Guilt or Shame? | Fr. Patrick Briscoe & Fr. Bonaventure Chapman
March 27, 2025
This transcription was generated using AI technology. Please note that there may be errors or inconsistencies.
This is Father Patrick Briscoe, and this is Father Bonaventure Chapman. Welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks to all who support us. If you enjoy our show, please consider making a monthly donation to our project on Patreon. Be sure to like and subscribe to Godsplaining wherever you listen to your podcasts. For the adventure, we are here to talk about one of the world’s most pressing questions a career about the difference between guilt and shame and plastic as a convert.
00:00:34:07 – 00:00:52:20
Unknown
I wonder if you have a particular perspective on the phenomenon known as Catholic guilt. What do you make of that? Yeah. Like speaking. Well, it’s an Irish thing, right? I think so, because I don’t generally associate with, like, Italians. Not sure why that is, but I do. They don’t seem to have much. I don’t know, maybe they do.
00:00:52:21 – 00:01:13:11
Unknown
It’s hidden. But, Yeah, there’s. I was always told there’s a lot of Catholic guilt, but, I mean, I came from a Calvinist background, so, like, you’re always kind of guilty, you know that. But there was a sense of Catholics always feeling guilty. Especially the Irish, the Irish Catholics. So I heard about it. I was excited to be a part of it, but to be honest, I didn’t.
00:01:13:11 – 00:01:35:07
Unknown
I didn’t feel a lot of it. You know, it does. So it does seem like it’s a it’s a thing that people talk about a lot. Right? I what it means. Right. Did you when you grew up with this, did you have a sense of what this phenomenon was here? Yeah. So it seemed it seemed basic. Catholic killed basically seemed to be the manifestation of the fact that you have a conscience.
00:01:35:08 – 00:01:58:00
Unknown
Yes. As a human being. And when do Americans you disobey? Yeah, exactly. When people when people say, you know, oh, it’s my Catholic guilt acting up. Really? What they mean is I did something bad. I’ve been sitting again. Exactly. And the the knowledge, the the untraceable knowledge of the moral law, which God imparted to me as a human being spoke up from within.
00:01:58:00 – 00:02:18:02
Unknown
Yeah. The voice against me. Yeah. So I think that’s I think that’s basically what most people mean when they start to, when they, when they say Catholic guilt, that seems right. The lack of freedom in all sorts of ways. And then the. Yeah, the kind of self-condemnation, that you shouldn’t apparently, according to them, be partaken. So do you think there’s something fundamental here?
00:02:18:02 – 00:02:39:02
Unknown
So I want I wanted to toss this out as we start getting into this difference here, because I think there’s a lot to be said, actually, about guilt and shame in the moral life. What they are to and to maybe make a distinction that, yes, some listeners might not have thought of because I do think they’re they’re they should be considered different differently.
00:02:39:04 – 00:02:59:23
Unknown
And that by making a distinction, we can we can get some clarity here. But but also to see how then guilt and shame, respectively. Influence the moral life. So I think that’s all that’s all very important. So so I want to start here. I think that guilt, guilt is rooted in what we have done. You know, we were already just kind of sussing that out a bit, right.
00:02:59:23 – 00:03:21:23
Unknown
We’re saying, I feel badly because I have sinned. Yeah. I said my impression of guilt is that it’s rooted in an action. But maybe that’s why it’s not your. I think that’s right. I mean, one of the hallmarks of a 20th century analytic philosophy. American. An Anglo Anglo American philosophy is to look at how we use language, how we use words.
00:03:22:04 – 00:03:45:10
Unknown
Yeah. To give us realities in a way. And I think this is true for guilt. Right? When most people talk about guilty, you naturally hear a gavel and you hear about a judgment. That’s right. And so you have. And what is a judge doing? A judge isn’t pronouncing you a bad person right? He’s pronouncing you. I mean, you are bad, but he’s pronouncing you guilty of some crime, right?
