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5 Lent
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Fifth
Sunday of Lent - Cycle C
John 8, 1-11
When I was five years of age, an elderly Sister of Charity of Mt St
Vincent in New York taught me a memorable lesson. She had caught me
accusing a playmate of a "crime." She told me to point my finger at him
one more time. I did. Then she asked none too sweetly, "Do you see that
while one finger is pointed at the boy, three fingers are pointed at
you yourself?" As young as I was, she had made her point indelibly.
But she was not finished. "Try, James, to spend more time in the future
improving your own faults," she said with no trace of a smile. "Then
you will not have time to criticize others." To make matters worse the
"charge" against my friend proved subsequently to be unjustified.
The Charity religious should have been named a Doctor of the Church.
The bad people of this Gospel story were the Scribes and Pharisees.
They were proponents of capital punishment. None of us likes to
identify with the heavies in any story. Yet, national polls show that
despite the pleas of America's bishops as many as 80% of us favor
capital punishment. Do we really differ then that much from the
antagonists of John's Gospel today?
Let us even refine the case more narrowly. Drunk and rowdy
college students partied outside a prison in Florida. At the death
hour, they cheered the electrocution of some poor wretch inside.
Then, as his incinerated body passed them in a hearse, they loudly and
cruelly saluted him with raised cans of beer. So much then for the
innocent mirth of youth! Unhappily, though, it can be argued it
was we their seniors who taught them this eye for an eye, tooth for a
tooth philosophy.
We have this lust for pay-back revenge even though our own Leader is
the most celebrated victim of capital punishment in recorded history!
How would Jesus have reacted outside that Florida prison? I wager He
would have been once again weeping. His tears would be not only for the
just murdered man but also for the college students. I wager my sharp
Sister of Charity would support that summation of her one-time first
grade student.
How is Old Sparky, aka the electric chair, or a lethal injection or
gassing any different from the stoning clearly put down by the Christ
in today's Gospel? If one is genuinely pro life as many of us like to
think we are, must we not struggle for life from the womb to the tomb?
Given what the Master teaches us in this famous Gospel, must not
rehabilitation rather than capital punishment be the most significant
plank in our criminal justice system? And, if rehabilitation does not
work, then there is always life behind bars without parole. The keys
can justifiably be thrown away. Society must be protected.
This Gospel does give us a lot to think about, does it not? It can
cause us to sit down face in hand and rethink our own position on
capital punishment. But I do suspect that is what our controversial
Teacher intended in the first place.
After all, His audiences did regularly run Him out of almost every town
He preached in. Clearly He was not throwing pious platitudes at them.
The record shows that every time He spoke it was a "go for broke"
scenario. He was the supreme challenger. He remains so today.
Scholars say that our early followers in the faith found themselves
upset by this Gospel account. They wished John had never written it. In
their mind, the narration has the Teacher being soft on sin. But this
is sheer nonsense. Jesus does not say to the woman, "Worry not.
Adultery is quite permissible." Rather, He does say without
qualification and, I dare say, with some anger once they were alone
together, "Go, but do not sin again."
The next time you find yourself pointing a finger in accusation at
someone, do steal a look at the three fingers that are accusingly
pointing themselves at your own honorable self. Then put the wagons in
a circle and reconsider your accusation.
At that point, consider Mother Teresa's advice. The fruit of
silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is
love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.
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5 Lent
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Fifth Lent: Crippled by Sin, But Overwhelmed by Love
Have
you ever gotten caught? Have you ever gotten busted for doing
something you know was wrong? Is there any one who hasn’t?
How do we feel when we know we have been doing something wrong, and now
others know this too? When this has happened to me, and it has, I
felt very much ashamed of myself. I’m sure you have felt the same
way.
Can
you imagine how that woman felt, the one who was dragged before
Jesus. She was caught breaking the sixth commandment. Yes,
she was just a pawn in the diabolical determination of the scribes and
Pharisees to discredit Jesus. And yes, she was only one of the
two sinners involved. Where was the man? Still, she was
forced to face the results of her sins. She was ashamed of
herself. She expected to die. She probably wanted to
die.
There she was, ridiculed by the religious leaders of her society.
