Communion of Sinners

Reading Adrienne von Speyr, I see that Confession strengthens my union with the Communion of Saints, but does NOT distance me from the Communion of Sinners. Rather, it moves me more deeply into participation in this fellowship...But in a new way: I am open to and vulnerable to the pain, the guilt and contrition, the longing that comes with sin. In confession I do not rise above sinners or flee the wages of sin, rather I move with Christ more deeply into the abyss; I identify with the lonely, isolated, despairing; I come to cherish my neighbor, that judgmental, cowardly, arrogant, condescending, wife-beating, child-abusing hypocrite. I cherish him because I see in him what I have recognized in myself: my own sin and the extravagant love of Christ that liberates me.