“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

“I just keep falling into the same old sins, Father.” I’ve heard this so many times, usually with a large dose of despondency in their voice. And I get it, it can be very discouraging, humiliating, or even simply boring to find yourself admitting to the same old fault for the millionth time. There’s a correct instinct underneath all of that: we should want to get past that sin once and for all. We should want to stop all sin; our perfectly Holy God sent his Son who told us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The truth is that the souls in heaven (saints both canonized and unknown) are completely free of sin and that our aspiration is to join them one day. Our journey through this broken, sinful world does in fact have a destination. So, we are rightly displeased with anything in our lives that runs counter to that goal. Put simply, if your goal is to go to heaven, you should want to avoid all sin.

The problem, however, is when we translate this into succeeding right now. Even worse, we somehow fall into the trap of “I will stop all sin,” into self-reliance in this effort of holiness. So, when we find ourselves failing in this endeavor of perfection, we are disappointed in part because it is a sign that we are not as good as we thought. Sure, in our heads, in the way we talk, in saying the Act of Contrition, we say we depend on God’s grace to avoid sin, but in our hearts and habits, this isn’t always completely true. Part of the issue is that we think of God’s grace like a resource we direct and use. Some of our analogies contribute to this misunderstanding. Some people talk about grace as gas in a car or energy in a battery; we have to fill it up through prayer and the sacraments so that we then have the power to go out in the world and do good things or avoid bad things. The problem with that analogy is that, once you have a full tank or battery, you can drive wherever you choose. It’s as if we’ll go through life, run into temptation and then say “oh, let me use some of that grace I got to say no.”

That’s not how it works! We do still have agency. We do still need to make our own decisions and God will not micromanage your life. But cooperating with God’s grace isn’t an entirely self-directed endeavor. Grace is not a passive energy resource that we can expend as we see fit. Especially when it comes to overcoming habitual sin, there are several factors involved: temperament, addictions, mental health, etc. So much of overcoming sin is learning to simply avoid the temptation. God’s grace might not help you resist a sin if you first chose not to avoid the temptation in the first place. So often, a person unnecessarily puts themself in a place of temptation and then when they come to the verge of actually falling into sin, they’re surprised or disappointed that they lack the strength to say no. An alcoholic can’t pour himself a drink, stare at the glass, and then say “I’ll use the grace I got from Mass this morning to say no.” More often than not, God will let them face the consequence of their foolishness because they’ve already stopped relying on grace.

This is further complicated by the fact that many Catholics often confuse weakness with sin or conflate imperfection with sin. “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” does not mean we succeed at everything. It is not an excuse for perfectionism. It means perfection in love: doing all for love of God and neighbor. Even if you do it poorly or ineffectively, it can still be genuine love and, therefore, contribute to being perfect. But if we beat ourselves up for weakness and if we blame God for letting us be weak, we’ll all too easily lose touch with the grace that helps us to avoid the actual sin. Discouragement can be a nasty self-sustaining cycle.

There’s more I can say about sin and grace and culpability but I think you get the point: completely overcoming sin is complicated. It’s impossible for any one person to clearly map out and completely understand how and when they will overcome each and every habitual sin. That’s why it’s not actually up to us. It is God, it is the Holy Spirit who lays out the path of overcoming sin and he often chooses a path we ourselves would not and could not choose. And that’s how this reflection ties into the theme of this year of the Great Novena: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We “know not” how and when this particular fault will be wiped away, but God forgives us anyway. We “know not” if we’ll actually be able to come to confession next time without having to bring up this same sin. Yet, as long as we genuinely resolve to try, as long as we on some level agree to cooperate with his plan for our holiness, he forgives us anyway. God knows perfectly well if you’re going to go back to that sin maybe a mere hour after you confess it, even - especially if you don’t.

Don’t misread this. There is never a reason to simply “give in” to a sin or to commit the heresy of saying “God wants me to commit this sin.” But the simple fact is that the sin God wants you to work on the most may not be the one you think needs the most attention. Sometimes, we fall into the sin we’re more worried about because we aren’t responding to God’s invitation to address the other sin over there that we pretend isn’t as bad or isn’t worth worrying about right now. Sometimes, God is more interested in you learning to persevere in the struggle than he is in helping you live up to the vision of yourself that you think you should match. If we are constantly running after our vision of holiness, we tend to subtly walk away from the help of grace and then get surprised when that grace isn’t there to grant us the self-perfection we’ve envisioned. And sometimes, we just don’t know anything other than the fact that we want to stop sinning, that we want to love God, and that He’s in charge. That’s okay. You don’t have to know in order to be forgiven. He doesn’t ask you to know, he just asks you to ask and to not give up.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” They know not how, when, and in what way you will deliver them of this fault, but forgive them anyway. They know not that the excuses they make for themselves aren’t reasonable, but they are sorry, so forgive them anyway. They know not that their vision of their own holiness is not your vision of their holiness, but they do want holiness, so forgive them anyway.

Thank you Lord, for all the things you do for us that we just don’t know, but you do them anyway. And forgive us, Lord, for we know not what we do. But you do.