Today

Easter Sunday

Today.  We use the word so often that it can sound like a small, insignificant part of conversation: how are you today? what are you doing today? what is the weather supposed to be like today?  But for the Church, the word “today” or the phrase “this day” has power with it, a power that helps us understand what is happening today.

Our opening prayer today, the Collect, said, “O God, who on this day, through your Only Begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity….”  The preface, the prayer that anticipates the Eucharistic Prayer, begins, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, at all times to acclaim you, O Lord, but on this day above all to laud you yet more gloriously when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.”  There is something about this day.  But what is it?

Of course, the easiest and most common answer is that today, this day, is Easter, when we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection.  But this is more than the annual commemoration of a past event.  When the Church prays using the phrase “this day,” she means to remind us, as a loving Mother, that the redemption achieved by Christ in the Resurrection, is not removed from our present, but is, or should be, a part of our lives today.  Today, in our midst, eternity breaks into time, and the power of the Resurrection is given to us for new life.  This day, 27 March 2016, is the day that the Lord has made, the day that we rejoice and are glad in it.  This day Christ has risen from the dead, hell and Satan and death are defeated, and Christ appears in our midst to offer us His peace.  

We have forgotten about today, so often because we are plagued by what happened yesterday, or anxious about what will happen tomorrow.  We do not live in the present, but constantly oscillate between the past and the future.  But the Church invites us to live in today, because it is the day of the Resurrection, and Jesus Christ wants to offer us new life.

We need new life; all of us.  We need a today where Christ shows us that death is ended, sin is conquered, and hell is no longer our destiny.  We need this day to refresh us and inspire us to be the new creation we are called to be as Christians.  We need to be resurrected.  It is too easy to live as zombies, the walking dead, who go day-to-day without thinking about the death of sin that is so prevalent in our own lives.  We need the new life that Jesus gives us, a life free from the shackles of those sins.  Our old selves, which look upon others, or even ourselves, with distrust, disdain, and despair, need to die, so that our new selves, alive in Christ, look upon others and ourselves with love, respect, and hope.  You need new life; I need new life; Adrian needs new life; the United States need new life; our whole world needs new life.

That new life is accessible, because the resurrection is today; it is this day.  The resurrection was not only accessible almost 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem; it is accessible today.  And you can take hold of it and make it your own.  And, as Christians, those who follow Jesus who is not dead, but alive, we recall each eighth day of the week, each Sunday, to grab ahold of the resurrection and bask in the glow of new life, a new life which transforms us into the people God has called us to be.  From the very beginning of the Church, those who followed Jesus gathered on the eighth day, the Lord’s Day, the dies Dominica, because they realized that the Resurrection made everything different, and was a chance to recall and receive the new life Jesus had given them.  It wasn’t Saturday (that was the Jewish Sabbath); it wasn’t Wednesday.  The day for Christians was Sunday, and it was a day that they put on the back burner all other commitments, even sports, and all assembled to worship God, to give Him their death (their sins) so that they might receive back their resurrection.  

If we truly want to be great again, then it starts with going to Mass every Sunday, except in cases of ill health, extreme distance from a church, or dangerous weather conditions, and being renewed in mind, body, and spirit by the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.  Only by taking hold of the gift of new life that Jesus offers us and putting aside the old self, the old leaven, will this world be transformed into the place that God has created it to be.  This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Today Christ Jesus has risen from the dead; may His Resurrection transform us into the saints we are called to be by our baptism.

Everything is Different

Easter Vigil

What happened was better than anyone could have expected.  Perhaps Mary, our Blessed Mother, alone had some idea of what would happen.  No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead, even though he had foretold it, along with the prophets of the Old Testament.  No one expected life to conquer death.  What happened was inconceivable.

Easter is not about little bunnies, candies, or pastel colors.  Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead.  We all know that, otherwise we’d be either getting ready to go to bed or sleeping right now.  The Resurrection of Jesus changes everything.  We are no longer trapped in a cycle of being born, doing our best to stay alive and not mess things up too much, and then dying.  We are no longer subject to the rich ruling the poor, the powerful controlling and abusing the weak, the educated domineering the uneducated.  Life is totally different.

