Leaving the Last Supper, the twelve, Jesus and the remaining eleven, walked to the Garden of Gethsemane. Here, the Christ was reduced to tears and fear. His humanity was once again evident. Why a man? Why this man? Was it really necessary that He die? Is God so demanding? What would be accomplished? To answer these questions, let us step back and quickly look at what has led to this state.
Someone, (Our first ancestors, Adam and Eve), defied the will of God. Using the free will that God had given them, they chose to use it in defiance, as we do, even today. In so doing they paved the way for a weakened mankind to defy God. This action brought evil, sickness and death into the world. Throughout time this evil, this cancer grew and continues to grow and spread. To restore the balance in the universe, to restore justice, a sacrifice has to be made. What could offset the evil, the hatred, the murder, the lust, the continuing disregard of God and His Goodness, all of which built up over thousands of years? A god must suffer and die. But, then, God would not be God, if he could suffer and die. A man, a God-man, a person so perfect that He knew not sin would have to the sacrificial lamb. He would have to be the sacrifice. And so, from all eternity we have Jesus designated for the task of saving mankind from itself.
All of this defies logic. It sounds like a fairy tale. But here is where our faith must bridge the gap. A loving, caring God wants man to freely love Him and so gives him free will. That it is possible that man can choose to turn his back on God, and does, is the price of free will. We have been given a gift. How we use it is totally dependent on us.
The sad part of this is that we, all of us, have sinned. Maybe it was a slight disagreement, or a heated argument, or a murderous attack. Maybe it was stealing a nickel, or something of much greater value. Maybe it was a desire, a lust, an adulterous relationship. Small or big, our sins are added onto the heap of mankind’s willful self-serving. Restoration of order in the universe must be accomplished. If it is not restored, if it is ignored, then God could not be perfect, could not be just, could not be God.
So, here we are in Gethsemane, the apostles , asleep, Jesus, afraid and in tears. We gather our clubs and go after this Man. His agony, His scourging, His pain and torture, and ultimately His death will all take place very soon. Which of these things are we responsible for? Surely, my evil was not this huge. I am not a mass murderer, like Hitler. Mine was just a small, minor transgression. But, Jesus is suffering for ALL mankind. You and I are part of that group. Our transgressions, big and small are part of this trash heap that He is paying the price for. The pain in His muscles, the flesh being torn, the punches, the insults, the mockery, the nailing to the cross, we are responsible for these. And his response to all of this? “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing”. He makes excuses for us.
It is much easier to think of all of this as a fairy tale. It didn’t really happen, so I don’t have to be concerned about it. Let me shove it to the back regions of my mind, where my thoughts rarely go. … But it did happen. We are responsible. For us to make amends we have to honestly look at Jesus and see what He did for us and why. Realize that He did this for us. Our free will must again come into play. We must use it now to recognize our guilt, our complicity in this tragedy. With our free will, Jesus wants us to recognize and admit our guilt, accept His act of Love and freely give our love and concern to the rest of mankind. If we do this, we show our love to Him. We give back to God our love using our free will.
Tag Archive: repentance
The Gospel today, focuses squarely on Judas Iscariot. Why? Why not Peter, as well? Both men turned their backs on Jesus. Peter with his denial and Judas with his betrayal, both spurned the Christ. In effect, both men wanted nothing to do with Jesus either out of fear or out of greed.
The only difference between the two is faith. Though both had fallen, as all of us do, Peter never relinquished his faith in Jesus. The realization, of how great his offense was, reduced Peter to tears. And in his sorrow, in his time of trial, he fled back to Jesus who was waiting for him. Judas, on the other hand, on his realization of the magnanimity of his offense, despaired. One, relying on his faith in Jesus, returned with sincere sorrow, grateful in that faith that he would be forgiven. Judas had no such strength to fall back on. His faith in material things delivered no such solace. With no reliance on Jesus, his life proved to be empty, meaningless and he sought the coward’s way out, he hung himself.