00:03:45:11 – 00:04:14:22
Unknown
And now it’s because whatever reason. But like you are, you are guilty of this. You are not innocent of it. And it isn’t like your life. It is a particular action. You could say. So it has this kind of yeah. The a thing done that is not you, but but is reflects you. And this is one of those things where, students who, you know, commit plagiarism, will often say, I, I want to let you know, that even though I did this, I’m guilty.
00:04:15:06 – 00:04:32:20
Unknown
This isn’t who I am. And in one way, you’re right. But another way, you’re deeply wrong. Like it is. You did this. You did this. Now it’s it’s it’s so. It’s it. You’re not guilty. You know, you’re not guilt, but you are guilty because of the things you’ve chosen, this sort of thing. So I think guilt is the sense of it’s it’s the activities, the actions.
00:04:33:00 – 00:04:52:05
Unknown
Whereas shame, is more about your person. Yeah. More about this. Pause there. I don’t want to get I don’t want to get too far in on that because I think for a while. But yeah, because I think I well, I think a point that you just made there, which we should underscore, which is that, which is that you are, in a way, the sum total of your moral actions.
00:04:52:05 – 00:05:17:04
Unknown
This is the whole point of being virtuous is that virtue is a good action, right? Which perfects the one who doesn’t and makes the possessor good disposition. That gives us a capacity of power system. When you say you’re virtuous, it means that you have a natural disposition and power as a habitus of acting in these particular ways. You haven’t yet, you know, walk the old lady across the street or parade at the right times, but it’s a thing that you would do given the right circumstances.
00:05:17:04 – 00:05:36:22
Unknown
It flows out of you. Yeah. So? So if so, then, if we’re thinking of guilt and you’re saying, well, you are the things you have the things you have done that are, reprehensible. Yeah. To use a heavy word, how is it, how is it that how is it that that isn’t isn’t actually able to be extracted from your person?
00:05:36:22 – 00:05:55:20
Unknown
Like, like just draw this home? Yeah. You know what you were saying about the student knowing you well and you are actually. So the thing is, it’s true. You are. You are a plagiarist. Not in this case, but you need not be right. Like it’s something that can change. It’s something that because it was an action that you are guilty of, but you’re not.
00:05:55:22 – 00:06:15:07
Unknown
You’re not guilty. Therefore, in the future of other actions like it, it will have consequences to you, of course, in all sorts of ways. But that it’s it’s a thing that you did, and it’s a thing that you have a propensity perhaps to do again. But it’s something that you can change, right? It’s something that you can be forgiven for.
00:06:15:09 – 00:06:45:11
Unknown
Right? You don’t forgive someone of of being a person, right? You forgive a person of their actions because you assume that there’s something there that is worth forgiving in that person. Whereas if you were just your bad actions, well, then what do you what are you forgiving? You’re forgiving a person for something wrong. So I think the idea of of guilt as being associated with the actions that although they in a sense correspond to you and give you a window into who you are, I think all of us have had major conversions.
00:06:45:11 – 00:07:20:21
Unknown
I hope when you get caught or you catch yourself doing something and say, I don’t want to be that kind of person, right? But if you were just your actions, then you would never discover that. That would just be who you were with no way of not knowing that. Okay, good. Thank you. I think that was worth really driving home because it allows us then to move into as you were, as you were starting to do, to say that shame is more interior eyes actually that than when we say, you know, I’m ashamed we’re talking about I’m feeling I’m feeling myself badly, you know, I’m I’m feeling badly about myself or I’m feeling unworthy
00:07:20:23 – 00:07:47:23
Unknown
or there’s some kind of interior aspect of the. Yeah, it’s what’s it’s very there’s a paradox here, right? In a sense. In a sense, guilt is more exterior to you because it’s about your actions and not your identity, you could say, but it’s also more interior because it’s an internal disposition. Like, I can declare you guilty, but guilt we generally talk about is like, I accept that it’s an internal feeling, a judgment of me internally, like we talked about guilty conscience.
