Tuesday, November 27, 2007 Alipio: The importance of a sense of guilt By Fr. Jose Alipio The Yoke
1 Kings 21:17-29
THE prophets in ancient Israel did not make social house calls. When a prophet arrived on your doorstep, you could count on hearing things that you would rather not hear.
Little wonder that King Ahab was deeply troubled when he saw Elijah walking up the path to his palace. His first words to Elijah were an acknowledgment of a deep sense of guilt.
"Have you found me out, my enemy?" The righteous is always threats to the wicked because they trouble the conscience of the wicked. Not mincing words, Elijah pronounced unrelenting doom on Ahab and his entire lineage. Every male in his household would die in shame. Ahab offered no rebuttals because he knew that he deserved punishment.
Ahab was shamed by his wickedness and repented before God, who honored that repentance with a pardon from his death.
We see the importance of a sense of guilt in this story. On the one hand, feelings of guilt force us to recognize our own wickedness. We may rationalize our behavior but a healthy guilty conscience can strip away those blinders. On the other hand, feelings of guilt can impel us to change our way of living.
Guilt can be a powerful motivator of virtue as well as a powerful voice against vice. Such praise of a guilty conscience contradicts the thinking of many moderns who were reared without the sense of guilt. Many teachers and therapists insist that guilt cripples rather than empowers the human spirit.
But there can be no moral or spiritual life without a developed sense of guilt. Of course, morbid and misplaced guilt is self-defeating, but a healthy sense of guilt is the mark of a moral and spiritual being.