“But Fr. Anthony,” you might say, “the rich still rule, the powerful still control and abuse, and the educated domineer.  You are living in a different world if you don’t think that happens.”  Certainly, our world is not perfect.  Just four short days ago, another terrorist attack happened in Europe.  No matter which party you belong to, the candidates all have to have sizable bank accounts and donors to become the President, legislators, and judges.  Each month seems to bring with it a new study of how we should change things because we know better now.

All of that doesn’t matter, because Christ has won.  There is still a battle going on, without a doubt, and it seems like the rich, the powerful, and the educated will always win.  But they have lost already.  They simply have not conceded.  To be fair, being rich, powerful, or educated does not make one bad.  Saints have come from the rich, the powerful, and the educated.  But those saints would be the first to say that they would give up everything if Jesus asked them to.  They live in the new life of the Resurrection where what is most important is Jesus, and the rest is all rubbish.

My dear Elect, in just a few moments, you will become part of that new life.  In the waters of baptism Jesus will give you His new life, which can save you from eternal death.  He will give you grace to reject Satan and all those who ally with him, who will lose.  He will give you His life so that you can re-evaluate everything you have in your life, and weigh it against Jesus Christ.  He will help you to know that the life you lead is no longer about you, but about Him, and loving Him by what you say and what you do to others.  Your life, after Baptism, will be different.

And in the Sacrament of Confirmation, you will receive strength to spread that good news of new life to those you meet.  Why do things in the world seem so dark right now?  Because we have forgotten what it means to be Christian.  We have forgotten to spread the new life and the new way of life to which Jesus invites us.  Even those who have been baptized have decided that they would rather do things their own way than follow Jesus.  And when we wander away from Jesus, we wander from new life and to death.

And in the Eucharist, your initiation into the Catholic Church will be complete.  You will have union with Jesus.  He will be with you, closer than you can be to any other person.  And in that heavenly food, you will find strength to live in the new life of Jesus.  

We, for our part, as your parish family, promise to help you live in that new life.  But we also ask you to help us.  It is too easy, and we see it all too often, for those who were baptized as infants to lose our love for Jesus, and to become complacent.  Your new energy from becoming Catholic reminds us of what we are called to do and be in Christ Jesus.

What happened on that first Easter night, so many years and decades and centuries ago, was better than we could have ever expected.  We received new life in Jesus, who invited us to be His followers and live in relationship with Him according to His new way.  It will not always be easy.  The powers of darkness will seek to have you forget.  But new life has won, and you have us, as well as almost 2,000 years of saints to help you and show you what it means to live this new life.  Christ has risen from the dead, alleluia!

Putting Sin to Death

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

It might seem cruel of Jesus to say, as He did: “Whoever wishes to come after my must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Why does the path to Jesus have to go through pain and suffering?  Why does the path to Jesus have to go through death?  Is God sadistic?  Does He love seeing His children in pain?  What is it about following Jesus that the cruelest torture the Romans could imagine would be the image of being a disciple of Jesus?

God does not rejoice in the death of His children.  He is not a sadist.  Pain and suffering were not part of the plan.  But we chose to reject God, and through our sin, death entered the world.  While we have had original sin washed away from us in baptism, we still feel its lingering effects, like the cold winds of winter that try to keep spring from coming.  We still have the tendency to say no to God and yes to our disordered desires: eating or drinking too much; using our gift of sexuality not in accord with God’s Word; tearing others down by what we say; unforgiveness and vengeance in our hearts; power, greed, control.  

God had to put all of that, and more, to death, because as long as it lives, it could take over.  It had to die.  And so Jesus took all of our disordered desires upon Himself, and let them be killed in Him, on the cross, as He gasped for breath, desire for air competing with the excruciating pain of the nails in his body.  The death of sin became the opportunity for life in Christ.

God does not see sin as we do.  It is not simply a mistake, a bad choice, a wrong road that one goes down.  It is antithetical to who He is; a perversion; a warped way of living.  Sin is darkness to the light of holiness, and in the presence of the light, the darkness has no choice but to be destroyed.  There is no other way to deal with darkness.

Today as we venerate the cross, we have the opportunity to nail to the cross all the sins that we have committed.  As we come and genuflect or bow, and maybe kiss the cross, we bring with us the sins that led Jesus to a cross, to have to put to death every sin that was ever committed and will ever be committed.  As we come to venerate the cross we bring our darkness so that it can be put to death.  

This plain cross reminds us that there is no path to life except through it.  The only way to deal with sin is by killing it.  Bring all of your disordered desires, as I will bring mine, and let them die with Jesus.  Let darkness have its time today.  Let us keep watch, though, for tomorrow night, as darkness falls, light will have its eternity.

Participating in the Events of our Redemption

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

We are blest in our parish with a number of talented actors and actresses who perform in their school plays and musicals, and even in the productions at the Croswell.  Their talent to bring to life a character from a certain time period in the past, or even in an imaginary world, helps tell a story, and remind us of those past events, or help us to dream of fantastic stories.

In many ways we can see these liturgies that we celebrate during Holy Week like the performances on the stage.  Today and on Good Friday the Gospel of the Passion of the Lord will be read by many readers, not just the priest or deacon.  We began today by, in a sense, re-enacting Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  Thursday I will wash the feet of six people as a reminder that we are to serve.

But if we think that we are simply remembering a past event, from which we are removed by almost 2,000 years, then we do not understand the Church’s liturgy.  Because we are not actors in a performance in the Mass.  We are participants in the actual events of our redemption.  We do not put on a show that remind us of what Jesus did for us.  We are invited to engage in the very events and experience them in sacramental signs.  Pope St. Leo the Great said, “What was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.”  Another word for mysteries in the sense that Pope Leo used it was Sacraments, rites that connect us to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  

As we gathered before Mass, we joined the crowd at Bethphage and waved our palms, welcoming our Messiah into Jerusalem as we walked into an icon of the heavenly Jerusalem, this church building.  As we see others’ feet being washed, Jesus our Lord and Master humbles Himself for us and reminds us that to follow Him means to serve others.  As we enter into the Eucharistic Prayer, we go to Calvary, at the foot of the cross, and see the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God, who shed His Precious Blood out of love for us.  And as we receive the Eucharist worthily, we participate in that very sacrifice by which we are saved.  These events are not something that are far removed, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, enter into our time and are supposed to have a real effect on our lives.

Many of us struggle with our Lenten promises.  Some of us have fallen, or never really began as we wanted.  In this last week of Lent, let us walk with Jesus on his pilgrimage to the crucifixion.  Let us not simply remember what Jesus did for us, but partake in the mysteries, the rites, which bring His life, death, and resurrection to us.  Because the beauty of our Catholic faith is that we not only remember what Jesus did for us, but we have the opportunity to be joined to our salvation and experience first-hand to what extent God would go to prove His love for us.

Union in the Face of Separation

Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper

One of the hardest things that we learn as humans is the pain of separation.  Sometimes that separation is between friends who have grown up together who are now leaving for different colleges; sometimes the separation is a break-up between and man and a woman who thought they were in love, but who are now going their separate ways; sometimes it is the separation by death of a husband from a wife who have lived together for most of their life; sometimes it is the separation of a priest from his parish.  Separation is a hard lesson to learn, a lesson that brings with it pain and tears.

Probably all of us have experienced some form of separation, whether the ones I listed or different ones.  We all know that pain, that pit in our stomach, the tears that flow from our eyes at the separation either already experienced or coming in the future.  Jesus, as fully human, also knew this pain, and it is in that context of separation that He celebrates the Last Supper with His apostles, anticipating the celebration of the Passover by one day.

Jesus “knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.  He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.”  He knew that He would not be able to celebrate the Passover, the great feast of redemption from slavery in Egypt, with his apostles because He would be on the cross, dying to truly redeem the world from its greatest enemy: sin.  We get some sense from the Gospel tonight and the Gospel passage we heard last Sunday of the trouble the Last Supper caused the apostles.  There is much confusion, concern, and anxiety.  No one knows what will happen next.  

So what does Jesus do?  St. Paul tells us that

the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Jesus, at the same time, institutes the priesthood and the Eucharist, so that all of Jesus disciples not in the upper room, that is, every disciple beyond the Eleven, could have something to hold on to in the midst of their separation.

