“The Sin of the World”

In the Catholic Mass (and no doubt in services of some other churches), the prayer, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,” is recited by the congregation just before communion.

I don’t know what my fellow communicants are thinking about during that prayer, but I think about “man’s inhumanity to man,” that is, the suffering we impose on each other.

I think about the war in Ukraine, the suffering in places like the Holy Land, Nigeria and Sudan, Haiti and CECOT, the infamous prison in El Salvador. I think about the indignities suffered by immigrants in the U.S., prisoners, and the fraud and lawlessness that we inflict on each other.

My Brothers and Sisters

After all, all these sins are committed by my fellow humans. The victims and the perpetrators are my brothers and sisters. I also think of my own sins of commission and omission.

You may think that’s a lot to think about in the span of such a short prayer. Fortunately, we recite it three times.

Some may consider it redundant, and therefore, boring, but I think it’s an entirely appropriate way to seek absolution from sin before receiving communion. I have grown to cherish the prayer – as I’ve grown to cherish all the prayers of the Mass.

Sins of omission are the easiest to forget or dismiss. But if we decry the bad things that are happening in the world, don’t we have to ask ourselves what part we play, what decisions we’ve mad, or haven’t made, that have resulted in the way things are?

Faith or Political Loyalty?

For instance, do we vote according to what our faith teaches, or out of loyalty to a political party, ignoring our faith’s teachings? Do we ever write, email or call our publicly elected representatives to say that we favor something that will benefit society or oppose something that causes our fellow humans to suffer?The passage from the letter of James in the New Testament comes to mind.

“…Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he is like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Obviously, the writer doesn’t mean our good works should be limited to orphans and widows, but that people searching for God can find him/her in service to others – as a counterweight to the sin of the world.

Some of you may be unfamiliar with the Letter of James, but it’s one of my favorites. It’s direct and challenging. It’s attributed to a Christian Jew, whose identity is uncertain. The date of composition is also disputed, though many scholars believe it was likely written at the turn of the first century.

Not Son of Zebedee

Scholars believe the author was probably neither St. James, son of Zebedee and brother of the Apostle, John, nor St. James who became a leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

So, back to the “Lamb of God” prayer.

Sr. Mary McGlone, the nun who writes a column on the weekly Mass readings for the National Catholic Reporter, writes that if, as St. Paul has written, we are “sanctified in Christ, our communal mission is to continue the work of taking away the sin of the world.

“Are we ready to say, “Here we are, Lord, we come to do your will?”