That was another mystery: it sometimes seemed to him that venial sins—impatience, an unimportant lie, pride, a neglected opportunity—cut you off from grace more completely than the worst sins of all.

I didn't bother to ask him why he didn't wait for someone from the American Legation, for I knew the reason. French methods are a little old-fashioned by our cold standards: they believe in the conscience, the sense of guilt, a criminal should be confronted with his crime, for he may break down and betray himself. I told myself again I was innocent

To get right with God, we need to utter three difficult words: "I have sinned." God cannot forgive the sin we will not confess!

The sinner... while retaining the ability to imagine, has forfeited the basis on which to imagine God.

The picture of God that I embraced could get me to feel shame for my sinful deeds, but it could not empower me to rise above them.

It's bad when you fail morally. It's worse when you don't repent.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord's mercy motivates us to do better.

Perhaps one of the most powerful things the contemporary church could do is to confess our sins to the world, the humbly get on our knees and repent for the terrible things we have done in the name of God.

Healing from sin is a process we get to participate in. God

There are so many people who are longing to be brought to life, who know all too well that they have done evil and long to hear not only of a God who embraces evildoers but also of a church that does the same.