SHAME

Our modern man has three forces or fears: fear of death, fear of meaninglessness of life, and the fear of being found out.

As soon as wrong enters the heart of man, he begins to make fig leaves to cover his shame. Our secret dread is that we may be found naked - that is, in our true miserable condition.

We try to replace nature by art, saying: "I am not fit for God or man to look upon." Thus, the emotion with condemnation becomes mixed up with dishonor and blot.

The fig leaves we sew to cover up our shame are multiple:

*one of the latest fashions is to make it appear that society itself is wicked, and therefore it should not make one ashamed. If moves of our time could be proven to be abnormal, then one need not be ashamed of his abnormality.

*Another kind of fig leaf by which modern man covers up his shame is to attack religion. He thinks that by calling in doubt all moral standards such as guilt, conscience, sin, judgment, he minimizes his conscience from reproach. Many of the slings and arrows against the Church come from the slingshots of an uneasy conscience and the bow of repressed guilt.

It may be true in some instances that the Churches are irrelevant to the modern world and give no resounding message to modern man. But a deeper analysis might reveal that they are entirely too relevant; that is why many do not want to hear their message. Throwing stones at the Churches is a cheap way of escaping from one's own guilt.

What makes the sense of shame more galling is our denial of it, our covering it up with fig leaves which wither. The trueway out is to face up to shame and realize that we can be accepted by God because we are unfit, and that we can be pardoned because we are guilty. It is the excuses which spoil us.

We have the courage to be ourselves. We are worthless. We do not have an inferiority complex; we are inferior. We are not just dumb bells; we are guilty. We have not just made a mess of things; we are sinners take off the masks!

We are blind to our own faults. That is why, we say we need courage to sit down and to ask ourselves whether what we are doing is right or wrong, whether or not, we are actually fostering passion, listening to our own wishes, seeking out others who will excuse our sins; whether we are not allowing self-love to blind us to our baseness.

God can save this world, but he can save it only one man at a time.

There must be individual access to Him for the reception of forgiveness, as if He and I were the only two beings in the world.

It is the cowards who are running off to pillboxes, and to a thousand and one other escapes, who have not the courage to face that which has within themselves the possibility of great dignity.

Liberation comes when the message of forgiveness is accepted, bravely and without excuse. Peter was a despairing man. When he said to our Lord, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Our Lord"s answer briefly was, "I know it. That is why I want you!"