00:07:48:01 – 00:08:12:07
Unknown
Right. So Dostoyevsky talks these sort of things. Augustine, if you read the confessions, you have this sort of like nagging sense of guilt. Like, even though I’ve gotten away with it, there’s something pressing right where shame is. On the other hand, a general external phenomenon, like someone says to you, shouldn’t you be ashamed like, if you’re a shame, a shame culture is to have other people looking at you and saying, you know, we don’t talk to that person.
00:08:12:09 – 00:08:33:02
Unknown
We stay away from that person. Like the Amish kind of shaming culture. And yet at the same time, as you say, the internal aspect is it’s about like, you like it’s not worth. It’s not you’ve done you’ve done a shameful act, we might say, but it reflects upon you. It’s not so much the act that is the target of the approbation.
00:08:33:02 – 00:08:54:16
Unknown
Right? Right. But it’s actually the or the comment, but rather you. You’re a shameful person who has done a shameful act. So it has this, it has it has the, in one sense a more external thing because it’s it’s fingers pointed you societal kind of appreciation, external judgment in a way, but also in the sense that it’s it’s about a, it’s more about you.
00:08:54:18 – 00:09:23:00
Unknown
It’s more about the person has caused shame. Right? Right. Family shame, that kind of stuff. It’s more personal. Yeah. Broadly I’ve understood. So I’ve understood. Guilt is rooted in actions. Right. I’ve done something I’ve done something bad. Yep. And shame being like rooted in identity. The perception that you are yourself bad. So I like I like what you’re doing though because it, you’re, you’re introducing a more more nuanced than that, than that description than that distinction allows.
00:09:23:00 – 00:09:39:21
Unknown
So that’s right. That’s very interesting. And people use them together. Of course sometimes you talk about shame and guilt, but I think they are worth is worth distinguishing this. The sense because you can have, of course. False guilt. Right, right. And you can I mean, courtroom obviously you can say someone’s guilty when they’re not. You can have.
00:09:39:21 – 00:09:59:15
Unknown
And this is for the spiritual life, very important that you don’t get a sense of. I’m even though I’ve been forgiven, I’m still guilty. Like, I still that sin has this. You can imagine this going this way, a guilty conscience in the wrong way. Because ill formed or missing guilt and the other can’t. You could also have, shame of the right kind of shame, the sense of the society.
00:09:59:17 – 00:10:16:18
Unknown
This is Paul talks about this with the church, you know, coming to people and coming to, you know, communicating the sense of saying, like, we won’t we won’t tolerate this. And this is a social choice where you can also have the sense of if a society isn’t ashamed of things, that ought to be right. So they.
00:10:16:22 – 00:10:33:01
Unknown
So while shame and guilt should relate to each other, I take it that there’s that you should be ashamed of things that you’re also guilty of doing, right? They should track each other in a way they can come apart in our society. Very often. They do come apart in horrible ways right now. What do you think about this?
00:10:33:01 – 00:11:02:05
Unknown
Sometimes figures or typologies can be helpful as kind of distinguishing something. So when I look at the scriptures and I see a figure that I want to assign to guilt, I assign Simon Peter to guilt. Right? Simon Peter, who betrays the Lord, he feels guilty for that action, for that deed of betrayal which he has done. And then in Simon Peter’s case, that guilt becomes, an impetus, a modus, even a motivation to, repent.
00:11:02:15 – 00:11:25:19
Unknown
So, so I think there’s something interesting there about guilt and repentance, whereas shame being, you know, again, as I’ve understood it, a kind of interior disposition, shame is, is alienating. It’s isolating just by the point that you were making about the societal views, the societal perspective on shame. That’s where we were lining there. Some, I’m I’m inclined to assign that to Judas Iscariot.
