When we were children we were natural tattle-tales and we took great pleasure in exposing some wrong that someone had committed.  “Oooh, you did this or that, I’m going to tell.” We would then often dance about and taunt the person that had been caught in the wrong doing.  We would sometimes make up a chant about what the person had done and how we were going to expose the wrong doing.  Of course, the person that was caught in the wrongful act would often become afraid that their wrong-doing would be exposed and that they would face severe punishment and so they began to make threats or try bargaining to avoid being “told on”.  A person that recognizes that they have done something wrong often begins to have feelings of guilt.  Guilt is the realization and acceptance by a person that they have done something wrong.  We might begin our justification of our wrong doing by claiming that it was all a mistake or an accident.  We want to prove that while we indeed did something wrong, we are not really a bad person.

    Now children can be unrelenting in their accusations of another child.  They will often move on from their accusing another person of a wrongful act to “shaming” the other.  As children we would extend our index finger and then run the other index finger along the top of that finger and declare, “Shame on you.”  Shame is a deeply personal experience and can be very damaging to a person’s self-image.  While guilt will tell us that there is something wrong with what we have done, shame tells us that there is something wrong with who we are.  Fossum and Mason say in their book Facing Shame that “While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one’s actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person.”  Shame attacks us at the point of our human dignity.  In our society we can sometimes place a permanent mark of shame upon a person such as in the case of the registry of sexual offenders.

    Scripture talks about the shame that Adam and Eve felt after the original sin in the garden and how that shame made them aware of their nakedness.  God makes clothes for Adam and Eve to hide their nakedness and to remove their shame.  When we sin we are exchanging the glory of God that is meant to shine through us for a condition of shame.  Through Christ, God removes our shame and clothes us again in his glory.

    We teach children not to be tattle-tales, not to be accusers and certainly not to shame others.  As we grow and mature as human persons we are meant to be more compassionate, empathetic and merciful.  In the gospel of John, we see that the scribes and the Pharisees fall far short of this maturity.  Having caught a woman in adultery, they not only accuse her of the guilt of her sin but they drag her before Jesus to publicly shame her.  They strip her of her dignity and leave her standing naked and exposed to judgment.  Jesus teaches these teachers a lesson in empathy.  Who hasn’t sinned?  Do we want all of our sins and faults to be revealed and be exposed to shame?  Wouldn’t we want to be treated mercifully?  Then we must treat others in the manner in which we would want to be treated.  One by one the accusers walk away.  Jesus chooses mercy rather than condemnation.  He chooses to be an advocate rather than an accuser.  

    In the sacrament of reconciliation, Jesus not only removes the guilt of our sin but he also frees us from our shame, restores our human dignity and drives away our accusers.  He gives us back our freedom and allows us to return to life again in its fullness.  Lent is a time to remember the mercy of Christ Jesus and to practice that mercy towards others.  It is a time to seek forgiveness for our sins and to forgive others whom we have been interiorly accusing.  Most importantly it is time to put an end to our shame and to clothe ourselves in glory again as we “put on Christ” and live a new life in the freedom of the children of God.