Sloth 6 - Reparation/RepentRepent & RepairWhen is the last time you truly felt remorse, guilt, not shame, for an unholy action? Keep in mind "Shame" is I "am" SOMETHING and unhealthy, whereas "Guilt" is I "DID" something. Guilt allows us to retain our identity, shame is an attack from the devil on our identity.How can we truly be sorry, repent or want to repair or make reparations if we cannot shed tears over the evil, feel pain in our hearts, and actively work to make amends and change?To fight this type of sloth, we need to pray for compunction, remorse, guilt, and "holy" tears. Tears are prayers.What happens to us is a hardening of the heart. And this is a slippery slope, it creeps upon us. As we explain away or justify a sinful action, we open the door to become less concerned about future sin, making peace with it to ease our conscience and minimizing the offense to God or others.To combat this, keep your heart and conscience sharpened, recover the hurtfulness of sinning, recognize its offensive and awfulness, and allow yourself to feel the grief to the point of weeping. This brings to mind the, "Agony in the garden". Jesus felt the weight of all our sins to the point of sweating blood, or shedding bloody tears through the pores of this skin!What do we do when we sense this sliding? Redirect yourself and others back to God and honor him by being obedient to his guidelines. Take responsibility. This is another area our society has slipped. We love to blame or excuse away our sins. Ultimately, you are only fooling yourself, as God knows the truth. We may say, it's my right to act this way, or I cannot help this or that action. Again this is another slippery slope. Where does it end?I imagine Joseph abiding by the Jewish laws of his time, and there is proof of this in the bible when he follows the prescribed trip to the temple. In being a good father, we demonstrated to his son, Jesus, how to follow these laws, by teaching them and having respect for them and being responsible to them.When we entertain a false innocence as our normal response, not only do we further separate ourselves from God, but we also perpetuate this trait in society, giving it credence. When we dismiss our faults as something out of our control, or just the way humans are, or that it cannot be helped, we are lying to ourselves and others and denouncing our royal heritage as sons of God; giving up this divine grace.It also justifies a lowering of the bar for others, which only leads to making things worse. Pope Benedict XVI describes acedia this way, it "is the flight from God, the wish to be alone with oneself and one's finiteness and not to be disturbed by the presences of God". This manifests itself as sadness at God and Holy ways. It is a selfish act, this rejection of nobility. It allows us to think we do not need to strive for holiness if we don't have God's image of us in the equation. It's savage and allows us to grow indifferent towards others without guilt. It is the exact opposite of love and charity, but society has fooled us, through the devil, that if we are relatively good and nice, then everything is fine. Through graphic images that numb us to their grotesque nature making them "normal".As the son's of God we are called to a high bar. This demands a lot from us, so much that we are not capable of reaching it, but God is. We must rely on his generosity and grace. I suppose Joseph found himself lacking at times and falling into sin and showed Jesus how to repair, repent and feel remorse in order to take responsibility for his actions and do better.We have been graced with a tool Joseph did not have, one that helps us fight this type of slothfulness, and that is confession. This beautiful sacrament brings us back into right relationship with God, it sharpens our conscience, should bring about "holy tears", soften our hearts in a remorseful, repentant way, and get us back on the road to reparation, feeling the...