The Grace of Forgiveness (11th Sunday Ordinary C)

No doubt one of the most profound, liberating, and even life-changing human experiences is the joy of being forgiven. We just have to recall our own experiences of being forgiven in order to realize that the greater the offense we acknowledge to have done, the deeper is our sense of gratitude for being freed from its burden through forgiveness.

Today’s readings invite us to reflect even more deeply on our experience of the grace of forgiveness. We shall focus on three things: The recognition of sin as essential to the experience of forgiveness shown in the story of King David; the heart-warming tears of repentance illustrated by the sinful woman in the Gospel reading; and gratitude as our loving response to being forgiven as taught by the parable of the two debtors.

Recognition of Sin. The first reading (2 Sm 12:7-10, 13) recalls how the Prophet Nathan reminded David of God’s goodness to him—anointing him as king, rescuing him from the hand of Saul, giving him the house of Israel and Judah, and many other countless blessings. At the same time, Nathan reminded David that despite God’s graciousness, David had spurned the Lord and done evil in God’s sight by plotting the death of Uriah and ultimately taking the latter’s wife, Bathsheba, as his own.

The fact that David needed a prophet to be told of his sins shows that He had been spiritually blind. While, as a king, he had been enjoying the favor and blessings of God, he was practically unaware of the evil of his maneuverings in the sight of this gracious God.  Sin blinds. Our habit of sins renders us incapable of seeing the evil in what we do. The worst situation is precisely what’s going on now in our contemporary milieu—the loss of the sense of sin. People just want to do whatever they please without regard to moral principles.  We hear this being said too often: “How can this be wrong when it feels soooo right?”

It is only when David recognized his sins that he was assured of God’s forgiveness. “I have sinned against the Lord” (v. 13). To this confession, Nathan responded with assurance of God’s mercy. The grace of forgiveness abounds.  It is given, however, only to those who have recognized their sinfulness.  In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the penitent names and confesses his offenses. It surely is embarrassing to oneself but it is at the same time empowering. By naming and confessing, the penitent get holds of his sins and not the other way around. Recognizing our sinfulness, naming and confessing our sins liberate us from our spiritual blindness and enables us to see the graciousness of God and hence experience the grace of forgiveness.

The Tears of Repentance. The gospel reading (Lk 7:36—8:3) presents an illuminating contrast between the gate-crasher sinful woman and the Pharisee, Jesus’ host for the dinner.  The woman came in weeping and started to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears! She wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with expensive perfumed oil; while the Pharisee had not offered this customary hospitality to his guest. The lavishness of the woman’s expression of sorrow and devotion to Jesus is reflective of both the depth of her repentance for her great sins and her faith in God’s mercy; while the coldness with which the Pharisee received the Lord manifests the Pharisee’s self-righteous stance—a stance that rendered him incapable of seeing his own need for repentance and forgiveness, much like the blindness of David to his sins.  This same stance gives him the self-endowed right to condemn and distance himself from sinners.

Like the sinful woman in the gospel, we are invited by the Lord to a genuine repentance of our sins.  If we should weep, so be it. The tears of repentance reveal both the sincerity of our acceptance of our sinfulness and the depth of our yearning to experience the mercy of God. At the same time, the Lord warns us against self-righteousness because it is the surest way to forfeit by default God’s abundant offer of the grace of forgiveness.

Gratitude as our Loving Response.  The parable of the two debtors--one with a large debt, the other with smaller debt—who experienced being forgiven as both of them are unable to pay, illustrates the point that the degree of gratitude and love evoked by the experience of forgiveness is directly proportionate to the amount of the debt forgiven.  Between the two debtors, the one whose debt is much larger expresses greater gratitude to the creditor who forgives. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.

We should not fear approaching the Lord for mercy as we realize how great a sinner we are.  The greater the burden of sins lifted, the greater is our gratitude, our joy, our yearning to love God in return.  No wonder most of the saints consider themselves as great sinners and their lives have shown the greatness of their love for God.

What is our invitation? We are invited to overcome our self-righteousness which hinders us from experiencing the abundance of God’s mercy and to acknowledge our sinfulness with tears of repentance. This is not, however, to make of us a community of guilt-ridden Christians but a community who can love lavishly because of the freedom experienced through the grace of forgiveness.

