Am I still just a sinner?

[ohms]

Hi,

I have been reading Romans 6 and Colossians 2, plus many other verses in Scripture which speak about the effects of baptismal regeneration and the new creation reality in Christ, but yet whenever I leave Church I feel as if I’m nothing more than the plain old sinner I was before Conversion. My faith and Baptism have meant a radical change in lifestyle and holiness which came about without any effort whatsoever from myself. My experience has been of a new creation as the scripture speaks of. Why is there so little emphasis on who we are now that we have believed and been baptised into the Church? I always feel like I’m being beaten with a big rod when the truth is I love the Lord and strive after pleasing the one whom I love all quite naturally.

If I don’t have a sin nature anymore, as colossians 2 says then how can I still be a sinner?

Thank you

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Are you still a sinner? You bet! And so are the rest of us! True, Baptism makes us a new creation. But just because we receive the gift of sanctifying grace from Baptism and the other sacraments, we still have a free will and can still sin because we still live under the effects of original sin. There remains in us a weakness that leaves us vulnerable to sin. Some of the greatest saints considered themselves sinners up to the time they died. St. Peter wrote “Be sober and watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. And again after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called your to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish and strengthen you.” (1 Peter 5:8-10)

Through receiving absolution, we are back in the state of grace again. But, of ourselves, we are still weak and always in need of grace.

St. Paul wrote: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 6:19) We are all sinners as the second part of the ‘Hail Mary’ acknowledges. But our hope is always in the Lord’s generous mercy. He truly loves us.

See: catholic.com/quickquestions/are-the-graces-given-at-baptism-or-any-other-sacrament-made-dormant-when-mortal-sin-i

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.