As far as they were concerned, she was dirt. She probably
agreed. They would considered themselves defiled by just being in
her presence. They would have to go to the Temple priests and
make a sacrifice because they were so close to such a horrible person.
There is no way that she would have thought that they, like her, were
also sinners. So there she was, standing in front of the Teacher,
standing in shame.
And
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
He put himself in a position where He would not see either her or her
accusers. And the woman, standing in her shame, experienced the
Compassion and Mercy of Our God. With the awe-inspiring dynamism
of His Presence, with the sheer power of His Love, He caused the
Scribes and Pharisees to back down. Jesus saved the woman’s
physical life and then told her to preserve her spiritual life.
“Neither do I accuse you, go and sin no more.” The loving
dynamism that defused that murderous mob had to overwhelm this
woman. Tradition says that she was Mary Magdeline. If
this is true, then there is a beautiful divine irony in the fact
that the first to join Jesus in heaven would be Dismis, the converted
thief on the cross next to the Lord, and the first to see the
Resurrected Christ would be Mary Magdeline, the converted sinner who
owed her life to the compassion of the Lord.
Like
this woman, full of shame, full of sin, we depend on the Healing
Power of our Merciful and Compassionate Lord. There are none of us who
can say unequivocally that we have never sinned. At least none of
us that have any semblance of a conscience. All of us, though,
can say, that we are forgiven. And we can stand before the Lord,
not in the hypocritical arrogance of the scribes and Pharisees,
but in the humility of the woman who had been forgiven.
God
loves us too much for us to continue to destroy ourselves with our self
deprecation. What is it that each of us is ashamed of? We
need to just go before the Lord, and recognize that He will forgive us
as long as we are determined to sin no more. The Lord does not
want us to focus in on ourselves. He wants us to bring His
Presence to others. I have told you time and again about the
three prayers that Fr. John Fullenbach gave me several years ago.
The second comes in here. If you remember, the first is “God
loves me unconditionally.” The second is that “God forgives me,”
and as I often tell people, He doesn’t see us as a heap of forgiven
stuff, He sees each of us as a person He loves and has a plan
for. And then the third makes
sense, “God is with me.”
He
forgives us because He loves each of us and because He has a plan for
each of us. If you love someone you cannot bear seeing that
person in pain. The pain of the soul hurts much more than
physical pain. Jesus knows that. He suffers with us when we
ache inside ourselves, when we realize what our sins have done to
others, and, ultimately, to ourselves. He gave the apostles and
through them the Church the power to absolve sinners, to cleanse us
from our sins, the power to free us from our pain.
And
then, when we are forgiven by the Lord, we don’t really care if there
are people standing behind us holding stones. The only thing that
matters is our love relationship with the Lord has been restored.
He
forgives us because He has a plan for each of us. Each of us has
a unique role to play in the work that Jesus began 2000 years
ago. Each of us has the ability to design and construct a new
detail, a new facet in the Kingdom of God. But we cannot do this when
our sins and our shame force us to focus in on ourselves. His
healing mercy leads us out of ourselves, leads us to look for ways to
bring His Love to others.
Perhaps there are some here or some you know who are crippled by
sin. Perhaps there are some of us who see ourselves as dirt, just
like the scribes and Pharisees saw that woman as dirt. But she
was not dirt, nor are we, or are any who have sinned. We are
children of God. We cannot allow our sins to cripple us. We
have to allow His Love to overwhelm us.
“Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive sins.” He took upon
Himself all sin, including my sins, and including your sins.
We
need strength and courage, folks. We pray for the courage to seek
forgiveness from the Divine Healer and the strength to deepen our
commitment to the Lord. We pray for the strength to “go and sin
no more.” During these last weeks of Lent, and, really throughout
our lives, we pray for the strength to lead other to Him, the strength
to fulfill our unique role in His Kingdom.
Crippled by sin, but overwhelmed by Love, we can join Mary Magdeline
and experience the wonders of our Resurrected Lord.
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* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
5 Lent
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From
Misery to Joy
(March 21, 2010)
Bottom line: Jesus transformed her misery into pure joy. He wants to do
that for you and me. He wants to give us joy now.