Life is a Gift (10th Sunday Ordinary C)

Years ago as a seminarian, I used to visit a sickly widow who was taken care of by her only son.  I would read her the Sunday Gospel, share with her my reflections, listen to hers too, and give her the communion for the sick. One Sunday morning, after a short Christmas break, I went to visit her. To my bewilderment, she wept vigorously on her chair as she saw me came.  Her neighbor, who was taking care of her that day, informed me that her only son died in an accident during the Christmas season. I was shocked and dumbfounded. How could this thing happen to her? I could only sit in silence beside the grieving widow wishing I had the power to bring back her son.  My heart was moved with pity but I felt my own helplessness too. I just kept on visiting her every Sunday until she overcame her grief and wept no more.

Today’s gospel reading (Lk 7:11-17) tells of a similar situation in the city of Nain where the Lord encountered a widow whose son died.  The Lord was moved with pity.  He revived the dead to life and gave him back to his mother. The first reading too (1 Kgs 17:17-24) is a parallel story: the Prophet Elijah called out to God in order to bring back the life of the son of the widow in whose house the Prophet was staying. And God did bring back the life of the child.

Allow me to dwell on the gospel reading (Lk 7:11-17) and bring out three things for our reflection:

“Do not weep.”  The Lord, in his compassion, could not stand the grief of the mother who was a widow.  As a widow, she was already poor for there were no job opportunities for women then.  Losing the only son, would make her the poorest of the poor having no social security system to lean on.  The widow could only weep because of her pitiful plight, losing her husband and now her only son. With the death of her son, she just actually lost everything.  The Lord sees the grief of the poor widow and with compassion told her, “Do not weep” (v. 13).

It is helpful to note that in this incident the initiative came from the Lord. The widow was not begging or asking him to bring back her son. She was just lost in her grief weeping. Unlike other but similar incidents, this one did not mention about the faith of the widow as requirement to God’s grace. This allows us to see the initiative and gratuitousness of God’s merciful and compassionate acts.  Somehow, this assures us that God sees, even before we formulate and articulate our prayers, the intense yearning of our hearts, the longing to be freed from our deepest grief and sufferings.  This is the prayer of the heart.  God sees through our hearts and acts out of his compassion.  Haven’t we experienced God’s gracious interventions in our lives even if we feel undeserving of his grace?

“I tell you, arise!” Jesus commanded the dead man to rise! The young man sat up and began to speak. Jesus gave him to his mother (vv. 14-15). What Jesus did was resuscitation of the earthly life and not yet the resurrection of the dead.  But this event certainly foreshadowed the definitive victory of life over death in Jesus’ resurrection through which He won for us the gift of eternal life.

Life is a precious gift.  God is its author. Only God gives life.  We ought to be grateful for our lives. In the spirit of gratitude, we ought to protect and celebrate life. We need to be wary of the misleading secular philosophies that views life as liability rather than as gift and resource. We need to overcome the “culture of death” that is conspiring against life, espousing measures that both oppress and suppress life in favor of economic gains and maintenance of the concentration of wealth among the powerful and the rich. Life is of the highest value; all social systems ought to be at the service of life, not the other way around.

“And they glorified God.” When life was brought back, both in the incidents involving the prophet Elijah and Jesus Christ, God’s power was acknowledged. In the first reading, the mother, upon seeing that her son was brought back to life through the prayers of Elijah, acknowledged that indeed Elijah was a man of God and was speaking of God’s word (1 Kgs 17: 24). In the gospel reading, all who witnessed the revival of the dead man’s life, glorified God exclaiming that “God has visited his people” (Lk 7:16).

God’s power is felt wherever and whenever death is overcome and life triumphs. He is the sole author of life and no one else.  We all died because of sin. But God in his compassion and great mercy gratuitously endows us with the gift of life and, in Jesus’ resurrection, has overcome death and has assured us of eternal life.  Indeed, we are a people who have seen the visitation of God; we have experienced God’s compassion and love.  Let us then be the people who glorify God—the God who hears with compassion the prayer of our hearts and tells us to stop weeping because death is no more; what He gives us is life as a precious gift.

The Good Shepherd’s Way (4th Sun Easter C)

In the tiny book, “The Way of the Shepherd,” Kevin Leman and William Pentak suggest seven ancient secrets to managing productive people. Couched in the imagery of shepherding, they propose the first secret: Know the condition of your flock. This means following the status of your people and the work; getting to know your flock, one sheep at a time; engaging your people on a regular basis; keeping your eyes and ears open, questioning and following through (Leman, 2004:15-28).

While Leman and Pentak use the biblical image of a shepherd to bring out certain effective leadership and management skills, I doubt if they have given effort to interpret it according to the paradigm of the leadership of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Nevertheless, the first of the seven secrets comes close to Jesus’ way: Know the condition of your flock.

Knowing the Sheep. In today’s gospel (Jn 10:27-30), Jesus declares intimate knowledge of his sheep: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (v. 27). Jesus’ knowledge of his sheep goes beyond knowing someone’s name or characteristics. He knows his sheep deeper than their external realities. He knows their hearts; he knows their joys and sorrows, their hopes and anxieties. Such knowledge is intimate and personal, one that inevitably forges a strong bond of love and loyalty. While Leman and Pentak’s suggestion offers a pragmatic approach in terms of managing people, the Good shepherd’s way of knowing goes beyond pragmatism as it is essentially aimed at fostering intimate and enriching relationship between the leader and the followers.

Caring for the Sheep. Only this depth of personal knowledge elicits on the part of the leader a totally selfless commitment for the well-being of the followers. So we hear Jesus declare, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand” (v. 28).

What a consoling statement from a leader! Jesus, the Good Shepherd gives us, his beloved sheep, life. He takes care of us. He protects us. He does not allow anyone to snatch us from him. As the book of Isaiah has it: “Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care” (Is 40:11).

With Jesus as our shepherd, we experience total security. We are lovingly taken care of. No wonder we are attracted to him. We listen to his voice and we follow him.

Pastoral Implication: Charity over Policy. Is this how we feel now as a community of disciples in the church? In our parishes? In our religious organizations? Do we still experience that personal love and care in our communities? Or have we not become a rule-oriented community whose life revolves around policies instead of being animated by love and concern for one another?

Just as I was quietly reflecting on the implications of this gospel to our contemporary Christian communities, a member of a parish council informed me, being a guest priest in a parish, of a standing policy: There shall be no celebration of the Eucharist in the chapel communities on their fiesta when chapel leaders failed to attend the parish assembly. And next month, three chapel communities will not have Eucharistic celebrations on their feast day if I go by this policy! While I understand the importance of policies in any community or organization, I cringe at the idea of depriving the people of the grace of the sacraments as penalty for some organizational lapses. This turns us into a policy-driven community—a far cry from the community forged by the Good Shepherd out of intimate knowledge and pastoral love.

This Good Shepherd Sunday is an excellent reminder of the way of the Good Shepherd. We gather people not through the force of authority and policies; we gather people by the sheer power of attraction. When people are recognized, loved, and cared for, they come with joy.

Search for Public Leaders. Another relevant implication of this reflection on the way of the Good Shepherd is obviously on our search for our national and local leaders. Honestly, when I look at the list of those who are aspiring to become our leaders, my heart bleeds. As far as my own appraisal is concerned, very few are worthy of our trust and loyalty! Worse, these few trustworthy leaders are in danger of being out-manoeuvred by the crooks. What have become of us as a people? Why do we make it terribly difficult for good people to become our leaders and comfortably easy for the crooked to have their way?

We badly need a leader after the image of the Good Shepherd—one who goes out of his/her way to really know the condition of his flock, understand their world and empathize with them in their struggles and aspirations. We need a leader whose heart is for the interest of the people and not for himself or his selfish agenda. We need a leader who truly cares, who promises life and well-being, a leader whose voice we can trust and follow.

I believe this has to be an essential part of our constant prayers-- that the merciful God send us such a leader, one who will love and take care of his people the Good Shepherd’s way.