I didn't go to my first penance service until my oldest son was preparing for his First Communion. Since then, I have attended every one I can.

It is a wonderful experience to join the entire community in acknowledging our frailties and failures. One by one, people I see at school and church, who generally seem so strong and together, go forward to a priest to make themselves right with God. For that hour or so, we are united by our need for forgiveness.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus stops what amounts to a public lynching. A group of outraged citizens are about to stone to death a woman who is guilty of adultery. "Let the one among you who is without sin," Jesus says, "be the first to throw a stone at her." In response we're told "they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders."

The people who sought to stone the woman caught in adultery also needed to recover their desire for forgiveness. When they realize that they share the state of the woman, they cannot put themselves above her or stand as judges over her. The recognition of their common sinfulness unites them.

G.K. Chesterton said of the idea that all of us fail to live as we ought is actually good news. "This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of Original Sin," he wrote. "It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men."

Our common need for God unites us. It means we are all in the same boat. None of us is born with some kind of genetic or natural advantage. We can dismiss no one as incapable of receiving God's love. Sin makes us all equal.

As we come to the end of Lent and are confronted with our common sin on this Sunday, it need not be a cause for sadness and despair. Rather, our common need for the grace of God might unite us in humility before God and in compassion toward one another.

It is easy to think, sometimes, that some people are somehow morally superior to others. Of course, some people act morally superior, and they are the first ones to pick up stones when they see that someone else has committed a public transgression. Today's reading reminds us that none of us is perfect. None of us is superior. None of us has the right to discount another human being because of how they behave or think.

"Has no one condemned you?" Jesus asks the woman after everyone leaves. "No one, sir," she replies. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus concludes.

Sin is not a cause of condemnation but a cause for celebration of God's mercy and compassion. We all need forgiveness, and we are called to be patient and gracious towards one another as each of us struggles to follow Jesus Christ. Lent calls us to reflect on our sins and failures, not to condemn us, but to unite us as a community in our resolve to live God's message of love and forgiveness.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.