We call the Eucharist Holy Communion, and it truly is Holy Union With Christ.  It is not simply a memory of what Jesus did.  It is a way, in the present, that the anxiety of separation can be lifted.  Because when we receive the Eucharist worthily, we are not separated from Jesus, but are united to Him.  When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, Jesus is one with us, and we are one with Him.  And, for those who are baptized into His Body and remain in it after Baptism, because we are members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we also have union with each other.  Only those members of the Body who have cut themselves off from it by mortal sin are truly separated from Jesus, even if they receive Holy Communion, until they are reconciled with God and rejoined to the Mystical Body of Christ.  Otherwise we are connected by Jesus by sharing in His Body and Blood.  

Jesus knows the pain of separation.  In fact, on the cross, feeling the full weight of sin, the full weight of enmity and rejection of God, Jesus will cry out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”  Jesus, in His human nature, feels the worst separation that any human can have: separation from God.  But that is not His plan for His followers.  Jesus institutes the priesthood so that His presence and His power will continue in the world through the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  He gives all of His disciples a way to be united with Him, not separated from Him, until He returns in glory.  And not only Him, but also with each other, even when we are separated by long distances, or even by death.  In the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love, death is overcome and we have union with Christ and with each other, whether our life continues on earth, or if it continues in Purgatory or Heaven.  

How do we show appreciation for such a great gift as continuing communion with Jesus?  We try to live as He did, in total obedience to the Father, in holiness of life.  If we fall and separate ourselves from God by mortal sin, we seek reconciliation with God through His Sacrament of Reconciliation, and change our life to be more like His.  How do we show appreciation for such a great gift?  We offer the “sacrifice of thanksgiving, and…call upon the name of the Lord.  [Our] vows to the Lord [we] pay in the presence of all his people.”

New Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent–Year C and Scrutinies

Most of the times when we have the yearly readings and the scrutiny readings (which 2 out of three years means they are different), I prepare two different homilies.  Usually each set of readings has its own focus and takes me down two different roads as I think about what the Lord wants me to say.  But this week the two Gospel passages–the woman caught in adultery and the raising of Lazarus from the dead–tied in together and seem to both emphasize the same point.

If I think about the raising of Lazarus (you can go home and read John 11 if you want a refresher), it is an amazing passage in itself.  Probably all of us have experienced the death of a loved one, and if it was a close family member or friend, we know the pain and sorrow that Martha and Mary were feeling.  We understand and maybe even have said with Martha, “‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”  We can then also imagine how moving it would have been to actually have seen Lazarus risen from the dead.  Imagine your loved one, who had been dead for four days, being returned to life.  Maybe it would be a little creepy, but the joy would have been inexpressible.  

And then I think about the woman caught in adultery from John 8.  That woman was raised from the dead by Jesus, but in a pre-emptive way.  His challenge to the scribes and Pharisees keeps them and the mob that had formed from stoning her to death.  Jesus’ words have been repeated (whether appropriately applied or not) throughout the ages: “‘Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’”  Jesus saves her life, and encourages her to go and sin no more.

But both Lazarus and the woman caught in adultery would later die.  Lazarus’ earthly life came to an end…again, at some point.  By pious legend Lazarus either became the first bishop of a city in Cyprus, or Provence in France.  We have no idea what happened to the woman caught in adultery.  But they both died.  We usually think of the raising of Lazarus as Jesus’ biggest miracle.  And certainly it was a biggie, and proved His divinity.  Jesus showed that He, as God, had power over life and death.  But we might say that, in one sense, his miracle with the woman caught in adultery was bigger.  When Jesus raised Lazarus, Jesus gave Him back earthly life.  When Jesus forgave the sins of the woman, He offered her eternal life.

Forgiving sins raises people from death.  In my ministry as a confessor, I have been privileged, though I am a sinner and in need of God’s mercy, to be the instrument of God’s mercy to people, some of whom have been away from God’s grace for longer than I’ve been alive.  To hear the confession of people who have been alienated from God by their choices, and to reconcile them to God and bring them back into His family, is a humbling and truly awesome gift, one of the greatest that a priest receives.  To act in Jesus’ Name, with His power, when someone tells me, often with tears in their eyes, that they have been away from the Church for 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years; that they have killed the infant in their womb; that they have committed adultery, allows me to see the great power of Christ which raises their dead soul to life, and recreates them.  