00:11:25:19 – 00:11:44:20
Unknown
I was going to say that’s another way to say like this. This is this is the this is, what happens when you when you don’t allow, when you when you don’t allow that, that moral value to be added to your action when you’re attributed totally to yourself, you become kind of stuck in it. And I think that shame has a way of doing that.
00:11:44:20 – 00:12:03:10
Unknown
Right. It kind of owns you and does not allow for the kind of improvement, the betterment that that maybe guilt motivates us. Yeah. Well, what do you think about that? Well, now, see, I like this. This is scary. Yeah, well, I like and also enough scary. It of course tries to like, fix the shame a bit. Yes. He goes back to the dude who tries to give Rose the money in the sense of like he wants there.
00:12:03:10 – 00:12:24:21
Unknown
He wants, this is the kind of recognition of others, right? So shame has the social dimension to it and getting back and right regardless of the internal stuff. Right. Whereas the so the reconciliation he attempts, there is a social reconciliation, right? In some fashion that people whereas the Saint Peter’s right. He doesn’t go and search the there’s a very internal kind of things.
00:12:24:21 – 00:12:44:17
Unknown
There’s the he you know, but the Lord has to reconcile him away from others. Right. That kind of conversation is and that’s where where guilt has this. Now this is back to the more internal thing. Guilt has this a deep internal wound because it’s something that you have done your deeds, you see, are wrong. And but it’s still you.
00:12:44:17 – 00:13:10:11
Unknown
And so there’s this. There has to be a reconciliation between you and your actions, right? Right. Someone the guilt has the guilty. The guilty verdict has been pronounced by either you or someone else on you and you. Whereas with shame, it’s more about the the social recognition and that that can be healed in this way. But you’re it’s guilt is in a sense more internal in this way because you have done it to yourself.
00:13:10:11 – 00:13:30:02
Unknown
This is where I mean, there’s doing the tradition has the sense that when you commit sin, who have you really harmed? Right? You have ultimately, although you’ve harmed everyone and God, of course, but also yourself, like if you say, oh, you know, we shouldn’t sin because, you know, then it will lead to X. No, no, it shouldn’t be because it makes you a bad person, right?
00:13:30:02 – 00:13:49:12
Unknown
Because it harms you. And then this the sense of this guilt internalizing that. So I, I like the I like the typology of Judas and Peter because you have a social reconciliation attempt. Right. And then you have an internal personal reconciliation attempt and social recognition you can get if you can manipulate. Right, right. Whereas the personal one. Yeah.
00:13:49:12 – 00:14:10:10
Unknown
For you and God, you can’t. Ultimately, guilt has to be something that demands a radical forgiveness, right? In a way, that’s shame. If you just wait long enough, perhaps a society will come around. Now, let’s, move back a little bit further in the Scripture, to the scriptures, to Genesis, where we see an important reference to shame.
00:14:10:12 – 00:14:27:02
Unknown
Oh, yeah. Right. We talk about, Adam and Eve when they’re first created, they’re living in harmony with creation. They are naked without shame, and then sin enters in and suddenly they’re ashamed of their nakedness. Yeah, yeah. What do you make of that? Well, and that’s, you know. And can we square that with. Yeah. It’s no distinction that we’ve been making.
00:14:27:02 – 00:14:45:08
Unknown
What size. Because in a way so, so you can be guilty and no one can notice it. Right. You can have a guilty conscience. And I think many people do kind of wander through this. And that’s why they need, they need, they need to be dealt with. But you don’t notice it. But if you’re a, if you’re a shameful person right.
00:14:45:10 – 00:14:59:05
Unknown
Everyone knows it like there’s a sense of people are looking for a sneer or some sort of, you know, I mean, like, you’re just, you know, I mean, we might be generous people. We don’t do the shaming thing that we we’ve done before in the past, you could say. But like society is not society might get along with some shame.
00:14:59:05 – 00:15:15:09
Unknown
Whereas with guilt. Guilt is like a it is is the internal thing such that it’s unless you reveal it to someone. And this is where confession is important. This is where law is born. You could just be penned up and you can die with it. Where shame, you’re going to have to. If you’re going to exist in society, you’re going to have to deal with it.
