ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – C (2Sam 12:7-10, 13; Gal 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-50) Theme: God’s Immense Love Forgives The Repentant Sinner Reflection: God’s Grace Always Passes Through the Mediation - Today we are entering into the eleventh Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical year. We may also call it as the Sunday of God’s mercy and forgiveness. The readings of the day are particular in revealing God’s immense love towards the fallen humanity and places himself as the source of pardon and grace. In fact, God acts often and always through the mediation. God’s grace and pardon, as the consequence, come down not directly but through the persons and means that he himself prepares. The entire Old Testament is the testimony of it. God speaks through the various human resources – his spokesmen and his prophets. God intervenes in the life of his people in different modes and forms: he is present with them, not directly, but in the form of pillar of cloud and the pillar of the fire. It is not that God cannot and did not wish to speak and act directly. He only chooses the means that is very close to the human comprehension so that the man understands his presence and his action. In the New Testament we are empowered with the mediation of Jesus between God and man. He is the One through whom and in whom God manifests his perfect and overwhelming love for the humanity. As such Jesus’ word becomes God’s word and Jesus’ deed become God’s deed. It is because of this, as Paul exhorts, that Jesus Christ becomes the Image of Invisible God. After that Jesus himself now speaks and acts in the world through the mediation of the Holy Spirit and the Church. - The first reading of today emphasizes the fact that God manifests his love and pardon through the mediation. King David commits a grave sin. It is a grave sin because of its two sided effect. He wants to take the wife of Uriah as his because of his lust for her. The sin of lust is accompanied by the sin of killing. He understands that as long as Uriah is alive his desire will not be fulfilled. Though does not take his life directly, he makes sure that he is killed in the war and for this he purposely places him in front of the battle. Lust and killing are the sins that David commits before the Almighty God. They are contrary to the mission he is entrusted with, that is, to rule the people with goodness and love. The aspect that has to be noted well in this episode is this: David does not know and does not acknowledge his sin. As king, he thought that he could do anything and everything. He acted in his power and even forgetting that it is God who made him the king. He is not in the condition of realizing his sin. At this juncture, God himself takes the initiative to show David what he has done. He sends the prophet Nathan to make him know what he has committed. It is only through the mediation of the prophet, God’s messenger, that David realizes his sin and starts feeling guilty for the grave sin. He finally acknowledges and admits his sin and weeps for his wrongdoing saying, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2Sam 12:13). Immediately the prophet pronounces the pardon of God: “The Lord has forgiven your sin and you do not die” (2Sam 12:13). God’s grace and his intervention comes through the mediation. - The sacrament of Penitence and Reconciliation is the means of God’s mercy and forgiveness. For those who express their doubt of confessing the proper sins to the representative of God, the episode of David and Nathan is the example. God speaks and discloses his grace through the people he has chosen for himself. The first element, it is God’s own initiative to remind us of our sin. The second element, it is in the presence of God’s messenger that one can realize and accept his proper sin. Without the presence of this mediation, often the sinner does not know what is actual sin and how he has affected the others with his action. The actual sin and its consequences in the life of the one who has committed it and in those against whom he has committed can be explained in the presence of the other. The third element, it is an action that demands the personal humility and contrition by expressing it in sorrow as David did: I have sinned against the Lord. the fourth element, it is the mediation that God himself offers us through His Eternal Begotten Son Jesus Christ. Any sacrament for that matter is a means of God’s grace to us. When we approach them with sincere heart we begin to see their effects in our life. The truth is revealed in the gospel that we have today: a sinner woman approaches Jesus, weeps for her sinful life and receives the pardon from God. Readings: Love does not count the errors - The gospel reading of today presents to us the attitude of the sinful woman. Her desire to be with Jesus and her gestures of love for Jesus draw her closer to the grace of God. She is forgiven in love because the true love does not count the errors. Jesus does not count her as sinner but only sees her acts of humility and sorrow and sends her purified and renewed with forgiveness. In this context, it is apt to meditate upon the attitude that the woman manifests in front of the one whom she loves more, Jesus. Along with her we can observe the attitude of two other personalities in the reading: the