I can often see the guilt and hurt, or hear it in their words.  These are people who are as good as dead, and yet are looking for new life.  The world has not shown them kindness.  They have been drug out into the streets, ready to be killed by the stones of judgment of others.  Sometimes they even expect judgment or condemnation in the Sacrament of Penance.  But what they hear are the words of Jesus: “‘Has no one condemned you?  […]Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.’”  Once inside that confessional, the only one who could truly condemn that person because He truly knows what the person has done and why and to what extent he or she is truly culpable, does not condemn, but forgives.

Forgiveness is a way that Jesus gives new life.  Not just an extension of earthly life.  But a new life that can last forever in heaven.  It is given in Christ’s Name with His authority in the Sacrament of Penance.  But each one of us has the power to raise someone from death by forgiving them.  If we truly forgive someone who has wronged us, especially if they have wronged us in a powerful way, we give that person new life, and raise their souls from death.  It is not easy.  It doesn’t mean we forget the pain and hurt that person caused us.  But it means we no longer hold it against him or her, and grant them the opportunity of a new life without the chains of sin dragging that person down to death.  Today, and every day, you have the opportunity to raise someone from the death of sin to the new life of forgiveness.  Can you say with Jesus, “‘Has no one condemned you?  […] Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.’”

Seeing with God's Vision

Fourth Sunday of Lent–Second Scrutiny 

In 2009 I was driving back from St. John parish in Fenton, where I was assigned as a deacon, to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  It was a Fall night, and it was raining fairly steadily.  I pulled onto M-10, what most Michiganders who are familiar with Detroit call the Lodge.  I was driving 60 mph, which was still slower than 99% of the traffic, which was going at least 65 mph in the 55 mph zone, but I was having a hard time seeing the stripes that divided one lane from another.  I made it home safely, but I knew something was wrong with my eyes.

I didn’t have vision insurance, though, so I was nervous about how much getting my eyes checked was going to cost.  My optometrist was very kind, and gave me a great deal on the eye exam.  During that exam, she put the big machine in front of my eyes to read the chart with the letters on it.  As she started to change the lenses, I realized how poor my vision had been.  My vision is not horrible (I’m near sighted), but as soon as she put my prescription up on that machine, everything was much clearer.

We need an occasional eye exam for our souls.  The eyes of our souls can sometimes lose their original power, and sometimes we need the lenses of Jesus so that we can see clearly.  Otherwise our eyes get worse, and might even become blind.  This Gospel that we heard today, along with the first reading especially, reminds us that we do not always see as God sees.  What Samuel saw as the winner was not God’s choice for the king of Israel.  What the disciples saw as the result of sin was what Jesus said would bring glory to God, and was not due to a moral issue in the man born blind.  In both of those readings, God gave an eye exam, and helped Samuel and the disciples realize how their vision was off.

What do we see when we see a person walking down the street with dirty clothes, maybe with bags full of cans, digging through trash, or asking for some money?  Do we see a beggar, maybe someone who has mental illness issues, a druggie, a drunk, or do we see Jesus?  If we do not see Jesus, then we do not have 20/20 spiritual vision.  Yes, that person might have a mental illness.  Yes, that person might be a drunk or addicted to heroin.  But that is still a person, made in the image and likeness of God, a beloved child of God, one of the least of the brothers of Jesus, with whom Jesus associates.

I come from a pretty sheltered life.  My family was never rich, but we never wanted for anything.  We didn’t have extravagant vacations every year, but we got to enjoy the State Parks of Michigan, and occasionally did take a trip down to Florida.  It is sometimes a challenge for me to put myself in the shoes of those who have nothing and who struggle each day.  I have to strain to see Jesus, and many times I have missed Him in the people I see.  One of the great blessings of being a chaplain for Adrian Fire Department, and working with Adrian Police Department and the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Department is the presence I can give to those who work to protect our city and county.  But another blessing is that I have more opportunities to see Jesus in the people to whom we respond, many of whom I would never see or encounter.  