00:15:15:09 – 00:15:41:12
Unknown
So that’s why when you talk about the with the shame of so there’s guilt, of course, the culpa. But the shame is the kind of dealing with their nakedness. And the Pope John Paul. The second of course, in is is Wednesday Catechism talks about the original shame and the kind of covering. It’s like they try to cover up externals regarding the internals such that and and to to be okay with each other.
00:15:41:15 – 00:16:02:05
Unknown
So that’s a very external kind of that’s a shame. Fashion worse. It’s not like they’re apologizing to each other. They still need to get right with the Lord. Right? Right. But they’re going to try to solve the shame problem of being the people that have done wrong, right with each other by these kind of garments, and the Lord’s going to provide different garments for them and such, but they still, even though they have the garments, the Lord still needs to provide something to deal with the guilt.
00:16:02:10 – 00:16:22:04
Unknown
And that’s what, of course, the pointing with the the you know, the early problem, Evangelion, like the serpent, all this kind of stuff. So I, I take it that the distinction again, even though sin has both components, the shame and the guilt are both important and they need to be dealt with in, in different ways. Yeah, I think that’s that’s very interesting.
00:16:22:14 – 00:16:42:12
Unknown
The your emphasis here because like, you know, I be inclined to say like, well, guilt is a good thing, but shame is a bad thing. Because guilt, you know, as we were kind of setting up leads, leads to repentance in important ways, I think, whereas where shame, again, is more isolating, more, more alienating. So so it’s more difficult to see that as a good thing.
00:16:43:06 – 00:17:04:01
Unknown
However, however, insofar as here attentive to it. Right. You can you can recognize these, the lies about your identity, I suppose, through this, through this proper sense of shame. So maybe, so maybe, let’s refine this a little bit. Is there a kind of shame that you think is is really good thing, you know, is that can we distinguish between good and bad, shame and shame?
00:17:04:07 – 00:17:19:15
Unknown
Can we make that distinction between good and bad? Yeah. Well, I think and I think that’s right. So it good and bad shame I take it is shame that’s act that’s aimed at the right kind of acts. So we all need it. I mean we don’t only help one to learn the moral law and we this is why we don’t.
00:17:19:15 – 00:17:46:23
Unknown
Just like when you’re a kid, you expect God to tell you everything directly, right? Your parents are there. And what are your parents do? They say things like, you should be ashamed of yourself, and the kid doesn’t say, like, that’s bad shaming because all shaming is bad. Yeah, no, no. Shaming has the social function of of trying to bring, you could say visibly what we should also feel guilty about because oftentimes friends is the shame and guilt have the same actions, but it’s the question of the reconciliation mediating with them.
00:17:46:23 – 00:18:14:05
Unknown
Like that most devastating line the parents can up can offer their children right, which is that I’m disappointed in you. Yeah. Just feel that. You just feel the shame. Well, that’s right, I suppose it’s something like watching, you know, Japanese families as they. Yeah. So I remember taking. So I remember taking a course in Japan, of course, in Japan now I’m master, but in high school, our senior principal, our president, Brother Thomas Lackey, was a, Dale Salomon, brother and father, Patrick was trained by Dale salience.
00:18:14:05 – 00:18:28:15
Unknown
Well, the sailing brothers, well, Christian brothers and, and he get he he was a Japanese scholar. And so he gave a course on Japan and I found out it was actually for like people that were on the football team that couldn’t they need one more course to pass out. And I was doing well. And so he asked me like, are you sure you want to take this course?
00:18:28:15 – 00:18:48:15
Unknown
And like, yeah, I want to learn Japan. One of the things that always struck me is learn about the Japanese culture. At least at least in 2003 and 2002, was that, we had this book about Japan, Japan today or Japanese, the Japanese today, and had this picture of a, a family in front of a giant board that had names and scores.
