When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.” The Prophet Ezekiel’s assurance of forgiveness to each repentant sinner added a new and important development to the Old Testament’s understanding of God’s judgment and salvation. In previous generations, judgment and salvation had been understood in a collective sense. Simply by belonging to a people called by God every Israelite had been saved. Likewise, simply by belonging to the nation all shared in the infidelity that had brought about Israel’s downfall at the time of Ezekiel. The Prophet Ezekiel refined this understanding. Our standing in the presence of God is not determined by mere association. It is something deeply personal. The sinner who takes responsibility for past sin, who repents, is forgiven. In similar fashion. the sinner who takes no responsibility for personal sin and its consequence will be condemned. Ezekiel’s emphasis on a deeply personal and individual responsibility before God seems perfectly obvious. Sadly, we sometimes hide from the obvious. It is, for example, perfectly possible to go through the motions of being a Catholic and presume that association with the Church will see us through. We can, while maintaining this stance, develop a selective blindness to our own failings. It was such blindness that the Prophet Ezekiel condemned. “When the upright man renounces his integrity to commit sin and dies because of this, he dies because of the evil he himself has committed.” For many centuries, the Church has counselled that we end each day with an examination of conscience. This need not be burdensome or unhealthily introspective. In its most basic form it should be a simple review of the day, acknowledging all that has not been according to God’s love and consciously seeking God’s forgiveness. To give balance, it should also acknowledge, with gratitude, the many blessings of the day. This exercise, simple though it be, develops an increasingly personal relationship with God. Linked to confession in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it safeguards our faith from the blindness of empty formality. Jesus underlined the same point in the Parable of the Two Sons. Both had been asked to work in their father’s vineyard. The one readily agreed, but never fulfilled his promise. The other refused to go into the vineyard but, on reflection, regretted his lack of generosity and went to his father’s vineyard. Jesus proclaimed that the son who had at first refused but had subsequently repented was the one who had fulfilled his father’s will. Simple though the parable be, its application to daily life is obvious. Lip service alone is not the fulfilment of God’s will. Still less does it mark us as faithful members of his Church. Jesus told the parable to highlight the hypocrisy of Jerusalem’s elite. Needless to say it speaks also to our own latent hypocrisy. “I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of before you. For John came to you, a pattern of true righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better and believe him.” Sin alone can never put us beyond God’s love. Our greatest danger is the indifference that never places itself in the presence of God, that never brings its frailty to repentance, that never rejoices in the wonder of his mercy.