To Sin or not to Sin (February 19,2008)

To Sin or not to Sin
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

The Catholic faith commemorates the passion of Jesus Christ through the obedient observance of the Lenten season. For some forty days, the faithful abstains from the earthly pleasures and goes on for weeks with a meat-free diet. Believers crowd the solemn corridors of churches for confessions, foreheads marked with black ashes and palm leaves shaped like crosses; so are the traditions and practices of devout Catholics. Some go to the extremes of literally carrying their own crosses and being lashed with painful whipping. These people each have a different way of repenting; each have a different means of seeking for absolution, but all for a common reason, but all for a common fear, and that is sin.

Every one of us are all capable of committing sin, in a much general term, mistake. No one is that righteous to proclaim how he is absolved from errors, no one is that good. A person who continues to wash their hands and even apply sanitizer to appear all pious is certainly someone whose pants are on fire. Every one of us gears up to be seen as perfect and without flaw. The sad thing is, while making this dream come true; we tend to defy our morals along the way. We struggle to survive in a social chaos; we apt to pass the blame from one person to another just to get rid of the dirt from our hands. Pity those innocent men who were convicted for a mistake, for a grave sin they never even dared to commit.

But, these mistakes, these errors, these sins are but part of a multiple choice exam. Temptation usually precedes before them, luring us to forget temporarily that telling a lie is against the grounds of morality. Temptation seduces us, which means they appear so beautiful and pleasurable that a lot of times man falls to its trap. Money, greed, fame, lust and power though how negative they sound they appear otherwise. Proofs are the respectable men who dared juggling the truth hiding their foul perjury. Evidences are the honorable men who dared cheating legitimacy tucking beneath their pungent corruption. Man had a choice to do good or to sin, to be moral or to defy the norms, to prevent mistakes or let errors prevail. Once again human as we are, we chose to defy, but for crying out loud, we could have chosen not to.

I am not preaching. I am aware that a sixteen year old can’t change the old and already rooted ways of the several strayed adults. I could only guess that they weren’t trained much on using that certain “free will” they have on the back of their greedy heads. A corrupt politician could have started off as a cute little toddler stealing away pencils from his classmates. It would not come out a surprise if his present self goes stealing the country some barrels of public funds. Sin would just start from petty trials until one would certainly be addicted and couldn’t lose the habit. The concept of rebelling against good is very difficult to grasp concretely as because of that driving force of being human some already concluded that man couldn’t help but give in and sin.

I myself at an age that is not yet aware of the other pleasures materialism offer, continues to create more and more sins every day. But I guess, the main point here is to accept and realize the guilt, that one had apparently sinned and committed something regrettable. Someone who wouldn’t understand a sinner would be a hypocrite. Not unless he can prove to me he had never thought of something malicious, said vulgar words, read a green joke, told a white lie or stole some cents from his mom’s purse all his life. I noticed something so evident that I also hope most have observed. When someone so controversial because of some criminal or offensive act he had committed continues to deny accusations, people continue to loathe him and throw rotten tomatoes at him. But, just see when after he had come into light and accepted all the allegations, people decide to shut their mouths and let him be.

Yes, you made a wrong choice, you led a troublesome life, and you blamed yourself. Point taken. Everybody makes mistakes. But still even before he lead astray, man continues to try and make right choices and shun temptation. I presume this is where the values taught by our parents and the foundation built upon by certain institutions such as the church and the school will be put to the test.

Yes, to err is human.
But prior to that err was a choice.
I guess it’s also human to choose.