Call a sin a sin.

Jim Forest's article ("Omission of sin," April) offered keen insights as well as an invitation to realize that we humans cannot totally avoid sin and thus we ought not avoid the hard-edged word sin to describe our situation when it fits.

Exploring the whys and the wherefores of our failings can be beneficial to help us know ourselves better and possibly improve our chance of doing good and avoiding evil. But eventually we all come to the limits of what self-knowledge and self-will can do for us. And when we sin, we ought to acknowledge it, not to wallow around in guilt but so we can quickly avail ourselves of the one true remedy that will help--repentance and the mercy of God.

God can and will do for us what we cannot: Help us out of the ditch we fall into when we sin. As Forest says, "Repentance is a mountain worth climbing."

I suspect that one reason people are slow to acknowledge sin is because they either don't believe God's mercy awaits the one who repents--no matter what--or they don't believe they deserve mercy.

Tom McGrath

Chicago, Ill.