past, an appreciation that one's own life prior to the tragedy was far from perfect - in other words that one too has had a sinful past - and the devotion and love of those around one. Of these, the last is the most immediately pertinent. One can begin to unburden oneself of one's misery to someone who really cares - and that person must have traversed his own valley of darkness before he can understand sufficiently to be of help. That person, like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, can bear another's sufferings and endure his torments. The resentment of the afflicted one can flow into this counsellor, and the process of healing can be initiated. At this point there can be a realization of personal guilt, so that instead of crying out for justice there is instead a humble confession of sins and a call for general forgiveness. Then at last the person becomes open to God and can perform the supreme act prescribed by Christ: love your enemies and pray for your persecutors (Mat. 5:44). This approach, it must be stressed, is very different from the detached "forgiveness" advised by social theoreticians who reduce all personal responses to economic or psychological conditioning. To forgive fully one must have experienced an inner hell that has been illuminated by the unconditional love of God, a love fully shown in the perfect sacrifice made in his life by Jesus himself. Then, and then alone, is one so changed that God can work and speak through one. In other words, forgiveness, that is always of God, can issue authentically only from the lips of the person who has experienced the forgiveness of God; the test of that forgiveness is a changed personality, one that no longer seeks personal recompense but instead gives of itself totally to the service of its fellows. In the passage of Scripture that prefixed this chapter, the lawyers rightly disputed Jesus' right to forgive sins, but they did not understand the divine prerogative of the one who gave the absolution. When we have received the forgiveness of our sins, we in turn are qualified to forgive those who have sinned against us. If we still cannot forgive a person who asks our pardon, we have not yet opened ourselves fully to God's love. On the other hand, we cannot fully forgive someone who does not acknowledge his evil actions until we are so caught up in the love of God that the life we live is no longer our own, but the life that Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:19).
We should never be ashamed of our feelings, however naked they may be. The end of the spiritual life is not their suppression but their transfiguration. Our emotional reactions to the hurt that we may have received - or of greater pertinence, to the wrongs done to other, more vulnerable people - must be acknowledged and given free rein in our imagination. Here they can cause no harm to others, while at the same time they are released from the censorship of the unconscious mind, where they would otherwise be confined. While unconscious they have immense psychic potency to cause internal damage. On the other hand, once they are released into full consciousness they cease to be agents of subversion that may lead to psychosomatic diseases or even serious moral lapses (in an attempt to get their own revenge on other people whom they wrongly identify with those who caused the trouble originally). Once we have wreaked our punishment on those who have done wrong in the safe confines of a vivid imagination, we can see the end of such destructive fantasies and return to a mature consideration of the circumstances of the case. Then we will cease to long for revenge and seek more for healing, both of ourselves and those who have acted wrongfully. It is in this context that Jesus' words from the cross "Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34), find their most profound significance.
Is disease the result of sin? Often there is no direct relationship. The diseases of children are surely not the consequences of their past guilt. On the other hand, I have little doubt that disease in itself is a result of cosmic disorder. If there were no sinful attitudes in the world, it seems certain that disease and death as we know them would show a completely altered complexion. When we return to the myth of the Fall in Genesis 3, pain, suffering and death followed in the wake of human disobedience to the divine spark present in the soul of mankind. This is co-eternal with the transcendent God who is far above his creation but intimately involved in its unfolding. This tendency to sin is hereditary, no doubt a corollary of the free will given to men and women by God; without free will there might be no danger of doing wrong, but the reverse side of the coin would be an inability to give of oneself in love. The infant seizes instinctively its mother's breasts, but there is no love in that action. Years later, perhaps only when it has attained independent adult stature it may grasp the sacrifice and love that have been expended on its nurture and education. Only then does the child begin to love its parents, and in so doing it also acknowledges all those who live in selfless devotion to their fellow creatures.
Nevertheless, even if an illness is not caused by a special sin, our generally sinful attitude that has shown itself in the various unpleasant actions we have committed in the past, prevents us being fully open to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Until we have come to terms with our incomplete attitude to life and to those with whom we live and work, we will not be completely healed. The practice of recollection each night, when we are about to retire to bed, is a very powerful spiritual exercise and a compelling prelude to our final prayers before dropping off to sleep. In the words of Psalm 51:3-4, "For well I know my misdeeds and my sins confront me all the day long. Against thee, thee only, I have sinned and done what displeases thee, so that thou mayest be proved right in thy charge and just in passing sentence." If we transgress the law of life we suffer accordingly until we put ourselves in right relationship with God once more by humble confession. It is not as if we are telling God anything new to him: what we are doing is to make our sinful inclinations fully open to ourselves in the divine presence, so that there is no cavern of subterfuge into which we can hide from the realities of our past life. Then, if the will is chastened and ardent, it can be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, and a new directive to our life is ordered. In confession, before a priest, the priest himself is a sacrament, being the outer, visible sign of the inward, spiritual grace of God. His personal concern is an outflowing of the love of God by which all healing is effected. His blessing prefigures the new life to which we are directed and into which we are welcomed. But we must play our part, else even worse may befall us.
