Booksnip (4)

From Brennan Manning's The Importance of Being Foolish:

The French poet Paul Claudel said that the greatest sin is to lose the sense of sin. The man without a lively sense of the horrow of sin does not know Jesus Christ crucified. The knowledge that sin exists and that we are sinners comes only from the Cross. We can delude ourselves into thinking that sin is only an abberation or a lack of maturity; that preoccupation with security, pleasure, and power is caused by oppresive social structures and personality quirks; that we are sinful but not sinners, since we are mere victims of circumstances, compulsions, environment, addictions, upbringing, and so forth. The Passion nails these lies and rationalizations to the Cross of Truth.