When I was teaching baptism prep classes for parents and godparents who come to have their child baptised, I would explain that baptism is a grace that frees us from original sin. “Why, though,” a very kind grandmother asked me (in another type of class), “do babies need to be freed from original sin? Babies don’t hurt anybody. Babies are good.” Understandable question.

I would tell parents and grandparents in baptism prep classes that the longer I am alive, the more convinced I am that we have inherited original sin from Adam and Eve. “Has anyone here [at baptism prep classes] never done anything that we shouldn’t do? We all do stuff we shouldn’t do. I’m increasingly convinced that original sin makes sense to explain our behavior…..And…. God’s grace – including the grace we receive at baptism – makes it easier for us to not do the things we shouldn’t do.” …..In time, I came back to the kindly grandmother and suggested that perhaps the grace of baptism is like the inoculations we receive against medical illnesses – vaccinations help us to not get physically ill and God’s grace helps us to not sin as much. The kindly grandmother accepted that explanation….. (caveat: I am not a theologian. I later checked with a pastor to make sure I wasn’t off the mark with the vaccination analogy. He said that he wouldn’t have used that analogy, but that I’m not theologically wrong).

……. The esteemed Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe has stated, “We are all radically incomplete.” God is complete (whole, holy….), we aren’t. Understood rightly, this reality is freeing – it frees us into a healthy right-sizing and right relationship with God. We are who we are.

…….Yet, in our incompleteness and tendency toward sin – and as very beloved children of God – we humans have the ability to come up with some screwball ideas. Yesterday I was confronted very directly with one of my screwball ideas. I’ve been walking around with this screwball idea for decades and failed to recognize it as such (it’s my own personal screwball idea…. We’re all capable of coming up with screwball ideas). Ugh…. Over the last couple years, I’ve been taking online classes from Franciscan University’s Catechetical Institute (if you’re looking for some online religious ed classes, these are very affordable and useful courses). A few days ago, I started another class – this one about discerning what we’re suppose to be doing with our lives vocationally…. As I did the homework, I was to answer some questions, reflect on the course content. Boom – I got hit square between the eyes with two incongruities. On the one side, I know without a doubt that God loves me. On the other side, I was thinking about a personal circumstance in which I stubbornly apply the above-mentioned mental idea I’ve been clinging to for decades. Ka-pow! I suddenly recognized that my self-constructed idea I’ve been clinging to for decades is incongruent with the vocation content I’m learning in class and incongruent with God’s love for me. In an unhealthy way, I saw yesterday that what I’m now calling my “screwball idea” says that I’m “impossibly – therefore stupidly or uselessly – incomplete” rather “radically incomplete.” “Stupidly or uselessly incomplete” is NOT the same thing as radically incomplete. In being radically incomplete, we can accept God’s love – God love us brings us to the good place where God wants us to be. Very different than uselessly incomplete – perceiving ourselves as such happens only as a result of our own human distortions.

When we earnestly walk in faith, these moments come along – opportunities to grow and allow God to help us shed our human distortions. God loves us and wants to help us become the people we are meant to be!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).