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SIN
I. Mercy and Sin
1846
The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God's mercy to
sinners.113 The angel announced to Joseph: "You shall call his
name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."114 The
same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: "This is my
blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
sins."115
1847
"God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without
us."116 To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. "If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness."117
1848
As St. Paul affirms, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the
more."118 But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert
our hearts and bestow on us "righteousness to eternal life through Jesus
Christ ourLord."119 Like a physician who probes the wound before
treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin:
Conversion requires convincing
of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a
proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man's inmost being, becomes at
the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: "Receive the
Holy Spirit." Thus in this "convincing concerning sin" we
discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the
certainty of redemption. the Spirit of truth is the Consoler.120
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