I am a Sinner

I am a sinner. I was made that way. I was baptized and all of my sins were washed away.

I am still a sinner.

I am not perfect.

Every Sunday (or nearly every Sunday), I go to church. We say this prayer every week and I have not once in my whole life ever thought about what it meant.

I confess to Almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord, our God.

So, what does it mean?

I am convinced that for everyone it may have a different meaning. For a priest, it may mean something very different than what it means for me. This is my interpretation of it and how it coincides with my life.

For me, the lines:

I confess to Almighty God,
and to you my brothers and sisters,

They mean to me, that we all have made mistakes. God loves us anyways. We are His children and He will always love us. It can be hard to feel sometimes. Sometimes it feels like we may have done something or acted in a way that makes us feel as though no one could be able to love us.

Especially, after being sexually abused. There were moments last summer that I was so mean to people that tried to help me. I pushed them away (hard) and was bound determined that I could handle anything by myself. I was wrong. I wasn't letting God in and was in need of His love and guidance. I was truly alone and lost.

The next part:

that I have sinned through my own fault,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;

To me, this means that the mistakes that we make as humans are going to take many different forms. This only touches on a few, but they are a few very broad categories.

Relating this back to sexual abuse, the way that we felt or what we have thought during the abuse may have been sinful in nature. For me, I know that I had thoughts of wishing I could just die. I had thoughts of killing him. These (I've been told) are very normal thoughts considering the situation. God also understands. He forgives. He knows that it happened and He wants us to take from it and turn it into a chance to learn and better ourselves.

and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord, our God.

This part is pretty self explanatory. We are forgiven. We are loved no matter what.

I just wish that these prayers were more than just words for people. For me, after being abused, they were a way of life. They were a way of getting myself to believe again and keep my faith. I lived these words. I still try to.

I know that I am a sinner. Being abused makes me feel like I am worse than everyone else, like I did something to wrong God.

This isn't true at all, but what I have been learning lately, sometimes the knowing and feeling parts of your thinking don't quite line up or make that connection.

So, the next time you pray or even talk to God, think, "Am I just going through the motions?"

Make your words and actions take meaning.