Human Person: Nothingness and Sin
I was conceived and born in sin. Even after the great benefit of holy baptism, how many times I have sinned, and how much I have horribly sinned! … Ah my God, who am I before you, guilty as I am of innumerable sins, ingratitude, and resistance to your merciful calls? (OOCC, X, pp. 469 - 470; STA, 556)
St. Vincent Pallotti characterized every human person, including himself, as nothingness and sin. This characterization comes from St. Vincent’s own existential experience of his own personal history, especially viewed from the perspective of God and his infinite holiness. He believed that he was conceived and born in original sin. Though having opened to the grace of the Lord in Baptism, sin was still part and parcel of his life ever since. In many of his writings, St. Vincent often narrated about his innumerable sins, ingratitude and resistance to merciful calls of God. Hence, there was nothing worthwhile in him that he could give to God. As he went to encounter God, there was nothing of value that he could offer to God. Hence, the term “nothingness” refers to the ‘negation of everything.’ Because of his sinfulness, he was nothing before God as he had nothing with him except sin as he stood face to face with God. St. Vincent did not understand how God could bear him. The realization that he was “nothingness and sin” did not make St. Vincent despair, but rather it made him surrender unconditionally to God’s merciful love. It made him realize how he needed God in his life, and made him take all the troubles so that he could belong to God and could find his meaning in him.
How do I perceive myself? Do I have a sense of my sinfulness? Does the awareness of my sinfulness make me feel despair or surrender to God unconditionally? Do I realize that I need God in my life? Do I take trouble to belong to God and find the meaningfulness of my life in him?
Happy are those, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Ps. 32:1 – 2)