No one is perfect. Neither you nor I can point our incriminating finger at Judas without turning that same finger back upon ourselves. Christ said it, Himself, “He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…”-1 This is not an attempt to soften our own negligence, to make light of our own capricious living. We are all struggling to bring our lives into accordance with God. Yes, He understands our frailty. But our weakness cannot be our excuse. Our lives will always be a continuing struggle. Life is a struggle to excel, to succeed, to grow.
In what are we struggling to excel? To succeed? To grow? That is the important aspect of our lives. If material things are of paramount importance to us, then in that, we have placed our faith. What occupies our main focus during the day? Then in that, we have placed our faith. It is not rocket science. What do we want? What do we desire? What moves us, and motivates us? That, and only that, will show us what our primary concern is. Yes, we should be attentive to our finances, our children, our home, and our jobs. But these concerns must always be placed within our trust in God, our faith in a loving, caring God. We can, like Peter, place our trust in Jesus. Or, we can place our trust in things. What will warm you the most? Which will comfort you in your time of need?
-1 John, 8, 7
Oh, the beauty and simplicity of the Bible. Today’s Gospel (Luke 5:27-32) says in very simple words, why Jesus came to mankind. Read the cited passage, but if you don’t have the time to look it up, verses 30 to 32 say it all. “And the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
There, in less than 50 words, Jesus tells us, “I know you need help. It is for this reason, I have come to you. Trust Me. Acknowledge and confess your guilt, your confusion.” He came into this world for sinners, you and me. When will we recognize our plight? When will we admit that we are not the perfect person, we want others to think we are? We spoke yesterday of hiding behind a mask. We protect the illusion of goodness and propriety, at all costs.
And Jesus patiently waits for us. He waits for us to hear, really hear, His words and understand that He is speaking directly to us. We seek out so many things that are unimportant. We let them occupy our time, our thoughts and our energies. And that which is most important, namely, our acceptance of His words, our belief in His words, our living our lives based on His words, these we relegate to a dusty corner in our life.
All we need to do is go to The Physician. Tell Him we are not well. Tell Him we may not even know what is wrong with us, but we know that something is wrong. Believe in Jesus, TRUST Him. Trust Him with every fiber in our body. Know that He will be with us and provide us what is best. Then, having said this, having done this… live every moment of our life in the present. Don’t worry about the past. It is over. Don’t be concerned about something an hour from now. We have no control over the future. That person who you just met, give them your undivided attention. That problem that just cropped up, recognize it for what it is and not a crisis. That feeling that you feel right now, be aware of it but not a slave to it. Christ is NOW. He doesn’t dwell in the past. Nor is He to be found in the future. He is what makes the present, beautiful. He waits for us, in the now.
Well, here we are, the 2nd day of Lent is upon us. Forty days seems like a long time, but whatever we do, the days will come and go. Yesterday, while getting ashes on my forehead, I could not help but wonder. “The ashes are placed on our foreheads, to remind us of our need for repentance, to remind us that we are still very much imperfect”. And what is the Number ONE capital sin? It is the sin of pride. It is really incongruous isn’t it, that we, a society of people full of imperfections, struggle with the sin of pride.
We know our faults. Lord, do we know them. We can’t help but know them. They seem to constantly be reminding us that they are still with us. We look at our lives, and almost to the point of embarrassment, we want to turn our heads away. “Oh God, if people ever knew how I am, if they knew how very much I can and do offend you, they would never talk to me or be with me again”. We do feel that way and think that way. So what do we do? We put up a false front, a façade. This mask is what we have people see. This is how we protect ourselves. Do we strive to correct? No, that is too difficult. We just cover it up. We put on fresh paint to cover the rust underneath.
And here is the most incongruous aspect of all of this. This façade, this mask, this is what we become PROUD of. We struggle, not to correct our problems, but to maintain this illusion. We feel good, when we know that other people think highly of us. We are happiest when others believe that the mask that we hide behind is really us. And so, we do everything in our power to maintain that illusion.
