Finding Freedom From Guilt: A Catholic Reflection for Advent

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Many Catholics experience some degree of guilt, often, though not universally, more intensely during the holiday season. Guilt can arise from spiritual, cultural and emotional factors, and is an uncomfortable feeling that no one likes experiencing. Yet this discomfort points to our original state of innocence, the innocence Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden.

In this sense, guilt becomes a wake-up call. It alerts us when we have sinned and invites us to atone for our sins and move back to our original state of innocence. God created our souls to be innocent, not guilty, but guilt is a natural human response when we knowingly and willfully choose what is wrong. Guilt is a feeling-sign that we messed up and made a wrong choice, and that our body and soul are trying to awaken us to our spiritual and moral peril.

This reflection focuses on the spiritual reality of guilt and how to approach it as a Catholic Christian.

Advent: A Season for Honest Reflection

Advent is a penitential season with an emphasis on examination of conscience, repentance and awareness of sin. This is meant to cultivate hope, not anxious guilt.

For some, especially those raised in environments where sin and confession were heavily stressed, guilt can become internalized more acutely. But Advent tells a bigger story. It marks the time of salvation history in which Israel was carrying a heavy burden of guilt, quietly suffering under foreign rulers and awaiting the coming of the Messiah who would free them from their guilt.

It is appropriate in the spirit of Advent to do an examination of conscience and to take one’s faults into serious consideration. For each individual Christian, Advent is a time of coming to a sincere realization that I too am in need of a savior who will deal with my guilt.

A prayerful reading of Isaiah, Jeremiah and the prophets shows the consequences of Israel’s guilt and how impossible it is to fix on our own. Often, our attempts to assuage our feelings of guilt make things worse. But positively speaking, guilt is a signal from our souls that we are in need of a savior.

When Family Dynamics Complicate Guilt

Unfortunately, many families also face the consequences of the sins of their members during the holiday season. This family dynamic can cause further emotional and psychological pain that begins to pile up on an already guilty conscience. This experience also underlines the communal dimension of sin and guilt. Prophets like Isaiah and Daniel identified the sins of Israel as their own, entering deeply into the experience of communal guilt even if they themselves may not have sinned.

We must be honest about how the sins of others affect our own hearts. But rather than allowing this to fuel judgment and condemnation, we can let it stir compassion as we consider our own weaknesses and sins. Faithful Catholics may feel an inclination to judge less-practicing loved ones. Yet one moment of self-reflection can give us enough space to begin to consider that everyone is doing the best they can, and God’s mercy is at work in all lives, believer and unbeliever alike.

Accepting difficult feelings of guilt that we suffer in our family situations can itself become a powerful act of intercessory prayer.

How God Responds to Guilt

So how does divine mercy address the problem of guilt?

In Jesus’ death on the Cross, he takes to himself all our sins and all our guilt. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb who pours out his blood to remove sin and death and give us his life and love.

Guilt is the spiritual effect of sin: when we sin, we separate ourselves from God and fall under the rule of sin and death. Guilt is the painful awareness and feeling that we are responsible for that separation. In our sin, we are both victims and cooperators in evil, since guilt from sin requires that we play a role in our own fall from grace. We also know that the evil one and his minions are constantly prompting us toward that pit of sin and guilt.

But God sees us falling away and acts immediately. His response to our exile from his presence reveals his love for us and his desire for us to be with him, where he is. In Genesis 3, he curses the serpent and promises that a man will come who will strike the head of the serpent, killing it, even as he is bitten and mortally wounded by the same serpent. This snake bite is a poetic image of the Lord Jesus taking the poison of sin and guilt upon himself, which is ultimately deadly, and crushing the head of the serpent through his death on the Cross.

This is why we celebrate Christmas. This is how God deals with our guilt. And this is how we can live guilt-free as disciples of Christ.

Confession, the Eucharist and the Grace to Begin Again

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, guilt can be addressed simply and directly by confessing our guilt and participating in spiritual atonement in the Sacrament of Confession, especially when dealing with mortal sins. Venial sins can be forgiven through participation at Mass or devoutly praying the Rosary.

This is the genius of the Catholic faith: the redeeming sacrifice of Christ is made available to us in the Eucharist and in the Sacrament of Confession. These are concrete ways to alleviate guilt and restore peace.

Part of God’s plan is to free us from a sense of permanent guilt. But freedom also requires an act of faith to believe that we are forgiven. We must let our faith in the power of the sacraments rule our thoughts and feelings. If God says that we are forgiven and guilt-free, then wallowing in feelings of guilt can become a form of pride, a refusal to believe his Word.

Sometimes the path to healing simply requires humility: accepting that we are truly forgiven.