Sadness of Sin

I've been thinking a lot today about the sadness of sin. About the way it hurts others and ourselves, and how we can be so utterly blind to that damage and explain it away when we are in the grips of sin's passion. I remember reading in Madeline L'Engel once that the older we live, the more we see that our greatest need is for forgiveness. I think she was dead on right.

The woman taken in adultery - when Jesus confronted the crowd with the words: "He who is without sin among you casts the first stone," they dropped their stones and left, beginning with the oldest. Of course, the sad thing is that they left. If they'd really taken to heart what our Lord was saying, they'd have marched to the woman and stood next to her. Then they'd have been left with a word of Gospel, not of law: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."