CHILDREN are born vulnerable. They trust instinctively. They take it for granted. They mature most easily when they grow up in an atmosphere in which they can trust those around them. Then they build relationships that are vital for a healthy life.

What makes the sexual abuse of the young so damaging, therefore, is not only the physical harm that they suffer, but the betrayal of trust that it involves. It leaves deep wounds. Long after other injuries may have been overcome, the scar left by that betrayal may still be livid, handicapping their ability to form the bonds that make them whole.

Children are not the only ones, however, who expect the trust they seek to be secure. When a man and a woman marry, they make a commitment to be faithful. They pledge themselves to trust each other without reserve. Fidelity is fundamental to their relationship, something which they too, therefore, assume they can take for granted. Our society may have become blasé, more accustomed to adultery, but we should not allow that to blind us to the searing pain which marital infidelity causes those who have been betrayed.

Other societies have recognised it. In Jesus’s day a woman who committed adultery was stoned to death. The Gospel passage that many people will hear in church this weekend has such a woman brought before Him and His view is sought on that very issue: “Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and Moses has ordered us in the law to condemn women like this to death by stoning. What have you to say?” (John viii, 4-5).

The very suggestion of stoning is repulsive, but adultery was being taken seriously. It was not, however, the main concern of the men who brought this woman to Jesus. They wanted to trap Him. Did he support the Mosaic law or not? By that time the Jewish authorities no longer had the power to inflict capital punishment. If He supported the law, He would be at odds with the Romans; if he did not, he could be denounced as hostile to the law’s clear demands.

How did Jesus reply? He did not. Instead, He bent down and wrote in the dust with his finger. What did he write? We do not know. But, whatever it was, the woman’s accusers were unmoved. They persisted with their question and so He challenged them: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” He then continued drawing in the dust. And they drifted away, one by one. The eldest left first. When they had all gone and Jesus and the woman were alone, He told her He did not condemn her. But He was not being soft on adultery. He sent her on her way with one clear command: “Don’t sin any more.”

So what are we to make of this incident? Why are we asked to reflect on it in Lent? Lent is a season for penitence. Are we once more just preoccupied with sexual sin? I suggest not. It is not Jesus’s treatment of the woman which takes priority here. We need rather to learn from His treatment of her accusers.

Lent is a time for examining ourselves, the person within, not the character on display. By prayer and penance and our generosity to those in need we must search our hearts so as to overcome the double standards which to some extent disfigure all our lives. They plainly disfigured the lives of the men who brought the woman to Jesus, using her to trap him. Adultery is a metaphor for double standards. Perhaps what he traced in the dust showed them that they in their hearts were more adulterous than she could ever be.

What of us? Under what pretext are we adulterous, ignoring God, betraying others, letting ourselves down? What message is Jesus of Nazareth drawing in the dust for you and for me this Lent? Whatever it may be, He commands us as he did the woman: “Don’t sin any more.”

Monsignor Roderick Strange is author of The Risk of Discipleship: The Catholic Priesthood, available at the Books First price of £8 (RRP £9.99) plus 99p p&p. Call 0870-160 8080 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy