312 MERCY AND SIN

YOUCAT Lesson 312

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

312  How does a person know that he has sinned?

A person knows that he has sinned through his conscience, which accuses him and motivates him to confess his offenses to God.  [1797, 1848]

…….Photo above: Myself at a younger 79 and Oscar our pup.  I was about 25 years old when my mother commented to me, “Your dad and I knew when we did wrong.”  Amazed, I listened to her in silence.  I never thought my dad and mom did anything wrong.  God knows the heart and in our conscience He speaks to us of our faults. …..312

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  1 John 1:8

1797, 1848

  

I. MERCY AND SIN

  

1797 For the man who has committed evil, the verdict of his conscience remains a pledge of conversion and of hope. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

1848 As St. Paul affirms, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."( Romans 5:20.)¹¹⁸ But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us "righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."( Romans 5:21.)¹¹⁹ Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin: 

 Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man's inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: "Receive the Holy Spirit." Thus in this "convincing concerning sin" we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.( St. John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificanum 31 § 2.)¹²⁰ --CCC