Sunday, October 1 Homily
Asking God to forget
“Remember not the sins of my youth…” is a line from a prayer from King David of the Bible’s Psalm 25 for today. I’d like to use it for our prayer today for God to forgive and forget our sins. The foremost way for us to be forgiven is by Jesus at the Cross. He died for our sins—all of them. We can go and look at any crucifix and pray: By Your Cross, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, have mercy on us (i.e. please, God, let it keep flowing in me, inthis baptized person by Your Grace—to one sinner who sometimes falls into temptations and sins that show a lack of thanksgiving and ongoing conversion). Let me hear and see and believe and be changed.
“Remember not the sins of my youth or my past, or of my many failings…” is also a humble Psalm 25 spirit to bring with us to the Sacred Liturgy. When we come at Mass to the altar of mercy, fronting a big cross—we then honestly pray or sing our prayers: “Lord, Have Mercy…. Glory to God, You take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, hear our prayer…Lamb of God, have mercy on us…. forgive us, Lord, as we forgive others…. say the Word and I shall be healed” here at my Sunday visit with You. In all of those common prayers we make here at Mass, it is hoping, truly, that God will forgive and forget ours sins of commission or omission—and grant us new starts in our new life.
“Remember not my sins, as a youth, or boy or girl”— I should add that adjustment to the prayer of our young people. You are growing up and learning right from wrong, good from bad. Your sins may not be that serious now, but you can still learn to say to God: Forgive me my sins and please forget them, God.
Adults, and young adults, you have your sins of now, and you also have those sins of your past, even the ones going back to your childhood or youth. Hopefully, you went to confession as a child since your 1st Communion year, and then up to Confirmation, and then kept going to confession in adult life—praying in this spirit to God: “You live in me, now, Lord, and I am sorry for the sins I keep making. I am sorry to You and to those who were harmed or hurt or saddened by my sins. I am sorry to myself. I am sorry to the Church, for as the Bible says, the sins or faults or failings of one part of the body affect the whole rest. I know it says it in First Corinthians 12 that we are one body of Christ, with many members, all in it together, like its say that we are branches to the Vine and Tree of God, meant to be in unity, as told in John 15 and John 17. My sins affect others, Lord, I know this: If I fall while rushing down some stairs and break my wrist by it, then my whole body is affected—I can’t be kidding about that. If I sin seriously as a part of the body of believers, then the other people in the body of Christ are affected—I can’t be kidding about that. If I have promised or been promised in baptism to a life of Catholic Faith, or if I have myself promised to live the Church’s teachings at confirmation, but am not living them faithfully—then I need to take action. I need to get to the Sacrament of Confession.
Part 2 Taking that verse of Psalm 25 and now looking at the gospel of the day…
Today’s gospel parable (Matthew 21) was of a person that said that they were true and dependable, but failed to come through. They did not keep their word. The parable points to a first person who also was reluctant to do the right and responsible thing, and at first said no the father’s will, but eventually this son did go and do the right thing. The key part of the lesson is that son number one changed his mind and then went and did his father’s will unto obedience. The son number two faked the intention of good will and obedience, and gravely disappointed his father. Jesus is giving the parable initially to men (chief priests and elders) who are seeming to be in the need-to-act category, and they do catch on that the first son’s example is the best in the story. The question is: But will they imitate it?
This parable lesson is about being willing to repent and acting through in it. A close look at the lead-in of the parable was that it was following a discussion of Jesus with these unrepentant men, who had scorned both the appeal of John the Baptist and Jesus’ ministry to repent of sins. Jesus says to these hard-hearted chief priests that it’s the surprise indeed that tax collectors and harlots have repented, but they have not. In all their pride, these men miss the key thing, and miss the message of Christ, for the change (or metanoia) experience He’s come to give them.
I don’t think many people like going to confess their sins to others, or going to admit them at the Sacrament of Reconciliation to a priest–for our shared part of getting right in the Body of Christ again. It’s like where the two sons start out, in the parable, as reluctant to do what is asked of them by the father. Yet we should do as asked by God—as this parable points out today. Which son is pleasing to the Father? The one who finally did what he was promised to do.
Jesus’ ministry is known by his inaugural words at Nazareth: I proclaim God’s Sign of Favor, a Jubilee, freedom from debts (to God), liberty to captives, healing to the brokenhearted. Then at Capernaum: Repent, and believe in the Good News. Then as the Gospel has Him define His work: I have come to seek and save the lost. (Luke 19:10)
Your promise and mine is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, will—of everything. We are meant to do it together, for Jesus made it a big point that the Church’s new commandment or responsibility was to “love one another, as I have loved you.” If I love you brother or sister in Christ, then I will be a confessing, humble person praying many “Lord have mercy” prayers, making confessions, and gathering at Mass stating that we are a holy family to one another. An early prayer of the Mass is “I confess to Almighty God, and you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned… and I ask you the saints and you, brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God, as I’ll do for you.” It’s a family prayer. This is our Catholic way of prayer—to confess to one another, as confessing to God. We are God’s family. We also confess to the priest, as the appointed representative or agent of God for reconciliation and healing. He hears for God, as agent, and he hears privately for the church membership, as you pray to be repaired to God and re-paired with your fellow believer at the parish. He absolves you of yours sins, in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and in the means of the Church Jesus established for us to gather.