It might surprise you that the theme of joy comes up so much during
Lent. For example, last week we had "Laetare Sunday." Laetare is the
Latin word for "rejoice." And if you listen carefully, you will notice
that "laetare" has the same root as the name "Leticia," which means
simply "joy." The theme of rejoicing continues this Sunday. For
example, our Psalm says, “The Lord has done great things for us. We are
filled with joy.”
Where does all this talk about joy come from? We tend to think of Lent
as a solemn time: with prescribed days of fasting and abstinence,
examination of conscience and confession of sin, station of the cross
and meditation on the passion. All of that is part and parcel of Lent,
Yet the goal of this is not to make us unhappy. Just the opposite - the
goal is joy.
St. Thomas Aquinas said, "No man can live without joy. That is why one
deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures."
No one can live with without joy. If you and I do not experience joy in
God - in spiritual things - we will start looking somewhere else: food,
sex, vacations, mind-changing drugs, alcohol, gambling, you name it.
Those things are not bad in themselves, but they do not bring a joy
that lasts. And all of them can be abused, that is, we can pursue them
in a way that brings destruction - to oneself and to others.
In today's Gospel, we see a woman who sought joy in a desperate way.
She wanted joy so much that she was willing to jeopardize her marriage,
her family, her good name and her life. But she did not receive joy,
maybe not even pleasure. No doubt the man had told her how pretty she
was, that she could count on him, that she meant more to him than life
itself. But when trouble came, he disappeared. What the woman dreaded
most was now happening. She got caught - and she stood alone. She could
not have been more isolated - or more miserable.
The woman had hit bottom. When that happens, a person faces a choice.
They can sink into bitterness and despair - or they can look up and
reach out. The woman looked up. She saw a man tracing some letters on
the ground: Perhaps a message for her accusers. Perhaps also a message
for her. In short time, she was alone with the man, a very different
man than she had ever met.
St. Augustine said that in the end only two remained: "miseria" and
"misericordia" - misery and mercy. The woman represents "miseria" -
human misery. Jesus embodies "misericordia" - he is the mercy of God.
Jesus asks, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
With a shyness she had never experienced, she whispered, "No one, sir."
Then Jesus spoke those beautiful words: "Neither do I condemn you. Go,
and from now on do not sin any more."
Jesus transformed her misery into pure joy. He wants to do that for you
and me. He wants to give us joy now. Not when everything is going well.
Not when we finally get a break. No, now. Jesus wants to give us joy at
this very moment.
Joy does not mean doing whatever one wants, whenever one feels like it.
I know a man who, because of certain circumstances, received an early
retirement. He can get up and go to bed when he wants, eat anytime and
anything he desires - and he spends most of the day reading or watching
television. It seems he would be very happy, but he is not. In fact, to
anyone who will listen he talks about how miserable he is.
On the other hand I have known people who have very little and must
work long hours, yet they have joy. Joy comes when we accept God's
mercy - and resolve to sin no more.
The woman in today's Gospel shows that joy is possible, no matter what
circumstance we find ourselves in. Peter Kreeft - philosophy professor
at Boston College - challenges those who think joy is impossible. This
is what he said:
No one who ever said to God, “Thy will be done” and meant it with his
heart, ever failed to find joy — not just in heaven, or even down the
road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very
moment, here and now.
The Gospel does not tell us what happened to the woman, for example,
whether her husband took her back. We cannot imagine that everything
went smoothly for her. We live in a society where people are "caught in
the act," then exposed to public shame. They can never return to their
old life. The woman caught in adultery probably found herself in a
similar position. After such notoriety, how can one go home?
Jesus' friends Martha and Mary may have given her temporary shelter.
Early Christian tradition indicates that she wound up at the foot of
the cross, next to the mother of Jesus. Whatever took place, this woman
teaches us something important. No matter the circumstances of your
life, no matter how much disappointment and guilt you bear, it is still
possible to find joy. Look to Jesus.**
We are only seven days from Holy Week. I hope that all adults and
teenagers here have seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ. If not,
you can get it on DVD. The movie contains a dramatic scene of Jesus and
the woman of today’s Gospel. It's well worth watching again, especially
for the scene related in today's Gospel.