Samuel chose, by God’s grace, a king for Israel in the first reading.  Tuesday, as residents of the State of Michigan, we have the opportunity to help shape our election in November for President of the United States.  It’s not my job, and I won’t do so, to tell you for whom to vote.  The Catholic Church does not endorse a particular party or a particular candidate.  We will work with anyone, as we have for 2,000 years.  But I do want to challenge all of us about whether or not we are voting (which is very important and a civic and moral duty) with the eyes of God.  When we look at our favorite candidate, do we see them with the eyes of God?  I doubt God has a favorite candidate, and I’m sure He’s not endorsing anyone.  But do we examine each person, each a child of God and made in His image, in the light of divine revelation, so that we choose a person who protects all human life, in the womb, on the streets, in the nursing home; who does not spread fear and hatred of different classes of people, ethnicities, jobs; who respects and welcomes people of all faiths, but acts in accordance with the truth, even when unpopular; who works against discrimination of people with homosexual attractions but also understands that marriage, according to faith and reason, can only be between one man and one woman; who will build up the country in unity, rather than dividing us into different camps?

The way we see things determines how we interact with the world.  How are our eyes?  Do we see with the vision of God?

Admitting We're Wrong

Fourth Sunday of Lent

This is one of those parables that we’ve heard a thousand times.  If you think it’s hard to listen to it in the pews, imagine trying to preach on it from the ambo!  What can I say that has not already been said?  And yet, the Word of God cannot be exhausted.  If we think we know everything about this parable, then we are missing something.  There’s always a perspective or insight we have missed, even if what I’m preaching on may not be something that you missed.

But what I want to focus on today is the reaction of the Prodigal (which means wasteful) Son after his life goes down the toilet.  His reaction is that life is better with his father, even though it means returning to the father no longer as a son, but as a hired worker.  And so he starts back, and we hear about the mercy that the father wastes on his son (some have also called this the parable of the Prodigal Father).

The first step to receiving mercy is to recognize how we have wandered away from our heavenly Father’s house, how we have used our inheritance of reason and free will and wasted it on bad choices.  This is only possible by God’s grace, so God, even in our recognition of our guilt, is already at work at us to show us mercy.  But we have to cooperate with God’s mercy to recognize in truth where we have strayed.  

That’s no easy thing; especially in our culture.  No one is guilty of anything these days.  There was always a reason a person did something that eliminates all culpability for one’s actions and the consequences.  And while certainly circumstances can lessen our culpability for freely chosen actions, at the end of the day we need to return to being a people who can admit when we have done wrong; not because our upbringing was too hard or too soft; not because we suffer from affluenza; not because this group or that is out to get us; but because we chose with our free will to do something wrong.  

That sounds pretty tough.  And it doesn’t sound exciting or merciful.  But mercy can only be received by us when we realize we need mercy.  It was the Pharisees who didn’t think they needed mercy.  The adulterers, the sinners, the cheats, they all knew they needed Jesus to show them mercy.  They did not hide from their deeds.  Instead, they saw in Jesus that the recognition of their bad choices and decisions made them the exact people that Jesus came to save.  

As we examine our conscience, God helps us to know that we are sinners.  He doesn’t do this to beat us up, but to open us up to be saved by His mercy.  I often tell people that going to confession is like going to the doctor.  If we don’t tell the doctor our symptoms, he cannot cure us.  Now, God already knows what we have done, but by admitting to it, by vocalizing the sins we have committed, especially the grave sins, we let God in with His mercy, which He will not force upon us.  Think about it: who is in more danger: the person with chest pains and shortness of breath who figures he can deal with it on his own and it’s probably nothing, or the person with the same symptoms who knows something is not right and it needs to be addressed?  

Admitting that I am wrong seems to make us weak.  We have the right to remain silent, which has good legal effects, but which, if it creeps into our spiritual life, leads to certain imprisonment.  The one who admits his faults is the one who is free; the one who denies that they even exist is trapped by them.  Mercy is for the strong.  Only the weak person will say, “I did nothing wrong; it wasn’t my fault.”  The strong person can admit that he has done wrong, knowing that, in admitting his guilt, the Father runs to meet him to bestow every good gift upon him.  

St. Paul reminds us that all of us have been given the mission of being ambassadors of God’s mercy.  We do this by sharing with others the mercy we first received from God.  Think about someone who has hurt you, and pray for God’s mercy to come upon them.  Maybe they won’t come to apologize, but maybe they will.  In either case, as we pray for mercy for others, we participate in God reconciling the world.  And that is a great way to apply this parable to our own lives, and live in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.