Memorial of Pope Saint John Paul II

Lectionary: 474

For if, by the transgression of the one,

death came to reign through that one,

how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace

and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Somewhere in the middle of the last century, I learned about Original Sin. It was the rank disobedience of Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit, which was often described as an apple since second graders might be familiar with forbidden apples on a neighbor's tree. By an undefined biological process -- apparently -- the guilt of said sin passed from generation to generation these many thousand years to me and all my classmates, the unfortunate descendants of Adam and Eve.

We learned to blame that foolish couple for the havoc they caused, even as we were forced to admit -- had they not sinned -- we might have done it instead.

I fear that many Catholics have never learned an adult approach to this deep mystery.

Before the Lord appeared among us, we might have understood there was something seriously wrong with human life. Despite the beauty of the healthy human body, a great many are sick, some are born with disabilities, and some are never born. What's wrong with this picture? Despite the generosity that flows naturally to a child from a devoted parent, many children are sorely mistreated. How can that be? Human beings depend upon one another for survival but we often mistreat and sometimes murder one another. What is going on? Is that the way it's supposed to be?

Much of the world's great literature reflects this deep disappointment. Our western literature and arts were born of the Greek tragedies which ponder this sorry situation. The equally brilliant comedies offer humor as a way to cope with our pathetic helplessness. The Greek gods, eternally engaged in their  petty squabbles, sometimes pity but offer no help to the heroically suffering human race.

However, we really cannot fathom the horror of it all until we have seen the Lord Jesus crucified and raised up. In that brilliant light our sins appall us and God's mercy astonishes us.

Saint Augustine was the first to coin the phrase "Original Sin" but the teaching is clear enough in Saint Paul's letter to the Romans. Understood only in the light of the Good News, Original Sin is the shadow that appears when the Sun rises. Until the light appears no one can see a shadow. Nor can they imagine how brilliantly the light will shine.

Saint Paul, preoccupied with his complaint about the Pharisaic "law," recalled the law that Adam and Eve had carelessly violated. In the light of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus he experienced both the horror of sin and the promise of mercy. Where evil hangs like a suffocating darkness over the entire human race, the Lord of Glory shines below the cloud -- in our world -- like a ray of sunshine. He and his fellow Christians are sent from Jerusalem to bring the light of mercy to every nation on earth, to announce that there is a God who loves us.

This God spares no expense to save us: the Father will sentence his only begotten Son to the death he would not impose on Abraham's son -- for our salvation. The Son of God will descend through "death on a cross" to utter annihilation in Hell; the Spirit will go with us into the most shameful and guilty passages of our hearts to lead us into light.

To this day we have a hard time imagining a merciful God, and many people misinterpret "Original Sin" only as a merciless, unfair condemnation by an all-powerful, arbitrary deity. It is certainly an ominous expression, reflecting as it does the apparently infinite dimensions of human depravity, shame, and guilt. Saint John, on the very first page of his Gospel, tells us what it means:

...this life was the light of the human race;

the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.