Now I will share with you a phrase of the turning of heart. We pray Remember not my past sins and failings, Lord—- but re-member me to the Body of Christ, fully again. Sins have loosened my connection, or broken it—but reconnect or re-member me to my brothers and sisters.
We remember our sins, confess them, and then we re-member fully back to God’s family, the Church. The priest represents Jesus’ welcome back fully to the family of God, of which He is the Head. Since we always are a part of God’s family, and not just an individual believer, then our sins are sins against us. We are sinning against what we want to become, the loved one and bride to Christ Jesus the Son forever. Even while we are baptized and are now a Christian, we still commit sins, sometimes too many of them or maybe ones that are pretty big ones. But we do know what to do with them. Yes, like both sons in the parable, we don’t feel like doing what we ought to do. Yet we’ll be like the first son. Even the chief priests catch on to the parable and say: “The first son did what the father asked.”
The Church has her teaching and practices—which are of Jesus, not of only herself as institution. We must do what she teaches, as once founded by Jesus. Confess—OR—experience a dis-connect in the body of believers, which is the unaddressed sins going on. 1st Peter 2:9 says, though: “you are a chosen people, under a royal priesthood in Christ, as to be a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness …”
St. John, the writer of the three-parted epistle in the New Testament, and pastor of churches, said that Jesus’ will is for an honest, working-together Church, with the hope of each of us as mutually trying not to sin and to offend God—and therefore, we confess it out. “If we confess our sins, then God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. “ That is 1st John 1:7 Note that it’s said to a church of already believers—for them to keep in God’s truth and mercy. Match this to today’s parable: Action is required—confession of sin. Confession is important to the practice of a Catholic believer. It’s why I offer the Sacrament of Confession for three hours every Friday here—430 to 730 p.m.—paired with Eucharistic Adoration. The third hour I am often joined by Fr. Pius in the church, for two possible confessor choices. (At Riderwood, we have monthly confession times on 1st Wednesdays—with Fr. Osuagwu and I, or at least one of us.) Have you come forth for confession? Here or elsewhere? I know there are many other parishes and with other offered times? Move from your reluctance to confess, to the first son example of changing his mind and doing something to the father’s pleasure.
We have time to look back at Psalm 25 for some further reflection.
“O God, remember not my sins of my youth and my many faults.” Who wrote that? It was King David of the Bible.
David did not have the Sacrament of Confession to use, but as king he had some big sin of his past to look at. He had someone sent by God to convict him. It was Nathan the prophet, who used a parable to bring David to be strongly admonished over his hidden sins. David could see clearly that his sin affected others—after all, he was the king and the Lord’s Anointed. He was meant to be a role model of Jewish faith, but he had blown it. So David took a sabbatical of sorrow, going to sackcloth and ashes, and tears, and change of heart. Psalm 51 describes it. He was fearful that his sins (of lust, adultery, cover up and murder) would lead to God taking away His spirit in him. It was a serious dealing.
We may not have a crime in our past or a big, unlooked-at grave sin. Yet there is always an examination of conscience needed. The rich young man in Matthew’s gospel presents himself as ready for this eternal life offer of Jesus. Jesus tests him with a Commandments’ review of life of whether God’s part was truly first in him (rather than possessions), and it says the rich man went away sad and non-willing to give up that area, nor willing to become a disciple of Christ. That example is in Matthew 19, and this parable is in Matthew 21. We could use the Beatitudes for an example, or a modern run through of the 10 Commandments, or we could take a look at the list of sins in the Gospels and Epistles that the first Christians were urged to address—and see how we fair. Jesus commandment to love one another can be His word of conviction, or of His commandment to go spread the Good News and win souls to the Church: Are we doing so? It’s likely not a heaven or hell matter, like the Parable of the Two Sons presents, but it remains in the category of confessing what we do or fail to do before God, always wanting to have the metanoia experience, that is, the conversion of heart to be fully God’s.
Metanoia sounds like ‘Met a Hoya!’—which would be meeting a Georgetown sports fan. But it’s not that! It’s the Greek word metanoia which means “changing ones’ mind or heart attitude.” Confession always presents that situation for us. Jesus said: He (she) who acknowledges Me—I, in turn will acknowledge to the Father. The parable today invites the hearer to have the aha experience (!) of acknowledgement, repentance and a good change. People should not be passing it up or letting others pass us by in it and not even acknowledge their glad conversion in Christ’ Gospel.