00:18:48:17 – 00:19:12:21
Unknown
And there was and it was that it was an exam entering college, and you would not find out your results in a little envelope like we would here that you could privately look at in your room or something, not tell anyone unless they had to do something. But you would have to go and look at a leaderboard. Basically, it’s like golf and look at where and then the names would be revealed and your whole family and everyone would know how you did as a family head teachers, they would do that.
00:19:12:21 – 00:19:31:00
Unknown
They would post grades, you know, with your name. Right? And why did they do that? Because they were evil. No, I think it’s it’s because they understood that. Here’s what it is. We. Yeah, exactly. This is the world. Yeah. And it does. And to inculcate hopefully an internalization of good and bad sometimes through just like when we when you grow up, you train people too.
00:19:31:01 – 00:19:47:23
Unknown
You train people through carrots and sticks. I think shame has this kind of social function that is not as deep as guilt. Like we couldn’t get along with just shame because you can always say my culture doesn’t appreciate this, but I don’t feel bad about it. Right? And ultimately you have to have that. So, so, try it.
00:19:48:01 – 00:20:05:06
Unknown
How about this analogy. So guilt is kind of like the check engine light coming on in your car, right? It’s coming on from within. And shame and shame as well. It could be a flat tie, right. Or someone else, I was thinking, someone else walking up to you and saying like, hey, you got to, you got to, you got to look at this about your car, right?
00:20:05:06 – 00:20:36:09
Unknown
Like, you should know this about your car. You should understand that the noise that it’s making is something you need to address. But but when someone else says, oh, you have to address that noise, then you’re right. Then you’re really kind of forced to take a look at it in a different way. Yeah, I like that. I like that’s a social kind of a, the social aspect of sin, you could say, or the or the trying to reconcile it, of course, because you’re trying to say, look, you should be ashamed or you know, that’s a shameful thing or you brought shame upon the family, like you’ve brought a tarnish, to the externals in a
00:20:36:09 – 00:20:55:09
Unknown
way that, for instance, like when you sin, oftentimes your sin might have only an effect on you and your relationship with God. So I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job in this episode so far of saying what the value to these things are. Maybe guilt or shame, things that would be things that, people might be inclined to dismiss or to see.
00:20:55:09 – 00:21:14:08
Unknown
Oh, that’s just kind of an emotional reaction to something that I don’t really need to pay attention to. No. You should pay attention to, to to these two principles. They’re more than just feelings. Are there instances where they go overboard where where guilt actually needs to be reined in, where shame needs to be addressed in a kind of meaningful way?
00:21:14:08 – 00:21:29:21
Unknown
But what what does that look like if there’s a little bit of excess on the other side? Yeah. No, I think that’s right. I think obviously again, they you need both of them. I would say. And they both serve particular functions and they should kind of track each other. Like you should be ashamed of things that you’ve, that you’re guilty of and you should be.
00:21:30:00 – 00:21:54:17
Unknown
And and guilt comes up, things that are a shame as long as the thing is guilt can go wrong because it’s it’s internal, right has you that you can condemn yourself of things you ought not to be guilty of. Right. So and we get if you a for instance, if you have a particularly sensitive or scrupulous conscience or something and you can hold yourself accountable and never be forgiven and never just keep on is I’m guilty of this.
00:21:54:17 – 00:22:16:13
Unknown
I’m guilty of this because there’s no one else that’s going to tell you, like, other than God. And and the priest over in confession. I’m. No, you’re forgiven. Right. Because guilt has that member has that kind of internal like I have to I have to manifest it to someone. Right. So one is you can be overboard in the sense of, holding yourself guilty and accountable for things that have been forgiven.
00:22:16:13 – 00:22:43:08
Unknown
And I think people can struggle with this because it takes, faith to trust in God’s love and his forgiveness when distributed in particular ways, like through the sacramental confession such, on the other hand, shame. In a sense, shame is you can have the other extreme. Instead of being overly shameful. I doubt there will have any culture like that, but we can get a culture that doesn’t isn’t ashamed, and people that aren’t ashamed, when they ought to be a particular act.
