... it doesn't matter how many apologies reach the ears of Heaven, or how many Hail Mary's are repeated after confession, or how much money is paid at St. Peter's Gates, the sins may be forgotten but never lose their sting; they may be forgiven but lack genuine forgetting; they may even be excused but given no pity and no reprieve. They last a lifetime of guilt hidden beneath the guilt of hiding it behind the guilt shielding it besides the guilt of harboring it in one's soul until it becomes so enmeshed in the heart of its condoner that to live again without it would burn a deeper hole than the one that had created it in the first place.