Jesus asked, “Who of you is without sin?” That question wasn’t just for those people in His lifetime. That question rings down through the centuries of time, and stares us in the face. He has already told us that He loves us. He forgave us on the cross, telling His Father in heaven that we didn’t even know what we were doing. He LOVES US!!! Not as we love, with our conditions. We say, “I love that person….. but….”. We immediately put a condition on our love. We don’t really understand, nor appreciate what unconditional love is. We know that Jesus loves us. But we struggle to understand how He could do it, unconditionally. He does not look at what we have done. He looks only at the good that we are capable of doing.
Every person that you know, or ever knew has been asked that question by Jesus. None of us, or them could ever step forward. We ALL are struggling with our faults, imperfections and sins. And Jesus loves us ALL. Why then, do we hide behind our masks, our self-imposed prisons of deceit? It is because we haven’t really embraced and enjoyed the freedom of being loved unconditionally. Every person we know is loved unconditionally. We cannot keep denying our love of others, by throwing up observations that he is dirty, or greedy, or sinful, or a different race. So what? He or she is struggling just as we are.
This time of Lent is a perfect time to start looking within, at ourselves. What is preventing me from giving my friendship, my time, and my energies to others? What are the things that I am throwing up as reasons why I cannot or should not love that person? Grow closer to Jesus. Feel His love and goodness for you. Realize that He doesn’t stop at the mask, but sees us as we are, as we really are. That is the freedom that comes with being a Christian. I cannot undo the problems that I have caused. But I can begin to love my fellow man who is struggling as I am; and see Jesus in him. Have a loving Lent.
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. We go to Mass and afterwards, the priest gently presses his thumb in burnt palms from last year and makes the sign of the cross on our forehead. It winds up looking more like a circle, but we know a North, South, West, East mark was made on our forehead. “Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and thou wilt bring me into dust again.” (Job 10:9) These words or a paraphrase of them are said as the priest makes the sign of the cross on our forehead.
“Why, this ritual?” we should ask ourselves. Especially since the Gospel in the Ash Wednesday Mass makes it quite clear, how we should fast, and how we should do good. “When you give alms, sound no trumpet before you”, and again “when you fast, do not look dismal”, and still again, “that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father”. (Matthew 6: 1 – 6, 16 – 18) It seems almost like a contradiction. We wear ashes and yet are told to wash our face, to not appear any different to our fellow man. The fact is, we don’t wear the ashes to proclaim our holiness, or to appear to all that we are getting ready to fast, but rather to acknowledge that we are a community of sinners in need of repentance and renewal.
It is only when we look into our souls and recognize all that is preventing us from truly uniting with Jesus we begin to understand our life, our direction. Maybe, this should be said in a different fashion. Our desire to be so united with Jesus gradually frees us and allows us to understand what it is that is keeping us from getting closer to Him.
The ashes that we wear on Wednesday, do remind us that we are sinners in need of repentance. They should also remind us that Jesus died for us, loving us. We, who have so many imperfections and sins, are understood and loved. THAT is what breaks the bonds holding us back. His love for us, His total all-encompassing Love frees us. We can look at ourselves and our fellow man, recognizing that all of us are struggling with the same problems, the same sins, the same proud actions and all of us are loved. No one person is better than anyone else. No one person can look down on anyone else and feel superior. We are all struggling, all loved.
This Lent, whatever acts of self denial we choose to perform, let them be actions that cost us something, and not be actions that make us feel good about ourselves. We can give up smoking, or candy, or something that we like. We could also do something for someone else. Do we know someone who is homebound? Do we know someone who is lonely, grief-stricken, or depressed? What can we do for them? YOU who have suffered through illnesses, and grief, and depression, YOU who have struggled with sins and despair, YOU can quietly bring the love of Jesus to someone. How can you? You can, because Jesus loves you. This Lent is a time for all of us to bring Jesus’ Love to the world, the world of our friends and acquaintances. Let’s have a great loving Lent!
Yesterday, we defined prayer as the lifting up of the mind and heart to God. And we said that the purpose of prayer is to be one with Christ. What then, can we say about sin? View full article »
I don’t know where you stand with regard to Adam and Eve. But writers, documenting the “event”, speak of it in terms of “Oh Happy Fault”. Why happy? View full article »