The essential penance that should follow absolution is one that strengthens the will, so that the penitent may be in a stronger position to repel temptation in the future. The best self-mortification is the giving of oneself to other people, especially those one has wronged, in devoted service. Even if those against whom we have sinned are now no longer alive in the flesh, we can still repair the damage we have done by remembering them in our prayers and serving their brothers - who are those around us wherever we may be - in caring dedication. If I have done a good deed to even one person, I have done it to Christ also (Mat. 25:40). Inasmuch as Christ is universally present as the stranger on our own road to Emmaus, a good deed performed to any person is a gift to all humanity. And in this action of selfless service I begin to identify myself with all people, in this way passing beyond the tyranny of the ego with its constant demands and complaints, and entering into the full consciousness of the soul. In soul consciousness there is no barrier to the inflow of the Holy Spirit, so that I am at last in unrestricted access to the full thrust of that Spirit.
As we have already noticed, St Paul says, "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun" (2 Cor. 5:17). The person who has confessed his sins in contrition and self-dedication to God and the world, is a sacrament of the one to be who has moved from the old order of attrition and death to the new order of union with God and with his fellow men. He is an earnest, a foretaste, of the new man resurrected in the likeness of Christ. As St Paul writes at the end of his passionate letter to the Galatians, "Circumcision is nothing; uncircumcision is nothing; the only thing that counts is new creation" (Gal. 6:15). When we return to the great penitential Psalm 51 and read the words, "Create a pure heart in me, O God, and give me a new and steadfast spirit" (verse 10), we see how this miracle of re-creation follows an act of true contrition and an opening forth of the self to God's unquenchable love in childlike faith. Then at last the inflow of God's healing Spirit can proceed unhindered, and a re-creation of the whole personality may be initiated.
It is interesting that in the spiritual way the essential barrier to faith is not doubt but pride, an attitude of mind that is so sure of its own rectitude that it will not allow itself to be available to new possibilities of God's self revelation. In the same way, the great barrier to forgiveness is not a crippling awareness of guilt but an overweening sense of self-righteousness that is made rigid in resentment. So long as I cannot forgive others, including life itself, for my present misery, I will remain in dark isolation with myself as my only god - and what an impotent god that is! But as soon as I can yield my self-righteous stance and gaze with compassion at the creatures around me - including those who have injured me - I can glimpse my need for forgiveness no less than theirs. But whereas I at least can acknowledge that need and fling myself on the ground before God in abject prayer, those who have abused me remain in dark ignorance about themselves and what the future life has in store for them. Psalm 73 expresses perfectly the fate ahead of the unrighteous man who achieves worldly prosperity: he is set on slippery ground and is being driven headlong into ruin; his end in a moment is dreadful, cut off root and branch by death and all its terrors (verses 18-19). This is the great advantage that the innocent have over the guilty, no matter how much they may have suffered at the hands of the wicked.
But the matter does not rest there. Once the innocent have mastered their resentment and have also felt the need for final absolution, their blamelessness is transfigured by the forgiveness of God into love. No longer do they look for justice, let alone revenge. Instead they turn their thoughts and gaze to all who have wronged them, and seek to be the instruments of their forgiveness also. Love works unremittingly for the redemption of all that is imprisoned in hatred, fear and ignorance. It can never rest until all its brothers - all God's creatures - are free to receive the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the saints of this world and the next work ceaselessly for the healing of all that is perverse, unclean and imprisoned in chains of resentment and fear. The teaching of Jesus that we should pray for our persecutors (Mat. 5:44) is the way of our release from any remaining pangs of resentment no less than their liberation from the bonds of past wrongful attitudes that have caused them to act destructively to their brethren. In Christ we no longer look in eager anticipation for the downfall of the wicked as an end in itself. While the cry for justice is as strong as ever, it is seen to be merely the first stage in a universal redemption from sin, of which we are all partakers no matter how virtuous we may consider ourselves. It is followed by a prayer for all men that they may cease to sleep in the ignorance of materialistic illusion and awake to the glory of the spiritual reality that upholds and sustains the material universe. Only then can the sacramental significance of every mortal action be grasped: everything we do and say in love and healing at this moment is a sign of God's resurrected world in eternity.