We need to be clear about what sin is.

Homily for Mark 9: 38-48
In the Gospel today, Jesus says something rather shocking and appalling. He speaks to us in a manner which is rather crude- “cut off your hand if it causes you to sin or cut off your foot if it causes you to sin.” Jesus is saying this jokingly, but he is extremely serious in what he says. He wants to get our attention. He wants us to know that sin is serious business; in fact, it is by far the most disastrous thing in our lives.
We need to be clear about what sin is. Sin is either damaging or outright breaking our relationship with God and with our neighbor. It may be a deliberate action, or it may be neglecting to do an action that we should. For example, we should love God and strive to do His will above all things to show this love. We should also be respectful and kind to others because Jesus has died for that person, even if he or she be our enemy.
Jesus uses very strong language to talk about sin to get our attention and to snap us out of our indifference; so terrible is indifference that Jesus sweated blood in the garden over the indifference of men. So, let us look a little closer at what Jesus means by saying we should cut off our limbs. Now remember, we cannot take this passage literally- Jesus did not mean it literally, but nonetheless he did mean it seriously.
Jesus starts with hands, then feet and then our eyes to get us thinking about our own lives, our own sin. So can you think of how your hands have been used for sin? (pause) For example, have we taken things that are not our own? How about our feet? Can we think of ways our feet have led us to sin? (pause) For example, have we walked in and to places we shouldn't have? Lastly, our eyes; can we think of sins we have committed with our eyes? (pause) For example, have we look at persons or things we should not or in a way we should not have?
When you were thinking, were not many of our occasions of sin, sins against our neighbor? All sin is against charity-love of God, love of neighbor and proper love of self. Or how about this? Did many of the circumstances or occasions of sin occur right in your families or within your homes? I think it is true that we face our sinfulness most when we are around the people whom we love the most.
We tend to sin most in our homes and against our families. Our family knows us the best; they know all our faults and weaknesses and we know the fault and weakness of each of them. And because of this knowledge we tend to use their weakness and faults to our advantage to manipulate or hurt them, instead of forgetting about ourselves in order to help and support them in those very weakness and faults.
We become impatient with our family, we tend to take our problems out on them or even blame them for our problems. Maybe we do this through being impatience with them or getting angry and saying unkind things. The fact of the matter is, we can treat those we love the most, worse than we would treat a total stranger. We expect our family members to be perfect, when we know we ourselves aren’t. The little things in our family or in our daily life that tend to cause problems are occasions of either grow in love or they become occasions for us to fail in virtue and so commit sin. The struggles in our families can be the very things that can help us to grow in love for God and for one another or they can lead us to fail to love those we should love the most.
When we think of all the ways we can sin, the next question is what should we do about it? Jesus in our passage says we should cut off our hand or cut off our foot or take out our eye if it causes us to sin. Again, we should not take this literally. What Jesus recognizes is two things. First, that sin is indeed serious and we need to do something about it, we need to change. Sin cuts us off from God’s love and from the love of one another. I think the drastic language Jesus uses is to wake us to the truth about sin. Jesus knows that sin does not disfigure us in a physical way, but it certainly does spiritually. When we sin, we cut ourselves off from Jesus and from one another. We become isolated. We often stop praying, we stop receiving Holy Communion or worse we receive it unworthily in the state of serious sin. Eventually we stop going to Mass cutting ourselves off from our parish family who we need and they need us. Our problems do not seem to get better, they only grow worse. It is like cutting off our hands, or feet or losing an eye. We are crippled spiritually when we sin which is much worse than be physically crippled.
Secondly, Jesus desires to help us in our struggle against sin; He desires to help us to change, He expects, insists that we change: He loves us to much to leave us where we are at. But as well, the drastic language is a way to let us know as well, that he knows how difficult and hard the struggle against sin is for each of us. Jesus desires to aid us in our struggle and to tell us that the struggle is worth it. Sin is the only possession we bring with us when we die. Jesus wants us to get rid of sin in our life, as the book of Hebrews says, “Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” (Heb. 12: 1).
The fact of the matter is, is that in the end, the main reason Jesus hates sin so much, is because He loves us so much. Sin doesn't hurt Jesus, it doesn't hurt God, it hurts us. So Jesus hates sin because he sees what it does to us, it hurts us, it hurts our family, our parish family, our community, in fact our whole world. Sin destroys our unity as God's children. Sin is failure to love one another but even more importantly, it is a failure to love God with our whole hearts in order to be with Him, to be happy with Him, in this life by serving and obeying Him and His Church so that we can be forever happy in the life to come.
If Jesus asks us not to sin, and to lay aside all the sin that likes to cling to us, then he also offers us the grace to do so. Jesus knows our struggles; he knows how hard it is, he too face temptation. He knows the circumstances in our homes, all the difficult and hard problems we face, and he longs to help us. The grace begins with asking Jesus each morning to help us in the areas where we struggle. We have to use expecially the Sacraments which are the source of all graces; we must pray often and always, and we must learn our Catholic faith. Through all of these sources, Jesus will give us all the graces we need to slowly but surely overcome our faults and failings and grow in virtue and love.
Sin is not the worst thing; the worse thing is to hang on to it by not asking Jesus to forgive us each day and to help us to overcome our sins. He has given us the great gift of the sacrament of confession to help us let go of sin and to receive the grace we need to be free from it. If we love Jesus, if we love our family, we will get in the box asap. and in humility tell the truth about our sins to Jesus through the priest. Confession is less about sin and more about Jesus and our relationship with Him. It is the grace of this sacrament that heals us and opens us to the Love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and to one another; sin is the literally the source of all unhappiness in the world.
Let us today, in this Eucharist, entrust to Jesus all the areas of struggle in our lives and to give us the graces we need to become more like him, to love Him and to love our neighbor for love of Him, especially the members of families. Let us through the heart and hands of the Virgin Mary offer and give him everything at this Holy Mass, our whole life, including our sins. Let us beg him to fill us with His own love, to give us His own heart at this Holy Communion so we can love and live in imitation of Him.
God Bless you.