Your sin is not just your business

'What I do with my life is my own affair and harms nobody.' It sounds reasonable, but it is not entirely true. We are more connected than it seems: what you do alone also shapes how you are with others and leaves a trace around you. That is why the wrong you do never stays entirely locked inside you: it cools, subtracts, spreads, even if no one sees it. And that is why forgiveness also has a communal face: it does not only reconcile you with God, but with others and with that family which is the Church. Seeing it this way strips it of the air of 'private matter' and restores its weight. Tending yourself inwardly is not spiritual selfishness: it is also a gift for those around you.