Q. Good analogy! But we still haven't answered if God forgives and forgets, why then do we need to make reparation?

A. Oh yes. So I was saying that God is infinite justice.

When we commit a sin, it's like we got home and knocked over mum's favourite thermos. The thermos falls and shatters into pieces. Mum comes rushing in and is aghast to find her thermos in pieces. You quickly and sincerely apologise and she just as quickly and sincerely forgives you.  We say you are absolved; to ab-solve means to dissolve a bond that attaches 2 things together, in this case you and the guilt of your infraction. The guilt or responsibility for breaking the thermos has been "detached" from you. Response-ability because someone else - in this case the one offended - has already responded to the charge laid against you. After absolution, the offense can no longer be held against you just like in a court of law once you have been declared innocent or have served your sentence or paid the fine.

But even after mum forgives you, the floor is still littered with the pieces of broken thermos. Someone has to clean up the mess. Mum will usually ask you - the one who broke the thermos - to sweep up the pieces. God does no less. Our sins litter the moral, societal and sometimes physical order of creation. He asks us to sweep up after our mess. This is what we call reparation from the word repair: when you put something back into working order.

King David fasted and slept on the floor when he was shown his adulterous sin. In the Sacrament of Confession, the priest usually asks us to make reparation do something simpler such as saying a prayer. Sometimes, due to the nature of our sin the priest has to ask us to do something e.g. to return whatever it is we have confessed we stole. All this is reparation. Forgiveness has been accomplished by Christ, but he still leaves us to make the reparation. St. Paul would phrase it "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church..." (Col 1:24)

25thNovember 2015