“I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah foretells something new, something we would not have thought of- God Himself, like the Father of the prodigal son, comes…runs out to meet us in order to save us and bring us into a deeper union of love with Himself.
Our Father comes in love and mercy through His son, Jesus in order to forgive our sins in and through the Sacraments. By sacramental grace, He makes a road in the wilderness, paths of grace into the wilds of this sinful world. Jesus comes in the same Sacraments with the waters of grace and mercy into the desert, into the wilderness of a world gone mad with sin, and into the wretchedness of our personal sins.
And those who open their hearts to His mercy through their repentance, that is a truthful acknowledgment of their sinfulness and the confession of their sins; these literally are enabled to drink in these living waters. And through these living waters of His grace and love flowing from the Sacraments, the Father changes our actions from that of wild beasts into new actions, ones worthy of the Human persons that we are. We are Human persons made in the Father’s image and restored in His likeness, made free sons and daughters of the Father through baptism.
But sometimes, we do not perceive this, sometimes we are too discouraged by our failures and sins to even think that God would want to come and do something new in our lives. In our heart we really do desire to have a fresh start, but we despairingly think we are never going to have it. The opposite is sometimes true as well, we can be too proud, thinking that we have already arrived, that we are already righteous, that we are “those without sin,” so unlike others who are the sinners.
Both of these attitudes, shown very clearly in today’s Gospel, keep us from the mercy and forgiveness of Our Heavenly Father offered to us through Jesus Christ His Son. The woman justly condemned of a serious sin, a mortal sin, the sin of Adultery, can only see her fate as being already decided; she is to die justly for her sin…no hope for a new beginning now. The Scribes and Pharisees so convinced of their goodness, that they don’t see their own sin, and so their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness.
And so, as serious as her sin is, and it is serious, the sin of the Scribes and Pharisees is much worse. We can assume that the woman’s sin was at least guided by an attempt to find love. But these men are only evil, filled with hate, filled with a desire to destroy the very goodness in others. (This is the difference between a bad man and an evil man. The bad man does bad things, but the evil man tries to destroy the goodness in others. And so the evil man can be very nice, but he is not kind. He wants justice but doesn’t work for justice for others; he doesn’t see His need for mercy and so shows no mercy).
They (the Scribes and Pharisees) think that adultery is the worse sin, and so fail they to see that they are guilty of an even graver sin, that of Presumption. For presumption fails to see the horror of one’s own sinfulness, while at the same time demanding that others be punished justly and without mercy for their sins.
The scribes and Pharisees are blind with the sin of presumption; they actually believe that they have no sin that they are “those without sin,” (which was actually a title they took for themselves). And so, they think they have already achieved their salvation and are in no need of repentance and forgiveness. In their blindness, in their hardness of heart they reject outright the very mercy of God that is being offered to them in the Person of Jesus Christ standing right before their eyes. For you see, we can only receive the mercy of God to the extent we recognize our sinfulness and repent of it, seeking God’s forgiveness, especially through the Sacrament of confession. In Other words, we can’t receive mercy, if we don’t realize we’re a sinner, which of course we all are. In fact, only those who receive mercy through the confession of their sins can then show mercy to others.
This lent we need to throw off our old attitudes, we need throw off the old man, no longer recalling the past, no longer be shackled to what was done before; we need instead to put on the new man in Christ Jesus. We need to take on the attitude of St. Paul who in his weakness sought perfection not in his own power, but in the power that comes through faith in Christ and the reception of His Sacraments with faith. This is the power that comes from God, a power that has its source in the Holy Eucharist, which is God among us-Jesus.
However, This Divine power is accessible only through faith in the Eucharist as the true and living God in the flesh among us through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the ordained sacred Priesthood. It is literally, a power to imitate the master, sharing in His sufferings thus reproducing the pattern of His death in their lives becoming instruments of the renewing power of His resurrection, which is love and mercy, for those around them and for the world. So St. Paul says, “I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.
It is not so much our sin that is the problem, but how we respond to it that counts. Either this Lent we deny our sinfulness and commit an even greater sin of presumption, like the scribes and Pharisees, and so in the blindness of our self-righteousness, walk away from the God who has come to meet us in our degraded state. Or instead, we imitate the woman caught in adultery who stays with Jesus without a denial or protestation on her lips about her sin. She is left alone with Jesus her Lord and God, just like one who is left alone in adoration with the same God, adoring Him truly present in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar at Holy Mass and in the Tabernacle. Before His Eucharistic presence we too, can be alone with Jesus who in His love reminds us of His mercy and points us to healing power of the Father’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of confession, which enlarges our capacity for God’s love.
In this real encounter with Jesus in Eucharist at this Holy Mass, Jesus doesn’t leave us on our own power to sin no more, instead with our hearts being now purified by confession, He is able to fill us with His own Love, with His own Divine power. Then with Jesus, through Him and in Him, the Father can do something NEW in us, spreading the Living waters of God’s Love throughout the world, leading others through us to His Divine Mercy and forgiveness—this is the power of the Resurrection, which renews the whole World. Let us turn to Our Lady for her help and Intercession. Mother of Mercy, obtain for us the grace we need to see our sinfulness and the humility we need to acknowledge and confess it in order to experience the forgiveness of the Father through Jesus Christ your Son, receiving His mercy so that we can show mercy to others. Amen
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