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After sin, I feel myself abandoned by all. No one can help me, no one cares for me, I know exactly how that young man felt in that lonely moment when he found himself alone with the pigs. He was all alone – and it was his own fault; his own actions had brought him to this. He had freely left a good home and his loving father. He had chosen bad companions who did not care for him, but only for his money. And now here he was alone. His life ruined. This is exactly what sin is. It is my own work. I turn my back on God, my loving Father; I go my own way and I find that people use me only for their own pleasure or gain. And in my thinking moments I find myself completely alone. Like the young man, I taste the bitterness of my own self-and bitter indeed do I taste. Sin is really death - death to my friendship and union with God. It is death to union with my fellow men. Sin puts me into complete isolation. The sinner is alone with his own self – completely alone. It is good to be alone sometimes. It gives one a chance to think and reflect. But to be alone with no chance of meeting anyone – that is unbearable. One of the worst punishments inflicted on prisoners is called `solitary confinement’. The prisoner is locked in a small cell alone. His food is passed through a hole in the door without a word spoken. For days he is left like this. Strong men often go mad after sometime. But sin is worse than that for it reaches our very heart. HARD FACTS If his picture of sin-my sin- has been painted in grim lines, it is because I need to see myself clearly as a sinner. Some people like to `study’ religions. They like to read books and get as much knowledge about the subject as they can. This may be a useful occupation, but a big danger has to be avoided. That danger is that I study religion in the same way as I study mathematics or geography or English. But religion should never be studied like that, since it is something that touches the very purpose and meaning of my life. It is my own story. It is the drama in which God and I are the central characters. It may be useful and important for me to know maths or English, but they do not touch me in the very depths of my soul. They do not create in me a hunger that is the one great urge in my life and which explains everything that I am and live for. When we talk about sin and death, about forgiveness and God’s love, about the soul and the meaning of human life – when we talk about all this in these pages, we are not talking about other people’s stories or about some mathematical problem. We are talking about me and my story – about sin and death as they happen to me, about forgiveness and God’s love for me, about my soul and the meaning of my human life. |
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