As we enter Holy Week, a good person to walk with is the woman rescued
by Jesus. She joined her own pain to the suffering of Jesus. And she,
perhaps more than most others, knew the great joy of forgiveness. Jesus
transformed her misery into pure joy. He wants to do that for you and
me. He wants to give us joy now. With her we can pray the beautiful
words of today’s Psalm:
The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
************
*Some preachers will use this Gospel to counsel greater 'compassion"
toward those involved in sexual sin, especially the sin du jour -
homosexual activity. But Jesus was hardly lax on adultery or other
sexual sins - he condemned even the willful fantasies which turn a
person in that direction. At the same time, "zero tolerance" was not
part of his vocabulary. This so different from our society: we permit
everything, but forgive nothing.
**Jesus brings joy because he focuses not on condemnation, but always
on the person, the salvation of souls. Because of that focus, he took
things to different level. "Let the one among you who is without sin be
the first to throw a stone at her." In an instant, the accusers became
the accused. They left one by one, the seniors first, but even the
young men, bent on eradicating evil from society, finally let the
stones slip from their hands. For more on how Jesus dealt with the real
dilemma in today's Gospel, see Misery and Mercy.
***To identify the nameless woman with Mary Magdalene goes beyond the
evidence in the Gospel - although it is not impossible. Still, even if
she is a woman other than Mary Magdelene, given the fact that Jesus
alone stood up for her during her trial, would she not have stood by
him during those terrible final hours?
Intercessions for Fifth Sunday of Lent (from Priests for Life)
Spanish Version
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5 Lent
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5 Lent
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Gospel
Summary Return to All Homilies
Mar, 21, 2010
John 8:1-11
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Gospel Summary
This is the gospel about the woman who had been caught in adultery.
Enemies of Jesus bring her to him at daybreak while he is teaching
people in the temple area. They make her stand there humiliated in
public. In an attempt to trap him into opposing either Mosaic Law or
Roman Law, they ask Jesus whether he judges that she should be stoned.
After Jesus exposes their malice, the woman's accusers are afraid to
condemn her. Beginning with the elders, they all go away. Then Jesus
says to the woman: "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do
not sin anymore."
Life Implications
The story about Jesus and the woman caught in adultery happily became
part of Holy Scripture, inserted as it was in the fourth gospel. Some
early manuscripts have the story placed after Luke 21:38 where it says
that people came at daybreak to listen to Jesus as he taught in the
temple area. The story fits very well in the fourth gospel because it
illustrates some of its most basic themes--truth, judgment, blindness,
sight, darkness, light, death, life, sin, creation.
In Jesus' time it was important to determine the arrival of daybreak
when the first offerings were to be made in the temple. A rabbi asked
his students what criterion might be used to determine that the night
had ended. One student said the night had ended when there was enough
light to tell a goat from a sheep. Another said when you could
distinguish an apple tree from a fig tree. The rabbi gave this answer:
"A new day has arrived when you can look at a human face, and see a
brother or a sister. If you are unable to see a brother or a sister in
every human face, you are still in the darkness of night."
Though morning had come, for the woman's accusers it is still night.
They cannot see that it is their brother and their sister who have
committed the sin. They have humiliated the more vulnerable partner of
the adultery by making her stand alone in the public temple area. This
echoes the malice of the elders who ordered the veil to be removed from
the woman Susanna after accusing her of adultery (Dan 13:32).
Moreover, in their darkness, the woman's accusers are unable to see
that Jesus is also their brother, sent by God to bring them into the
light. They have violated the God-given dignity of the woman by
reducing her to the status of an object. They attempt to use her as a
means to advance their own interests by laying a trap for Jesus in
order to have a charge to bring against him. The malice of their action
is compounded by the fact that they are seeking to destroy Jesus under
the guise of honoring the divine law given to Moses. This surely is
taking the name of God in vain (Ex 20:7).
We can identify with any of the actors of the drama. Regrettably we can
easily identify with the woman's accusers. We too take the name of God
in vain when, under the guise of defending some orthodox doctrine or
practice, we engage in destructive, personal attacks upon those who
differ with us. The woman caught in adultery? We can all identify with
her, in need of forgiveness--often fallen from the pure joy of living
in harmony with God's truth and love. "What is our innocence, what is
our guilt? All are naked, none is safe" (Marianne Moore).
Most important of all, because we share the gift of his Spirit, we can
be like Jesus in his act of true judgment and creative love.
