“REMEMBER not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!” (Isaiah 43:16)
“My theology professor asks me to write a homily on sin to people who are in jail,” a seminarian shared with me over dinner last week.
“Well, that’s interesting. Just make sure you don’t just focus on sin,” I responded. “Ultimately, your homily should lead to grace.”
Indeed, we can have a tendency to dwell on the sinfulness of people, whom we wish to bring to conversion, that we fail to tell them about the goodness of God, the Father — how He desires peace, healing, and reconciliation in our lives, free from the burden of sin.
We heard about this innermost desire of God in the Parable of the Prodigal Son that we heard during last Sunday’s Mass. When the wayward son returned to his Father after squandering the inheritance he asked from his Father, we did not hear the Father condemning and blaming his son? Instead, we heard him embracing his son and calling on his servants to dress him again with royal garments and a ring on his finger and to prepare a feast for his son “was lost and has been found.”
We may think that the Father in the parable is too nice and sweet in these times when other people tell us to show some tough love to our children, but the parable does not apologize for the lavishness of God’s love and mercy. The parable implies the Father’s hope that his son’s heart would melt with the depth of his unconditional love.
We see this love of God again in our Gospel this Sunday regarding the woman caught in adultery. When the scribes and Pharisees brought this woman to Jesus and made her stand in the middle of the crowd, humiliating and condemning her in sin, Jesus reacted in a surprising way.
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees. And one by one went away, beginning the elders, the Gospel tells us.
Then Jesus approached the woman and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has on one condemned you? The woman replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”
Jesus’ approach was gentle and kind, but it was never empty of any challenge. He told the woman not to sin anymore. Turning away from sin would free her from the emptiness of life and the heavy burden of guilt. Returning to the arms and home of the Father would bring wholeness and peace in her life. Jesus did not want to condemn her to the depressing and alienating effects of sin. He wanted her to be reconciled with her family and community.
We see the effects of sin in the world today. Violence, killings, bullying, mudslinging, corruption and greed would never bring progress, peace and reconciliation in this world. It would merely alienate people from one another. And this is where the Gospel is right: “For God did not send his Son into the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)
As we celebrate Holy Week and approach Easter, it’s good for us to reflect on the alienating effects of sin in our lives and of God’s desire to have us live in the grace of love and peace. We can look at how we have hurt our loved ones and other people and how this action has never brought peace in our lives. We can reflect on our bitterness, hatred, and resentments and our unwillingness to forgive one another and how these attitudes have never brought happiness in our lives.
Our God never wants to condemn us to the darkness of sin. Instead, he wants to bring us the lightness of living in this world and to the eternal bliss of heaven. May we do as he pleases—not to sin anymore!
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From a Filipino immigrant family, Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas was ordained to the priesthood from St. John’s Seminary in 1991. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Augustine, Culver City (1991-1993); St. Martha, Valinda (1993-1999); and St. Joseph the Worker, Canoga Park (1999-2001). In 2001, he served as Administrator Pro Tem of St. John Neumann in Santa Maria, CA, until his appointment as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary, Los Angeles, in 2002, which lasted 12 years. His term as Associate Director of Pastoral Field Education at St. John’s Seminary began in July 2014.
