“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they doing”.

No, those who were crucifying Jesus did not know what they were doing.  They did not know that they were crucifying God.  And those words are true of us too.  When we sin, we do not know what we are doing either to our fellow human beings or to our Saviour.

A bad example set in childhood or youth or later years can never be recalled.  Who can put a stop to the ever-widening ripple of evil influence set in motion by a wicked action?  Who can tell how many others will be infected as it spreads on its way?

But that is only one side of the matter.  There is also the injury we do to God.  We may think that when we sin he is at the most disapproving.  That is very far from the truth.  When we sin we strike out at Our Lord.  Just as it was the sins of human beings which drew forth his first cry from the Cross, so now our sins grieve his Sacred Heart.  Then we take our place at the Cross, but it is not with his Mother: it is with his enemies.

True it is that we also do not know what we are doing: it is when we come to realise the meaning of our sins that we find their burden intolerable and we confess them with a broken heart.