00:22:43:08 – 00:23:00:23
Unknown
That’s exactly what. And then what that does. I take it as it starts to degrade the guilt because guilt and shame track kind of sticky other they should be have some relation. Your social life and your internal life should be somewhat cohesive. And so once shame starts to be taken off of something, then you wonder, oh, am I just being guilty about this?
00:23:00:23 – 00:23:22:02
Unknown
But it’s not a bad thing. Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a great danger today where we’re where the where the campaign to normalize weird sex stuff. Yeah, is just all around us. And instead, you know, we need to be very clear that, we do think weird sex stuff is embarrassing. And we, we do, in fact, want to shame people for, for willing, you know, and chosen intentional participation and weird.
00:23:22:05 – 00:23:41:22
Unknown
Well, I think shame is guilt is is easy for us, not just as Catholics and Westerners, because our tradition, but shame is, I think, harder because it demands a public morality. Right. So you shame people not because of choice about like you pick the wrong color, you’re wearing the wrong, you’re not wearing matching socks, but like you have done wrong, that’s why we’re not just shaming you for political gain, right?
00:23:42:00 – 00:24:04:11
Unknown
But shame on you because you’re bringing damage to our society and our society. As we get more uncomfortable with a public general morality. Right? Shame doesn’t have its its motor anymore. So it’s we’re likely to just drop down except for the most extreme things. And we just you just keep pushing the, you know, I’m back. I’m back on that.
00:24:04:13 – 00:24:23:11
Unknown
So I think so I think if to be attentive and now I don’t know how we do this, but to be attentive to shame again as an important element, not only to your own family growing up, but as a society, is something we should try to recover in a fashion. I’m not saying that this has to go in the sense of like, you know, putting people in the stocks.
00:24:23:11 – 00:24:41:06
Unknown
And I remember was in Poland, this summer, and they had this, like, these little chains on the underside of two pillars by a big, marketplace door. And this is where with your adultery, you were you were two of you were shackled up there on two different sides, and people would look at you and jeer and throw things, and that’s like, fantastic shame, right?
00:24:41:06 – 00:25:03:07
Unknown
Super shameful. Maybe we don’t do that, but the idea that actually you’re you don’t fool yourself. You think that you’re going to have internal guilt in the right place if you don’t have external shame in the right place? That’s right, that’s right. So, Father Bonaventure, if someone’s struggling with with shame, about past sins, you know, you made this beautiful appeal to God’s mercy just now.
00:25:03:09 – 00:25:21:11
Unknown
What? What should someone do against this? It should also be said for guilty. If you’re struggling with shame or killed that you feel like you can’t overcome. What are you to do with Christian life? Well, I think I mean, guilt, we’re dealing with guilt is to is to one confess and make sure you’ve confessed. You know and honestly share.
00:25:21:13 – 00:25:43:22
Unknown
Share yourself your actions and and ask them to be forgiven from the in confession. It’s fine. And also with others. I think it’s not like confessing with others. But if you have to apologize and let the sun go down your anger, do the seed knows the new encyclical from Pope Francis talks about how we should never be ashamed of, of going out and asking for forgiveness from others.
00:25:43:22 – 00:26:04:04
Unknown
And I think that’s that’s important. So to the guilt does also have its slips into the social dimension. But the shame aspect, I think we have to be very again, careful about where what the target or the measure of shame is like. We should ask ourselves, if we feel particularly ashamed of something, we might ask someone because that’s more of a social thing.
00:26:04:21 – 00:26:32:14
Unknown
You know, to check in and find out if if we’re misguided, you know, if we’re if you’re listeners podcast, you’re probably ashamed of something, ashamed of things, either rightly so, or you might be ashamed of something that you know isn’t as big a deal, right, where as many people haven’t thought about it. Let’s put it this way if you’ve thought about and can’t get over being ashamed, you probably should trust in the mercy of God and realize and ask yourself, do people interact with me as shameful, right?