I was talking to Deacon Chuck this weekend on his homily theme, and he said it was on the theme of living in a well-formed conscience. We let the teachings of truth in the Church and Scripture and in the models of saints show us what we are to become in Christ Jesus. If we know our Faith well, then it can help us make decisions of the mind or heart that are best. It sounds like he was preaching on the same vein, maybe onto the highlight of a good conscience leading us in metanoia.
Homily Follow-up Oct. 1st From the blog of Brian Pusateri, 4th Day Letters.
Why do we have this struggle of sin?
Most of us have a few sins from our past that haunt us. Some of us have recurring sins that we just cannot break free from. Like St. Paul, we cry out, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” Why do we do keep sinning? Today we will explore the “why.”
As Christians, we sometimes spend a lifetime looking back over our shoulder psychoanalyzing ourselves, trying to figure out why we did the sinful things we’ve done. For some, a pattern of recurring sin leaves them asking “why”. Both past and current sins consume us with guilt and shame. When questioning our propensity to sin, we often want to know the why behind the what.
Our sins leave us with scars long after God has forgiven us. As we reflect on our past mistakes, or on our bondage to recurring sins, we might be tempted to use the words of St. Paul found in Romans 7:25, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.”
While doing my research on sin I came across a definition found in the Catholic Catechism. I was particularly struck by one word used in the definition of sin. Sin was defined as follows: “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.’”
The phrase, “an offense against reason” captivated my attention. It led me to ask several friends a question as I was preparing this message. I asked them to fill in the blank in the following sentence. Sin is an offense against ________.
Most answered “God.” Some said “My neighbor.” Not one person answered “Reason.” For the record, prior to reading the written definition of sin, I would not have answered “reason” either. Having said this, I think all of us already understood that our sins are an offense against God and neighbor. Of that there should be no doubt. In today’s message, I want to focus on the reality that sin is also an offense against “reason.”
Reason can be defined as “a cause, explanation or justification for an action or event.” It is also the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic. In other words, reason is the grounds, basis, motivation, or rationale behind the actions that we take.
In the context of sin, reason is the why behind the what. Now here is the part of this that fascinates me. Because sin is an offense against reason, we can therefore assume sin is always unreasonable. Why am I so interested in this? As I said above, many Christians are continually looking for the reason behind their sins. We ask the question, “Why did I do that?” My conclusion based on the definition of sin, is that the “why” is likely an unanswerable question. Sin lacks reason! Sin is illogical!
Let’s pursue this a little further. Is sin ever reasonable? No! We were created by a benevolent and loving God who longs to have us with Him for eternity. Doing anything to offend God, or to jeopardize our salvation is outside of reason. Yet we all sin, all the time. So, from a clear-eyed perspective, sin is without doubt, an offense against reason.
Through this ministry (of Broken Doors, Greenville, SC) I come in contact with many people who are troubled and haunted by their past sins. Many more are troubled by the recurring sins they can’t seem to break free from. This leaves many of us desperately seeking the answer to the “why” question. “Why did I do that sin?” “Why can’t I stop committing my recurring sins?” Some people are tortured by the “why.” The “why” lacks sound reasoning other than we are all broken human beings who have an unexplainable propensity to offend God and those around us. It’s kind of weird when you think about it.
It was unreasonable for Adam and Eve to disobey God’s command not to eat from the tree of knowledge, for Cain to kill Able, for King David to commit adultery and murder, for Judas to betray Jesus, and for Peter to deny Jesus three times. Likewise, it is unreasonable for us to sin.
Like Peter, we can be impetuous and impulsive. To be impulsive means to act quickly with no thought to the consequences. No one acting with reason would kill someone. No one acting with reason would gossip. No one acting with reason would steal. No one acting with reason would be unjust. No one acting with reason would allow their passions to control their behaviors.
I need to state a critically important point. Acknowledging that sin is an offense against reason does not in any way reduce our culpability. We are sinners, and our sins offend God! Therefore, we must take ownership for our sins and ask God for forgiveness. Just because sin is without reason does not negate its harm.
So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the understanding that we are not alone. Like countless people in both the Old and New Testament, we too turn away from God and He runs after us to forgive us and take us back. Romans 3:23 states, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” But, Romans 11:32 states, “For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.”
The next time you are weighed down by the “why” behind your past or present sinfulness, try to let go of the “why’ and instead simply cry out, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner” and “Jesus I place my trust in you.” (And it would be reasonable, then, to access the Lord’s Good Grace in Sacrament to deal with and heal your sin problem. In the finish, may we pray, as I have tried to do in my life: Into your hands, I commend my spirit, my life. I am Yours. Love me as You so please…)