3.3 The Necessity of Continual Renewal

Without obscuring this holiness, we must acknowledge that due to the presence of sin there is a need for continual renewal and for constant conversion in the People of God. The Church on earth is “marked with a true holiness,” which is, however, “imperfect.”⁵⁰ Augustine observes against the Pelagians: “The Church as a whole says: Forgive us our trespasses! Therefore she has blemishes and wrinkles. But by means of confession the wrinkles are smoothed away and the blemishes washed clean. The Church stands in prayer in order to be purified by confession and, as long as men live on earth it will be so.”⁵¹ And Thomas Aquinas makes clear that the fullness of holiness belongs to eschatological time; in the meantime, the Church still on pilgrimage should not deceive herself by saying that she is without sin: “To be a glorious Church, with neither spot nor wrinkle, is the ultimate end to which we are brought by the Passion of Christ. Hence, this will be the case only in the heavenly homeland, not here on the way of pilgrimage, where ‘if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves’...”⁵² In reality, “though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition [‘forgive us our trespasses’], we return to him like the prodigal son (cf. Lk 15:11-32) and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him (cf. Lk 18:13). Our petition begins with a ‘confession’ of our wretchedness and his mercy.”⁵³

Hence it is the entire Church that confesses her faith in God through the confession of her children’s sins and celebrates his infinite goodness and capacity for forgiveness. Thanks to the bond established by the Holy Spirit, the communion that exists among all the baptized in time and space is such that in this communion each person is himself, but at the same time is conditioned by others and exercises an influence on them in the living exchange of spiritual goods. In this way, the holiness of each one influences the growth in goodness of others; however, sin also does not have an exclusively individual relevance, because it burdens and poses resistance along the way of salvation of all and, in this sense, truly touches the Church in her entirety, across the various times and places. This distinction prompts the Fathers to make sharp statements like this one of Ambrose: “Let us beware then that our fall not become a wound of the Church.”⁵⁴ The Church therefore, “although she is holy because of her incorporation into Christ, … does not tire of doing penance: Before God and man, she always acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters”⁵⁵ of both yesterday and today.