00:26:32:14 – 00:26:56:23
Unknown
Or is it me projecting those social relations outward? I do think in both instances, a kind of overly burdensome guilt, an overly burdensome shame, are the result of an over internalization. And that’s a that’s why I think your council and a separation people to tend to. Yeah. To be exterior eyes right to to ask someone, hey, what do you think about this certain someone that’s valuable.
00:26:56:23 – 00:27:17:12
Unknown
So there can be a kind of touch point a checkpoint with reality beyond yourself. Because otherwise we just become no, that is the we become abstracted beyond things as they as they really are. And we’re great deceivers. You know, this is a Augustine’s insight into us. We were masters of self-deception such that we can we can think that we ought not to be guilty about something that we are guilty of.
00:27:17:12 – 00:27:35:11
Unknown
We think we can think that we should be ashamed of something that we’re not ashamed of, like some people are ashamed of, like their I mean, you hear about this, their, their Christianity or something. You’re like, and it’s like, you shouldn’t be ashamed of that. What other people aren’t aren’t ashamed of anything you like. You know what? Actually, you should be ashamed of saying those things or treating people in those particular ways.
00:27:35:13 – 00:27:58:04
Unknown
Like it’s not. It’s not a crime. We’re not going to, like, call the police on you. You might not, but you shouldn’t. This is not a way you should interact in this particular way or say these things about the mother of God, for instance, like these are it’s and you don’t there’s no shame is it doesn’t have the same kind of full on punch to the heart, like you’re guilty, you know, it’s like just, you know, that’s that you should be ashamed yourself.
00:27:58:06 – 00:28:20:19
Unknown
And you can have this kind of. Okay, now I can reconcile socially. I can fix that with guilt. I have to go. I have to realize something I’ve done. We’re Christians. We want to live in a Christian society. And living in Christian society means that there’s a there’s there parameters that we’re working and and guilt and shame, I think are very valuable because they help us adapt to make sure we navigate socially within those boundaries.
00:28:20:19 – 00:28:47:21
Unknown
Yeah. The the life of flourishing because they can be, of course, are negative emotions. You could say negative judgments and reactions, but they’re for the purpose of of redemption. Right. You’re you recognize your guilt. So you may be forgiven and find and find, you know, reconciliation there. And you recognize shame such that you might change your social relations and your external behaviors such that you can actually bring, some sort of flourishing of your name and your family.
00:28:47:21 – 00:29:05:08
Unknown
The this is very important for the biblical tradition about one’s name. Right. And we have a name as Christians that we don’t want to bring shame and disrepute to. But that’s very hopeful. Note to end things on I think. So turning turning to you, the the listener, the viewer of. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of God’s Planning.
00:29:05:10 – 00:29:21:12
Unknown
We hope that you would follow our project, if you haven’t already. Like and subscribe to God’s painting across all of our social media channels, across wherever you listen to your podcast. Leave comments in this episode. What do you think about guilt? What do you think about shame? Is it something you’re struggling with? You know we love hearing from you.
00:29:21:12 – 00:29:45:00
Unknown
We’d love your take on this episode. We do tune in to those comments and take them seriously. Follow us over at Godsplaining.org. Visit our website that is to find information about upcoming Godsplaining events. We do have a special announcement for you here. We are going to be having a retreat this summer in Providence, Rhode Island that that will be an all comers retreat.
00:29:45:00 – 00:30:03:23
Unknown
You know, any any listener, is welcome to join us. That’s going to be quite the event, Providence in June, which is when this retreat is going to be, Providence in June, has to be one of the nicest places in the continental US. I just think Rhode Island is at its best in June. So, you should really think about coming.
00:30:03:23 – 00:30:29:06
Unknown
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00:30:29:06 – 00:30:54:21
Unknown
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