Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

I am going to speak today from the first person singular, for I have something I need to say to all of you.

I was asked to prepare several reports for the recent annual meeting. In preparing those reports I sinned.

Those reports were prepared with a stunning lack of charity. They were polemics, they were diatribes, they were uncharitable, they were inappropriate, and they were unfitting for a man who is ordained to the ministry of service.

These reports were not reports. They aren’t an abstract concept. I cannot say that I prepared a report and the report is wrong. No, I prepared the reports and I was wrong.

I have given grave offense to many, and I am deeply and truly sorry.

This issue, this sin of mine has borne down upon me. In reflecting on this sin I recalled the words from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

In translating scripture the word love, as used by Paul in this passage, is interchangeable with charity, so:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And Paul goes on to remind us:

So faith, hope, charity abide, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

In recalling those words I found that I was not filled with faith, hope, or charity —“ but only with myself.

I want to thank those who have confronted me about this. One family in particular gave the greatest example of living by biblical principals. They followed Jesus’ method in correcting me. In Matthew 18 Jesus says:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.—

I have listened to my brother and sister. I have heard their words. I have taken them to heart.

In their words they pointed out that having my name on the reports was a non-issue. They would have known who had written them simply by the tone and tenor of what was said. It was 100% me.

I’ve created quite a public and private persona. I am harsh, demanding, judgmental, and most of all uncharitable.

The words of Psalm 51 apply:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

My problem is exactly this. The exterior harshness of my personality is a shadow of the interior harshness with which I treat myself. When I sin, when I continually fall into the same sins, I am tempted to give up hope, to resign myself to my own evil, to loose faith completely and in doing so to reject God.

I was recently told that the cure for this type of giving up, this personality disorder, is to tie oneself ever closer to the crucified one. My sin is great, His love is greater.

Ezra echoes that in today’s first reading:

Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!—

The Lord must be my hope and strength.

David goes on in Psalm 51, which we sing at the beginning of most Holy Masses

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

I ask the Lord for a new and right spirit. I trust and hope in Him. I beg you for your forgiveness and your continuing fraternal correction.

It will not be easy for me to turn harshness to charity, but with God’s grace, the love of the Church, and your love everything is possible.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.