Forgiveness is true judgment and creative love. We say, for example,
that a friendship has ended because some infidelity has destroyed it.
The friendship can come into being again through forgiveness, creative
love given and received. Jesus re-creates the woman into her beauty as
divine image through his forgiveness. He tells her the good news that
she is free to walk away from the mess she is in and begin a new life:
"Go, and from now on do not sin anymore."
Campion P. Gavaler, OSB
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
5 Lent
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Fifth
Sunday
Isaiah 43, 16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3, 8-14; St. John 8, 1-11
"Go, and do not sin again." (Jn 8:11.)
How can we today hear these words just as the woman caught in adultery
did, so that we may walk away from the Lord cleansed, renewed, made
whole again after the tragedy and brokenness of sin? Through the
sacraments of healing.
The forgiveness of the Lord is infinite and without conditions. The
healing power of the mercy of God, fully given in Christ, can be ours
definitively and completely whenever we approach the Lord in the
sacrament of Confession and, when sick in body, also through the
sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave
the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, (Cf. Mk
2:1-12) has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy
Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members.
This is the purpose of the two sacrmanets of healing: the sacrament of
Penance and the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. (CCC 1421)
"Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God's
mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time,
reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and
which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their
conversion." (LG 11 art. 2) (CCC 1422)
It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest's
sacramental absolution God grants the penitent "pardon and peace." (OP
46: formula of absolution.) It is called the sacrament of
Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner te life of God who
reconciles: "Be reconciled to God." (2 Cor 5:20) He who lives by God's
mercfiul love is ready to respond to the Lord's call: "Go; first be
reconciled to your brother." (Mt 5:24) (CCC 1424)
If Baptism is clearly recorded in the Gospels as the gift of God's
mercy and the washing away of all our sins. why another sacrament in
order to have the forgiveness of God?
"You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:11)
One must appreciate the magnitude of the gift God has given us in the
sacraments of Christian initiation in order to grasp the degree to
which sin is excluded for him who has "put on Christ." (Gal 3:27) But
the apostle John also says: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 Jn 1:8) And the Lord himself
taught us to pray: "Forgive us our trespasses," (Cf. Lk 11:4; Mt 6:12)
linking our forgiveness of one another's offenses to the forgiveness of
our sins that God will grant us. (CCC 1425)
Conversion to Christ, the new birth of Baptism, the gift of the Holy
Spirit and the Body and Blood of Christ received as food have made us
"holy and without blemish," just as the Church herself, the Bride of
Christ, is "holy and without blemish." (Eph 1:4; 5:27) Nevertheless the
new life received in Christian initiation has not abolished the frailty
and weakness of human nature, nor the inclination to sin that tradition
calls concupiscence, which remains in the baptized such that with the
help of the grace of Christ they may prove themselves in the struggle
of Christian life. (Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1515.) This is the
struggle of conversion directed toward holiness and eternal life to
which the Lord never ceases to call us. (Cf. Council of Trent (1547):
DS 1545; LG 40.)(CCC 1426)
Let's pray for each other until, together next week, we "meet Christ in
the liturgy", Father Cusick
(See also no. 583 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
(Publish with permission.) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
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5 Lent
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Sermon by Father Alex McAllister SDS Index
Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C
This is Year C in the Liturgical Cycle and week-by-week we have been
progressing steadily through the Gospel of Luke. But here on the Fifth
Sunday of Lent we suddenly switch from the Gospel of Luke to the Gospel
of John. Or do we?
I say, “or do we” for the very good reason that this Gospel passage—the
story of the woman caught in adultery was most probably not written by
John. It is not found in any of the early manuscripts and in fact it is
acknowledged as a very late insertion into the Gospel of John, coming
in around the fourth century.
Even though the story enters the Gospel very late, it is, however,
regarded as a very ancient in its origins and the Western, Eastern and
Protestant Churches have universally accepted it as an authentic part
of Holy Scripture.
The style of the story is not Johannine in grammar or vocabulary and
some have observed that it has much greater affinity with the writing
and style of Luke. And they say it would be more appropriately placed
directly after Luke 21:38. Certainly it is the sort of story that Luke
would have included since it portrays in an extraordinarily delicate
way the mercy and subtlety of Jesus.
