Guilt, Guilty
See also: Sin, Fault, Blasphemy.
Guilty is the one who voluntarily wills, freely freely and consciously consciously breaks the Law. It is that of the ten commandments of God. The two greatest commandments of the Law are: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your Heart, with all your Soul and with all your spirit. This is the great, the first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your Neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Jesus) (Matthew 22:36-39) | Mark 12:28-34).
In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"
- To measure guilt, one must consider the circumstances that precede, prepare, justify, explain the fault itself. “Who did I strike? What did I strike? Where did I strike? With what means did I strike? Why did I strike? How did I strike? When did I strike?”[2] (Jesus at The Beautiful Water)
- One who is at fault feels punished. This guilt should cause you pain but not the punishment itself.[3]
- "Sin is a pain inflicted on God: If you love God with all the resources of your being, you will not sin, because sin is a pain caused to God. Whoever loves does not want to cause suffering. If you love your Neighbor as yourselves, you will be only respectful sons to your parents, faithful spouses to your partner, honest men in business, without Violence to your Enemies, without falsehood in testimony, without envy for what others possess, without lustful desires for another's Woman. You would not want to do to others what you would not want done to you; steal; kill, slander, enter another’s nest like a cuckoo."[4]
- Jesus on the Woman’s adultery: "But remember this well: 'The better you are, the more pity you have for the guilty.' One does not have indulgence for the fault itself, no. But one has compassion for the weak who could not resist the fault. (...) Learn, oh men without pity. No matter how guilty someone is, he must always be treated with respect and charity. Do not rejoice in their destruction, do not persecute them, not even with curious looks. Pity, pity for the one who falls! To the guilty I show the way to follow to redeem themselves."[1]
In the other works of Maria Valtorta
The Notebooks of 1943
- Catechesis of November 6: Jesus says: "I know that you are weak and that all around you there are traps. I know it and take it into account when judging you. I would no longer be a just God if I did not take into account your weakness and the works of the Evil One.
What makes me severe is that sometimes, it is not out of weakness or because of a demon’s trap that you fall. You fall knowingly. You deliberately throw yourself into the abyss saying, ‘What do I care about God?’. That is when I call you ‘Judas’. You sell me with my precious Blood. You deliver me to Satan by giving him your Soul that belongs to me, because I redeemed it by my death. You betray me by calling yourselves Christians, but acting like anti-Christians. (...)
Great will be my mercy toward those who fall while wanting the opposite and who repent their fall! One, two, ten, a hundred falls without malice do not wound Love to death. They are reciprocal scratches that your tears and my love heal. You say to me: ‘Pity, Lord’ and I say to you: ‘Come to the Father, my poor child’."[5]
In fundamental Christian texts
In the Bible
- The sanction is proportional to the degree of guilt: "If the guilty deserves lashes, the judge shall have him brought down, and will give him in his presence a number of lashes proportional to his guilt".[6]
- One must have firm intention not to repeat the fault: "Now, after all that has happened to us because of our evil Actions and our great guilt – Good that you, our God, have left some of our faults aside and kept the rest of the survivors here, could we begin again to violate your commandments and bind ourselves by marriage to those abominable people? Would you not be angry with us until destroying us without leaving a remnant of survivors? IHVH, God of Israel, you are just: on this very day we do survive as a remnant. Here we are before you with our offenses when, in these conditions, no one can stand before your face."[7]
- One must be conscious of their guilt: "IHVH, we are conscious of our guilt and of the perversion of our fathers: Yes, we are guilty toward you. For the honor of your name, do not disdain, do not dishonor the throne of your glory! Remember your Covenant with us, do not deny it!"[8]
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church
- The formation of Conscience.[9]