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December 14, 2011
Saint John of the Cross
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children, as a mother I am with you so that with my love, prayer and example I may help you to become a seed of the future, a seed that will grow into a firm tree and spread its branches throughout the world. For you to become a seed of the future, a seed of love, implore the Father to forgive you your omissions up to now. My children, only a pure heart, unburdened by sin, can open itself and only honest eyes can see the way by which I desire to lead you. When you become aware of this, you will become aware of the love of God - it will be given (as a gift) to you. Then you will give it (as a gift) to others, as a seed of love. Thank you." (December 2, 2011)
Our Lady wants us to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Like her Son, Jesus, she wants us to always live love. And so in the midst of this beautiful message about seeds, she throws us a zinger! "For you to become a seed of the future, a seed of love, implore the Father to forgive you your omissions up to now." Omissions? Where did that come from?
Yes, omissions. Our Lady is a good shepherdess. She knows that we need to continue to grow in holiness. And probably we don't hear about sins of omission in our home parishes. Maybe we don't hear about them in the confessional either. So she is brave enough to bring them up with us, because she wants us to be sinless, like she is. She wants us to be free of all regret.
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I looked up the definition of sins of omission, and came up with this:
"Omission" is here taken to be the failure to do something one can and ought to do. If this happens advertently and freely a sin is committed. Moralists took pains formerly to show that the inaction implied in an omission was quite compatible with a breach of the moral law, for it is not merely because a person here and now does nothing that he offends, but because he neglects to act under circumstances in which he can and ought to act." (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11251b.htm )
In other words, failure to do some good act that we can do and ought to do, having freely thought about it with due attention, is a sin. Now I know it can get very confusing, and we can tie ourselves in knots over omission. We don't want to be scrupulous. But it is really important to realize that there are occasions that pop up in our day when we are given the opportunity to serve God and the good, and we are called to respond to those moments with a "fiat" much like Our Lady's fiat. We can say "yes", and then do or say the thing that is necessary. If we hang back due to fear or laziness or selfishness, we hinder the Lord's work in the world, and injure our neighbor. I think it is helpful to think of it as saying "yes" to God in our particular situations in life, and being open and ready to serve our neighbor.
Think of the rich man and Lazarus who sat at his gate (cf. Luke 16: 19-31). The rich man didn't do anything bad to Lazarus when he went by him every day. He must have seen him, so he must have thought about him. But he didn't care that Lazarus was starving and ill and filthy and alone. He just walked right by him. His sin was omission. He could have fed and cared for Lazarus. He was rich. He could have had one of his servants do it. He should have helped Lazarus, because he was a neighbor. But he didn't. This was a sin of omission.
Now, Our Lady did not say to list all our sins of omission that we have committed up to now. She only told us to ask the Father to forgive our sins of omission up to now. We probably have no idea what most of our sins of omission have been. And it would tie us up in knots to recall them all. So she wisely tells us to just ask the Father to forgive us those sins. And maybe we should ask Him to forgive us every day for those sins. As we do that every day we may begin to notice what they are and change our way of behaving! God wants us to have clean hearts and honest eyes, the kind of eyes that would notice Lazarus and respond with love.
Here is a prayer for forgiveness from the Pieta Prayer Book. It can be prayed every night:
A Prayer For Daily Neglects
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with all its love, all its sufferings and all its merits.
First - To expiate all the sins I have committed this day and during all my life.
(Glory be to the Father and to the Son and the Holy Ghost as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.)
Second - To purify the good I have done badly this day and during all my life.
(Glory Be to the Father...)
Third - To minister for the good I ought to have done, and that I have neglected this day and during all my life.
(Glory Be to the Father...)
A Poor Clare nun, who had just died, appeared to her Abbess, who was praying for her, and said to her, "I went straight to Heaven, for, by means of this prayer, recited every evening, I paid all my debts."
http://brizek.com/prayer/pieta.htm#forDailyNeglects
Thank you, dear Mother, for being a good Shepherdess of our souls, and helping us, here and now, to be free of all sin and filled with light! Teach us to say "yes" to the Father!
In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
(c)Mary TV 2011
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