These are interesting questions and one can only presume that it if it
was originally part of Luke’s Gospel it must have been dropped because
it shows Christ as being too lenient. The early Church was much
stricter in its penitential discipline and this text must have seemed
dangerously liberal so it was put on the back burner, as it were.
Thankfully this account has found its way back into the Canon of
Scripture and no one today doubts its authenticity. We recognise it as
a true picture of the love and mercy of the Jesus we know.
The woman was brought to Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees wanting to
test him. Here is another interesting point; in the normal way of
things the woman would have been brought before the Sanhedrin and
sentenced to death. But there is evidence that in AD 30 the Romans
removed the death sentence from the Jewish authorities.
That is also why, according to John, Jesus was tried by Pilate and not
by the Jews. (cf; John 18:31) Pilate said to them. ‘Take him yourselves
and try him according to your own law.’ They replied, ‘We are not
allowed to put anyone to death.’
So, since the woman could not be condemned to the punishment required
by the Jewish law, she was used instead as a pawn to trick Jesus. Or,
as many writers suggest, the whole thing was a set up job. Perhaps her
husband knew she was having an affair and gathered witnesses together
and burst in on the woman and her accomplice just in order to provide
the Scribes and Pharisees with an excuse to put Jesus on the spot.
If this suggestion is correct it implies a very deep level of hatred
against Jesus that they should go to such lengths to find a way of
betraying him to the Romans. Their cynical manipulation of the woman is
further testimony to their deeply corrupt view of the world.
If Jesus had followed the letter of the Jewish law, and said that the
woman ought to be sentenced to death, then the mob, agitated by the
Scribes and Pharisees, would have surely carried the punishment out
there and then. If that were to happen then Jesus could easily have
been hauled up before the Roman authorities and accused of inciting the
crowd and thereby causing the woman’s death.
So Jesus was really put on the spot. He had no doubt as to the
intentions of the Scribes and Pharisees and was very wary of them since
his hour had not yet come.
When Jesus says, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, he is
perhaps pointing to the sin of those who want, not the death of the
woman caught in adultery, but his own death. He knows what is in their
hearts and they know that he knows what is in their hearts.
But Jesus even shows the accusers mercy. I think that is what the
drawing on the ground meant. A lot of ink has been spilt over the
centuries as to just what Jesus did write on the ground that day. Some
have suggested that he wrote something that indicated to the Pharisees
that he knew what they were about and that it was a set up job. But you
will notice that he actually draws or writes on the ground twice.
First they ask him for his verdict in the case and he bends down and
starts to draw on the ground—this is what a Roman judge would have
done, first written out the sentence before delivering it verbally. By
doing this they believe that he has fallen into their trap and he has
their complete attention.
But then Jesus looks up and says the famous words, let he who is
without sin cast the first stone. He then bends down again and returns
to his doodling in the sand. Because he averts his gaze from them he
enables the woman’s accusers to slip away one by one without losing
face.
Jesus’ mercy is not only shown towards the woman, it is also shown
towards her accusers. But in neither case does he condone the crime.
Both the woman and the Pharisees implicitly acknowledge their sin and
Jesus condemns neither. He simply says in words to the woman and by his
actions to the Pharisees: Go away and don’t sin any more.
Jesus forgives sin. He doesn’t ignore it; he knows it for what it is—a
fundamental and personal rejection of God. He doesn’t brush it aside
but neither does he make a mountain out of a molehill. He is not
shocked or upset. He forgives and invites the sinner to convert, to
turn from their evil ways and embrace the good.
That woman experienced the forgiveness of Christ; even though he never
actually says the words I forgive you. We don’t know what she did
afterwards, whether she went back to her husband, or lover, or other
family. But we do know that she must have been deeply affected by her
encounter with Christ and as a result would have wanted to embrace the
life of chastity he presented to her as the truly worthy way to live.
What the woman did is of no real consequence. It is what we do that
matters. Go away and don’t sin any more. These words of Jesus challenge
us at the deepest level of our being. Yes, we will go away, but by
living in such a way we will be always close to him who is our Saviour
and our friend.
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Father Bonar will not be posting homilies for Cycle B to allow himself
time for other projects. His collection of homilies (including homilies
for Cycle B) is available at www.clydebonar.com.
5 Lent |
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These
homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author. |
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