Our Sins = Our Stupidities

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing! (Luke 23)

In our blindness, in our deafness, in our selfishness, we are all stupid people.  When we hurt others, none of us know what we are doing.  All we see is our own need; our own hurt; our own wounds -- we do not see the wounds we are inflicting on other people.

These are the wounds that Jesus did see -- that God sees everyday -- and these are the wounds He takes upon His own body:  Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto Me.  We have all crucified the Son of God when we crucified and made one another helpless.

At first, we do not see what we are doing.  But later, looking back, when our eyes have been opened, we recognize our stupidities.  And they haunt us to the point of distraction.  Hearing Jesus say, ...they don't know what they are doing helps us to forgive ourselves.  If we had known, if we had seen, if only we had not been spiritually blind and deaf, we would have acted differently. We were wrapped up in our own lives; there was no room for anyone else.  We ourselves were wounded and hurting, so we inflicted our own wounds on others. 

St. Paul himself writes a powerful chapter in Romans 7: 

For I do not understand myself at all.  We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do....for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out....

So I find this law at work: when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being, I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in my body.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death? 

[Chapter 8]:  ...through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death...the mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

Jesus cured the blind and the deaf, opening eyes and ears --- but what He did in the physical realm is small potatoes compared to His on-going ministry TODAY.  He is still opening our spiritual eyes and ears and still taking off the shackles of our minds so that we can see, hear, and understand our own stupidities.  The stupid person understands nothing; the one who sins against another sees, hears, and understands nothing of what he is doing --- until it is too late.

We can pray for forgiveness for the past.  We can ask to be healed of our blindness for the present: Open my eyes, Lord; I want to see.