Guilt can be helpful

Feeling guilty is not always a bad thing. Sometimes conscience warns of a truth: you have damaged something, you have failed someone, you must ask for forgiveness or change course. What is harmful is staying trapped without repairing or turning to God's mercy. Well-directed guilt turns into responsibility, confession, and new life. Here too God enters in a very concrete way. He does not only look at what you do on the outside; he also wants to order the heart, heal what is wounded, and teach you to respond better, not merely to react.