tax-collector and Jesus. - The attitude of the sinful woman: the first attitude of her is the courage. It is not easy and acceptable for the woman, that too considered sinful, to enter into the house of the Pharisee. Yet she enters with the courage. Her courage has come from her deep desire to meet and to be with Jesus. The desire to interact with the Lord makes the one to take any further step without any fear. The second attitude is her humility and self-renouncement before Jesus. She enters into the house. The first gesture is an act of humility. She kneels down in front of her beloved Jesus and weeps for her sinfulness. The next gesture is an act of self-renouncement. She unties her hair and wipes the feet of Jesus. A woman cannot unloose her hair in the presence of another man and in the house of the other. Yet, she did it for the Lord. Her gesture manifests her readiness to place her life totally in the hands of the Lord without hiding anything for herself. It is the sign of her total self-abandonment in the presence of Jesus. It is the gesture of realizing and acknowledging her lowliness and sinfulness in front of the One who is Holy and Merciful. The fruit of her attitude is the forgiveness and being sanctified. - The attitude of the Pharisee: the one who has invited Jesus for the dinner is very hasty to judge the situation. While looking at the woman who entered and touched Jesus and looking at Jesus who allowed all this, he is embarrassed. He accused Jesus and condemned the sinful woman. His accusation against Jesus is this: if he is a prophet, he might know what kind of woman she is (v.39). His judgment against the woman is this: she is a sinner (v.39). His is an attitude of self-justification and judging the other by appearances. The scene reminds us of the prayer of the Pharisee and the tax-collector in the temple narrated by the same author Luke (18:9-14). Pharisee considers himself as just man, observer of the law and thus very closer to the kingdom of God and he treats all others as sinful and cursed. Jesus replies to his attitude with the parable and makes him realize that God’s love embraces all. - The attitude of Jesus towards the sinner: Jesus enters into the situation altogether in the different manner. He does not see the superficial practices and outward appearances. He penetrates deeply into the condition of the sinner. He does not count the quantity of the mistakes one commits. He counts only the quality of the heart. The Pharisee and others treat the woman who has entered into the house as sinner of the city and try to blame her. Jesus, on the other hand, sees in her a woman who is ready for the conversion and new life. In the gestures she has expressed Jesus reads her heart. Jesus finds in her humility and in giving up of herself a true and sincere love. For Jesus this attitude of love is very important. It is love which generates the forgiveness and it is forgiveness which makes the love grow. Out of love for Jesus and his message, she places her life wide-open before the Lord. It is out of love for the sinner that Jesus forgives her. He sees both her faith and love: all your sins are forgiven (v. 48), your faith has saved you, go in peace (v.50). The forgiveness is the fruit of Jesus’ love for her. He accepts the sinner to come to him. He permits the sinner to manifest the proper faith and love. He never wills to condemn but to correct and to pardon. The divine love of Jesus surpass the fragility and frailty of human condition. Humility can win the heart of God. Conclusion: Courage to acknowledge the mistake and ask pardon - The question that we can asks ourselves while reflecting on the gospel passage of today is this: what is my attitude in the presence of the Lord. How am I manifesting my desire and my love for him? Whom do we reflect through our life: the Pharisee or the sinful woman? Pretence and self-justification or humility and self-acceptance? We need to learn to have desire for the Lord. It is the desire that leads us to do anything for meeting the Lord. Let us learn from the sinful, yet repentant woman to grow in the desire for Jesus. - In the presence of Jesus we can realize the fullness of human nature. He is the mirror of holiness and divinity. Standing before him we can see ourselves and our life. With the power of his loving presence we can accept ourselves with humility. He is the mediator of God’s love and forgiveness to the humanity. The grace of God passes through his words and actions, particularly through the merits of his paschal mystery. In our lives, it comes through the listening to the scriptures and through the participation in the sacraments of the Church. For it is the Holy Spirit who represents the presence of Jesus in and for the world. - Let us manifest an attitude of humility and self-emptying before Jesus. It is for this the Church places the rite of penitence in the beginning of the mass. We need to enter into the banquet of the Lord and share his presence with the repentance and with the reception of God’s forgiveness. We need to learn to improve also our behavior and our gestures in the Church, the presence of the Lord. Let us prepare ourselves well with the attitude of love in order to meet the Lord and to receive his grace. Finally and ultimately it is the love that generates the forgiveness and mercy, because God’s immense love forgives the sinner.