“I am making up sins. For the guarantee of absolution. In the beginning again, at zero. Before heaven even. Before the Fall. All previous wrongs erased. Reduced to spotless. Pure. When I receive God, all pure. Totally. For the Dwelling of God Housed in my body and soul must be clean. Free of sin. Any sin. Mortal sin. The greater the sin, the greater the forgiveness, greater the Glory of God in His forgiveness. I have none. Venial sin. Small sins. Hardly worth the mention. Sins, all the same.” (Dictee, p. 17)
I was particularly struck when reading this passage in Cha’s work Dictee. In this section of the work, Cha writes of a Catholic church service, the receiving of the body and blood of Christ. I was unprepared for her honesty.
She writes, “I am making up sins;” I was forced to pause. Isn’t Cha not openly admitting to a lie, and by default, a sin? And, therefore, adding to her pile of sins that she apparently doesn’t have? Cha addresses a concept in Catholicism that has always puzzled me: the idea of big and little sins. Is there some sort of large scale that classifies little sins to hum-dinger sings? I’ve always been confused when a white lie about eating your veggies falls under the same sin category as murder.
As a child, I went to confession as part of my CCD classes (to this day, I’ve not the slightest idea what “CCD” even stands for). Like Cha, I too was forced to rack my brain for the slightest sins, usually some explicit, angry thoughts towards my elder sister--typical kid stuff. Upon realizing the insignificance of my sins (for which I was begging forgiveness), I came across the same realization as Cha. God has bigger things on his plate that my tiny sins, sins that as Cha puts it are “hardly worth the mention.” Yet, Cha follows this statement by acknowledging that these small sins are still “sins, all the same.” But are they really all the same?
I understand asking forgiveness for your wrongdoings, the desire to forget the past. But I’ve come to learn that the past cannot be erased. It cannot be “reduced to spotless,” as Cha phrases it. It is our mistakes that make us who we are. It’s how we learn. I have a rather hard time asking God to forgive my occasional use of profanity when my problems are not nearly so big as others in the world; I think Cha understands this. I think this is something she too struggles with. So why do we bother God with every little thing?
