Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 12, 2016: Blessed is the one whose fault is taken away...

  Blessed is the one whose fault is taken away…  
 Is there any limit to the depths of God’s forgiveness of our sins?  

   In the Second Book of Samuel, King David knows he has sinned greatly out of arrogance, and he will suffer within his own family when the child he conceived with Bathsheba, and three others, will die.  Knowing he has violated his relationship with God, David realizes that repentance is necessary, and he will say aloud, I have sinned against the Lord.  Psalm 32, attributed to David, is focused on that moment at which he needs God’s forgiveness, restoration to relationship.  Repeating David’s statement of repentance, the psalmist notes that God took away the guilt of my sin.

   Luke’s Gospel also confronts man’s sinful nature with the story of the woman with the alabaster flask of ointment who comes to the home of Simon the Pharisee – himself a sinner, although his sin is not explicitly addressed.  She is there to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears, wipe them with her hair, and anoint them with oil.  Yet Jesus forgives her sin, because she has shown great love.  Like the debtor in the parable Jesus shares, she is forgiven, but the key is in the response:  she recognizes that she has been given a gift, the gift of forgiveness, and she allows herself to be transformed, restored to relationship, a state offered (implicitly) to Simon himself, though he does not avail himself of the opportunity. 

   We too are called to allow ourselves to be transformed, so that we might, as Paul tells the Galatians, live for God – living not for self, but knowing that Christ lives in us subsequent to his death and rising.  We cannot entirely remove sin from our lives; we can refocus, however, by acting in love, by living in love, by entering into love more profoundly every day.  To say that we believe in Christ Jesus is to say that he is our beloved, that we are open to the relationship he desires to have with us, that we will allow his love to teach us where we have failed so that it can also teach us where we might go.  Is there any limit to the depths of God’s forgiveness of our sins?  Never!  May our response to his expression of that love follow the model of the Gospel:  let us show great love, pouring out all that we hold within, for God and for all.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 5, 2016: He was moved with pity for her...

   He was moved with pity for her…  

 How have you been touched by the depths of God’s compassion? 

  

   When her son stops breathing, the widow of Zarephath in the First Book of Kings rocks his body on her lap, finding in that closeness and intimacy the only solace remaining to her.  Imagine her consternation as the prophet Elijah intervenes to take the child from her, Elijah, whom she blames for her son’s illness:  Why have you done this to me, man of God? she asks.  Yet Elijah does what is necessary to serve the God in whom he believes; confident that God will hear his prayer, Elijah’s act of faith restores both the son and the mother to life.

   Likewise, Jesus’ intervention during the burial rite of the son of the widow of Nain in Luke's Gospel shows the power of God’s love entering in to do God’s work.  Nothing, not even a concern for ritual impurity, keeps Jesus from touching the coffin and commanding the young man to arise.  Moved with compassion from the depths of his being, Jesus proves to be entirely engaged in this very human event, and his actions arouse a sense of awe throughout the crowd in attendance.  Having encountered the power of something so far beyond anything they can imagine, the people commence to glorify God, proclaiming that A great prophet has arisen in our midst.  Jesus’ miracle comes from the depths of his connection to the human condition; it is his compassion for the woman that allows him to enter into her death (without a son, she is essentially dead), and ours, so that we too might be raised.

   Believers throughout history have celebrated the power of God’s compassion in their lives, from Psalm 30 – I will extol you, Lord, for you drew me clear – to St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, who knows that God has set him apart, that he might proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles.  Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ is a moment of transformation, all the more stunning in its compassion in that Paul had for years persecuted the followers of Jesus, and in no way merited such a revelation of the depths of God’s love for him. 

   Consider this.  When the compassion of God touches and transforms our lives, it becomes a directive to us:  we are called to practice compassion, to live Jesus’ compassion in our daily lives.   How have you touched others with the depths of your compassion today?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle