Examinations of Conscience

The human heart longs for a place where it can be named, where it knows it matters, where it knows it is missed. Yet when we look to something external, some action or some person to give us a sense of who we are, we get into trouble. We then worship a false god, because we believe something created can give more life other than the Creator and Sustainer of Life.

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.

When we begin to forget our true identity, we search for something to satisfy us. But the only thing that will satisfy is the remembrance of our being within God, and then living from within this reality. When we have forgotten who we are, we cannot remember who others are either. This seems to give us permission to de-sanctify, to depersonalize, to de-reverence ourselves and others.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

Those things we have called “sins” often are not so much “sin” in themselves as symptoms of a deeper-rooted cause – that we have forgotten who we really are in God. These symptoms arise from unawareness of where our heart is and what our soul is trying to say.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

When we think of “sins”, they may be the more identifiable transgressions such as murder, adultery, anger or theft, or the more individual faults of envy, lust or sloth. Yet as well, there are the sins which often belong to nobody in particular yet belong to everybody in general. For example, there is corporate blindness – both unintentional and sometimes blatantly intentional. In focusing upon personal performance we become blind to issues such as greed and injustice.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

Does Jesus not care that we as a world spend an obscene amount on weapons of war? The more wealth we have, the more weapons we think we need to protect it. The more we hoard, the more energy it takes to secure it. Does Jesus not care that racism is still alive and thriving, or that to legitimize vengeance we righteously invoke the name of God, or that women are still brutally treated in many countries, or that those who fight for the most basic of human rights are still being tortured? Does Jesus not care that we still kill our forests in the name of productivity, that we murder our unborn because they would be a national nuisance? We let the majority of the world go to bed hungry, condoning the “business is business” approach by saying that it has nothing to do with religion.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

Yet just as insidious – perhaps more so – are the not-so-readily-identifiable sins such as cynicism, sarcasm, and most of all, indifference to anyone or anything outside the self. The opposite to love is not hate but indifference. We live in sin when we close our heart, when life freezes over and the truth hides out of fear.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

Actions spring from perspectives. So when indifference takes root, it chokes the human heart like the weeds in Jesus’ parable of the Sower. We are not even aware we have lost connection with our soul. We become numb; we regard ourselves as separate from others, and feel indifferent to those not like us.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

When we refuse to give our heart away and fall in love with life anymore, we withhold ourselves by playing games that are so petty and peurile. Jesus had a cosmic heart that could fall in love with reality as it was, and not as it should have been or could have been. He did not demand that before he loved reality, reality should be different from what it was.  

Response: Heal and renew us O Jesus.  

Jesus Crucified, lead us into reconciliation and the mystery of forgiveness.
We thank you, Crucified God, for becoming a human being,
so we don't have to try to be little gods.

We thank you for becoming inferior,
so we don't have to be pretend to be superior to anyone.
We thank you for becoming weak, so we don't have to be strong.
We thank you for willing to be considered imperfect and strange,
so we don't have to be considered perfect and normal.

We thank you for being willing to be disapproved of,
so we don't have to be approved of and liked.
We thank you for being crucified outside the walls, for being expelled and excluded like the sinners,
so you can meet us where we fear that we are –
always outside the walls of holiness.

We thank you for being considered a failure,
so we don't have to be a success.
We thank you for being wrong by the standards of religion and state,
so we don't have to keep proving ourselves as always right.
We thank you for being poor in every way,
so we don't have to be rich in any way.

We thank you Lord Jesus Crucified for being all things that humanity despises and fears, so we can love ourselves and others in you.

We pray we can love you who by your humanity have identified yourself with us at the very point where we most hate ourselves.

Lord Jesus Crucified, you and we are the same. (pause)

Do you wish to partake of the forgiving nature of God?

ALL: We do.

Do you wish to live from your true identity as daughters and sons of the Father?

ALL: We do.

Do you wish to reverence others, who are also daughters and sons of God?

ALL: We do.  

ALL: Only in this confidence do we offer sorrow and repentance for our sins,
We joyfully receive your forgiveness freely given,
and truly desire to live from your eternal gracious absolving love.
We offer the prayers and hopes of our hearts to your in your name.
AMEN.

For all enquiries or comments regarding any information on this website, please contact Patrick by
Email: p.oliver@mcauley.acu.edu.au or
Phone: (61)7 3356 4218
©Copyright 2007 Patrick Oliver