“You got any spare change?”
The big scruffy guy was yelling at me and my friends as we approached a restaurant in downtown Decatur. My first impulse was to quicken my pace, since his aggressiveness was off-putting.
But as he passed us, I noticed he had a severe limp and looked miserable. Suddenly I wanted to open my purse and hand him some money, but I talked myself out of it.
Meanwhile, my companions brushed off the encounter by saying the man would probably use handouts for drugs and booze.
Moments later, as I perused the pricey menu in the restaurant, I felt an uncomfortable stirring in my heart, which I knew was my guilty conscience.
After all, I was the only churchgoer in the group. I was the only Christian. The only one who couldn’t feign ignorance about Christ’s teachings when it comes to the down-and-out.
“Oh, yes, Catholic guilt,” some people will joke. “Of course, you Catholics are known for that.”
Still, Monsignor Richard Lopez in his homily at The Cathedral of Christ the King this past Sunday suggested that guilt isn’t a laughing matter.
Just as pain alerts us to bodily injuries, guilt tells us we’ve done something morally wrong.
“Guilt tells us we need Jesus,” he said.
And frankly, without that spiritual discomfort nagging me now and again, I’m afraid of what I might become.
A few weeks ago, I was bored, so I ended up in a thrift shop just looking around. While I shopped, I kept having mental images of my mother-in-law, who has dementia and lives in a nearby nursing home.
For months after my husband died, I kept his promise of visiting her weekly — but lately I’ve let that commitment slide.
After all, I assured myself, she has no idea if you miss a visit. True, she seems to recognize you, but it’s hard to know for sure.
The other voice in my head countered strongly: “But whether she knows you’re visiting or not is immaterial. Let’s face it — you’re her only connection in the Atlanta area, and therefore her only visitor. And you could spend time with her instead of looking at clothes.”
A little child usually has a pretty strong conscience, and will feel ashamed if she steals a cookie from the jar without asking. Even if the child’s action goes undiscovered, she may wrangle with her conscience.
Sadly, as we grow up, we often discover ways to ignore the painful reminder that we’ve broken a rule. We may tell ourselves the rules are too old-fashioned and sin is an outdated notion.
It’s not just what we’ve done, but what we’ve left undone. Many guilty twinges alert us to opportunities we may be missing.
After Mass on Sunday, I headed over to the nursing home, where my mother-in-law didn’t recognize me at first. But once I began joking with her and telling her familiar stories about her relatives, she started laughing with me.
Monsignor Lopez mentioned that when you say “yes” to your conscience, you receive what the Bible calls “the peace that surpasses understanding.”
True, the beggar on the street probably got money from someone else — and maybe he spent it in a way I’d find problematic. But that’s God’s business, not mine.
And maybe my mother-in-law doesn’t notice when no one visits for months on end. Maybe she’s too far gone to recognize when someone does a good deed for her. But that doesn’t absolve me from spending time with her.
At the end of the visit, I kissed her and said I’d be back soon. Driving home, I had a sense of peace because my conscience was clear.
True, she might not remember I was there — but God does, and that’s enough for me.
