When Sin Stops Hurting

English Homily- Third Sunday of Summer- Fr. Peter Patros When a toothache disappears on its own, it is not healing — the nerve has died. The same happens to the soul: when sin stops hurting, something inside may have gone numb, not recovered. Isaiah’s vineyard produced rotten fruit despite everything the owner gave it — and the vineyard could not smell itself. Sin rarely looks like the opposite of virtue; it rhymes with it, one letter off. Two things kill the conscience: repetition, which builds a callus exactly where we keep touching the same thing, and presumption, which uses God’s mercy as a bank account — scheduling confession the way you change the oil in a car. Godly grief moves; worldly grief sits and looks at itself and calls that repentance. The man born blind had mud placed on his eyes before he could see — and he still had to get up and walk to the pool. Some of us have been touched. Very few of us have gone to wash.