"I promised myself that I wasn't going to lose my temper with the kids again!"
"Why did I get so snippy with my husband again?"
"Why did I gossip - and it was really nasty gossip - with my co-worker again?"
"I wasted so much time on Facebook that I didn't make that phone call /do FaceTime again, and I know he/she is missing me!"
But all the emotional self-flailing isn't going to do us any good unless we back it up with courage, the courage to start over again tomorrow. Otherwise, we'll just give up in disgust or despair and stay right where we are, a slave to behavior we know that God is calling on us to change. That behavior can be to stop doing certain things, or to begin to do certain things. Many of the saints remind us that there are sins of commission, and sins of omission. Since omission involves failing to do good to and for others, that is just as important as doing evil.
During this especially sacred Holy Week, as we approach Jesus' death on the cross for us, it's especially important to remember that we know that God loves us. First, we know God loves us because God created us! We are here on this earth because we were loved into existence by God! And, secondly, God loves us so much that God - in Jesus - died on the cross to set us free from our sins on that day we call "Good Friday," - this Friday. God gave us both free will and His life in us - grace - so that it is possible for us to become better people, to work, with prayer, to overcome those habitual failings and sins that hurt our relationships with ourselves, with God, and with others.
God's mercy is so infinite that God will forgive us for anything that we do - or don't do - if we are repentant. Sometimes the most difficult thing for us is to admit to ourselves that we ARE sinners, that there are areas of our lives in which we are being indifferent, unloving, hate-filled, unforgiving. Pope Francis says " Love of neighbor is a fundamental attitude that Jesus speaks of, and he says that our relationship with God cannot be honest if we are not willing to make peace with our neighbor." Making peace can be as simple as beginning to pray for someone who has hurt us badly, or as hard as picking up a phone or writing a letter, an email, a text.
One of the subtler ways that we sin is by making judgements about people. Whole families are divided, sometimes for years and years, because certain members judge that other members are not "worthy" to be part of the family anymore, or certain members decide that their family isn't "worthy" of their presence anymore. Children can grow up never having met an uncle, aunt, or cousin, or even more sadly, a brother, sister, mother, or father. The longer the time that the estrangement goes on and grows, the harder it is to overcome our reluctance to make peace. Yet, God desires nothing more than that we make peace.
It is so hard for us to forgive others, that it is equally hard for us to believe that God can and will forgive us. Dag Hammarskjold observes
"Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, and what is soiled is made clean again. The dream explains why we need to be forgiven, and why we must forgive. In the presence of God, nothing stands between Him and us - we are forgiven. But we cannot feel His presence if anything is allowed to stand between ourselves and others."
Yet we can also sin through our indifference to others. Our sinful, prejudicial attitudes can assure us that others' lives are simply not as important as our own, or not as important to God as our particular group is. This often happens because we have friends who are so much like us that we honestly don't understand others who may be different from us. When we separate ourselves from other groups, once again we are splintering our family - the family of God. I especially think, this moment, of the acts of violence against Jewish institutions in our country, and the failure of some to admit that Jews are as much legitimate citizens here as Christians are. (Sean Spicer doesn't even seem aware that Jews were legitimate citizens of Germany when Hitler ordered the use of chemical warfare against them in concentration camps.)
Pope Francis has worked hard during his life to reach out to others of different faiths, to understand them better, to respect them, to call them friends, such as Argentinian Jewish Rabbi Skorka. Rabbi Skorka has personally experienced Argentina's prejudice against Jews, and people's acts of violence against them, crimes which were never investigated. He spoke to Mark Shriver, author of "Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis":
"I first met Bergoglio (Pope Francis) in 1997. He was....an auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires. He paid special attention to several points - first and foremost was the suffering of poor people, the exploited people, people who are living in slave-like conditions. He was very sensitive to people's lives, especially those that are filled with misery....
"Bergoglio understood that the relationship between Jews and Christians had to be a real relationship - not just a dialogue, but a special relationship. Why? ....Christians were formed from a very special moment in the history of the Jewish people. All Christian churches grow out of the Jewish experience. We have had divergences and clashes, but what Bergoglio understands and fights for is that we need to enter into a close dialogue, not to convince or to change the other, but to better understand each other. Bergoglio has said to me many times that Catholics can learn from the Jewish masters about the Holy Scriptures. He believes that the Bible has power, real power. And that to better understand each other, valid dialogue is necessary."
When Pope Francis was chancellor of the Pontifical Argentine Catholic University, says Rabbi Skorka, "he bestowed on me an honorary degree. His intent was to say to all the Christians, 'Look, we can learn from a Rabbi,' and this is a very, very deep point. It was the first time that a pontifical university had bestowed such a title on a rabbi, a Jew, here in Argentina, in Latin America. Bergoglio made a revolution by this action!....At the ceremony, when no microphone was close to us, ...Bergoglio told me, 'You cannot imagine how much I have dreamed of this moment.' "
Later, when Bergoglio, a Cardinal at that time, had an authorized biography written of his life up to that point, he was asked whom he wanted to write the foreword, and he requested that Rabbi Skorka be asked to write it. Rabbi Skorka was astonished, overcome with emotion. Skorka agreed. Later, when he saw Cardinal Bergoglio at his (Bergoglio's) brother's wake, he asked the Cardinal why he had chosen a Jew to write the foreword to the biography of a Catholic Cardinal.
"So he (Bergoglio) immediately without thinking, spontaneously he told me, he looked at my eyes and said, 'So it came out from my heart.' I cannot tell you what he tried to tell me. I don't know....He caught my heart that moment in a very special way."
Perhaps the Pope is telling us that what we all need to be about is acting from the heart, and catching each other's hearts at the same moment. If we acted from pure, humble hearts, unimpressed by our ego's demands and stubbornness and selfishness and judgmentalness, how much happier and healthier our relationships would be!
Being willing to try again tomorrow requires not only courage, but humility. Humbly saying to God "You have the dream of me, the vision of me, of the person you know I can be. Share that vision with me, little by little, at the rate I can handle it. Enlarge my heart! Take away my pride, my self-absorption, my hatred, my unforgiveness. Let me let you judge others, for I have blinders on my eyes. Change my indifference to love from the heart, especially towards those who are different from me. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."