Who is to blame?

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A young boy was having trouble in school.  He just could not understand how numbers worked.  It wasn't that he was stupid, he just had a blind spot in his brain that made it hard for him to understand numbers and how they worked.  This was not his fault.  It was a built-in defect that he did not ask for nor did he do anything to cause it. His parents were not aware of the issue but his teacher saw that while the boy was pretty good at most subjects, he lagged behind the rest of the class when it came to mathematics.  The teacher contacted the parents and they agreed to get their son some help.  He was enrolled in an after-school program at a learning center that specialized in teaching people that had learning disabilities in mathematics.  The boy was not too happy that his after-school time was being eaten up by this extra tutoring in numbers.  The first few times either his father or mother brought him to the classes.  He went in and he actually tried to absorb what the tutor was telling him.  He started to improve a little bit at a time.  He was still very resentful that he could not use this time to visit with his friends and play video games with them.  After a few times, since the learning center was only a couple of blocks from home, his parents sent him to the class on his own.  The walk took him past his best friends house and one day his friend called to him and told him he had a new video game.  It was THE game that everyone wanted!  The boy was sorely tempted but the books under his arm pulled him away from his friend and he went to the learning center because that is what his parents expected him to do.  He was making excellent progress and starting to feel more comfortable with mathematics than he ever did before.  One day, he was on his way to tutoring when a couple of his friends were sitting with his best friend on the porch as he started to pass by.  They called out to him and invited him to play "the game."  He wanted to very much, but once again, he yielded to the wishes of his parents.  His conscience was leading him in the right direction.  About a week later, he was again passing his best friends house and this time there were more classmates there, all of them had come over to experience the video game of the century.  Today among the people on the porch was the class bully.  He saw the boy and started making fun of him, calling him a "sucker" and a "retard" and all of the other kids laughed and made fun of him.   Still, in spite of all of this peer pressure, the boy knew he had to go to tutoring because it was the right thing to do.  And so, hearing the taunts and laughter of his classmates fade as he walked away he felt good because he had done the right thing.  

All of us, man, woman, boy or girl have within us two opposing forces.  As sinful humans we can be persuaded to go our own way, to sin against God, with remarkable ease.  Just look at the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were seduced by a snake and a piece of fruit,  But because we are sons and daughters of the Great King, beloved by Him, each of us just because of who we are, we have inside of us a cache of grace that we can call on when we are being tempted to go our own way.  Sometimes, the grace we have at our command is not enough.  Our Father sees that and he immediately sends us additional grace to help us to keep on the straight path. If we accept this help, we will continue on our journey without delay. 

But who is to blame here?  If the compulsion to sin is already inside us, isn't God to blame for that?  Afterall, he did create us in His own image.  To blame God for our tendency to sin would be like blaming the boy in our story for his mental allergy to the science of numbers.  When we are born, we have the sin of Adam and Eve on our souls.  It is washed away in baptism but deep within us we still want to taste the fruit, we still want to be as God.  This remnant of original sin colors our judgment and at times makes us go off on a wrong road.  Our Father does what He can and He does send us all of the graces we need to defeat the bully of sin, we just have to be open to the graces and be ready to embrace them and just to say "no" to the sin of the moment.  If we cooperate fully with God, if we are always open to His graces, we will never sin again. Please remember I said "if" we cooperate.  In the lives of each of us, we will fail at one time or another.  At these times we can imitate one of two people.  We can be Judas and commit spiritual suicide or we can be Peter who went out and wept bitterly and came back to receive the forgiveness of Christ.   The grace of God can defeat any temptation to sin, but when it does not because of our choice, God's mercy can and will forgive any sin we have committed if we own up to it, confess it humbly and make a firm commitment to avoid the sin in the future. 

Our brothers and sisters in purgatory need our help. Please pray for them today.  On the sidebar, please feel free to access that fact sheet I have published regarding Purgatory.