24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Francis)

 “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.” Do you believe that? No, do you really believe that? That Christ Jesus came to save sinners? Your answer to this question will reveal a lot about your heart, and in reality, it will influence the way you live your entire life. If, for example, you say “No I don’t really believe that,” it means you think either that Jesus did not come to save sinners, meaning He was a liar, or it means that you think there is no such thing as a “sinner,” or even “sin” for that matter. Those who say such things — and please God that we never do! — are those who do not think sinful things are actually evil. They say “I may not like them. You may not like them. But they can’t be sinful because there is no such thing as ‘sin’ and ‘evil.’” Those sorts of people can be likened to the Israelites in the first reading, who had “become depraved” by “turning away from the way [God] pointed out to them,” to the point that they started worshipping some image of a cow and committing all sorts of sins that would make any pious person blush with shame.

On the other hand, we have an even more frightening scenario: if we answer yes to believing that Jesus came to save sinners (which we must, by the way!), we admit two things: the first is that sin is something real. It is something that plagues us all and to which we have all been subject to some degree — we have all committed sin. This is frightening because it means we are slaves of death and are justly condemnable to an eternity in hell . . . At the same time, however! It also means that we believe what St. Paul said really is “trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” It means that we really believe that Jesus did in fact come to die on the Cross to save us from the power of sin and death. This means that we too can, also like St. Paul, rejoice to say that we “have been mercifully treated.” For by dying on the Cross, Jesus made it possible for us to leave the power of sin and be remade in the power of His life and grace.

Notice the clear difference here. Those who say Christ Jesus did not die for sinners end up in worse sin than they were before, and they can even end up on a path that takes them from bad to worse: the Israelites had to wander for forty difficult years in the desert. Those who say that Jesus did die for sinners, though, end up joyful, and thankful, even praising God that they were once sinners. This is because they recognize that in Jesus sin does not have power over them any longer. They, and hopefully we, recognize that He has freed us from sin by His Passion, and has, in showing mercy to us sinners, allowed us a chance to go even further from sin and come closer to Him, “the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God.”

A second question presents itself here, one which naturally follows the first. If the first was “do you believe Christ Jesus died to save sinners?”, the second which follows is, “If so, what do you do with that belief?” In other words, if you have said yes to the first question, what happens next? I said your answer would affect how you live, so how do you live based on this first question and your response? The Gospel today gives the various possibilities.

The first two parables give us examples of what should happen when someone else repents: the reaction, even among the angels, is one of rejoicing! And the reason is simple: something lost has been found. We have all had that light and joyful feeling when we finally found something important that had been lost. Well, the angels, and even God, rejoice when a sinner is “found” — that is when he comes back to God and asks for mercy — because a soul has been “found again.” And a soul is so many times important than a sheep or a coin. On the other hand, however, there are those who do not rejoice at such things. They are miserable when other people repent of their sinful ways. There can be many reasons for their miserable reaction, but the result is the same, as we see in the third Gospel parable today. The older brother is upset at his brother’s repentance and his father’s joy at “finding” the lost son. The result is that the older brother ends up lost himself! He excludes himself, willingly, from the fun of the party, but even more importantly, from his father’s love. He leaves the father’s house, which is exactly what the younger son did in the first place. He ends up in the same darkness that he condemns in his brother’s past. So, there are two options for us as well, then. We can rejoice like the angels and the father when we see someone’s repentance and request for mercy, or we can end up grumpy, miserable, and loveless like the older brother. And, again, it all comes back to whether you believe Christ Jesus died for sinners to set us free.

Now for the hard part. Our answer to this question does not only affect our reactions to other people and the way they live their lives. It also, and more immediately, affects the way we go about living our own. It affects whether we try to do good or evil. Look at the third parable again. The son who has gone off from his father and lived a life of sin eventually realized that he was in fact sinning his life away. It had gotten to the point that he was living with the pigs! His life had become no better than a pigsty. Once it had gotten that bad and he had nowhere else to turn — and perhaps had no worse sin he could commit — he realized how far he had fallen. He remembered the goodness of his father, of his father’s love, and of his father’s house. And so, full of disgust for his sinful ways, he says “I will rise and go to my father.” In essence, he went on to say “I will return to him whom I have rejected and ask his forgiveness for my sins. He may not treat me the same, but I cannot go on like this.” To his joyful surprise, his father does treat him the same, and even better. For now he treats him not only like his beloved son, but as his beloved son who has returned to life again in the father’s house. How could there not be a feast?! By asking forgiveness, his son was basically asking to be brought back from the land of death! And by forgiving him, the father granted such a radical request.

So where do you find yourself in answer to the questions I have asked? Do you rejoice like an angel when someone asks forgiveness, or bitterly hold a grudge? As for yourself, do you stay outside the father’s house, or come back to him asking forgiveness? You of course do not have to answer out loud now, but I would like you to answer well and soon. There are two ways to do so. One is to pray psalm 51, which we heard part of just a moment ago. If you truly believe that Jesus died for sinners, and that you are a sinner like the rest of us, pray that psalm which asks for forgiveness, but also pray it like one who knows God is willing to forgive—He sent His Son to die for sinners, so you can rest assured that He will forgive! For “[b]y going so far as to give up his own Son for us, God reveals that he is ‘rich in mercy’” (CCC 211).

The second way is even more important. If you believe that Jesus came to die for sinners, you admit that you are a sinner, and because of that you must go to confession. By going to confession, we act like the younger brother in the Gospel who recognized his sinfulness and his need for help. None of us can help ourselves out of sin. We can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It is absolutely impossible, my friends. Whenever we try we end up rolling around in the muck with the pigs. If, however, we are humble enough to say like that younger brother that “we have sinned against heaven” and that we must “rise and go to the Father,” then not only will we be taken out of the pigsty, but we will also be forgiven by the priest who gives forgiveness in the Name of God, and then all of heaven will rejoice to see us return. For each time we go to confession, we return to the house of our Father in heaven. We tell Him we have sinned against Him, and in return, if we are truly sorry, He looks at us with love and tells us that “now we must celebrate and rejoice, because [you were] dead and [have] come to life again; [you were] lost and [have] been found.”

Please think about the questions I have posed. In the end, I hope they help draw you closer to the Lord. I hope too that they will help you prepare to make a good confession in the coming days. You know the hours — they are also in the bulletin. I hope they won’t be enough this week!

Fr. A. Francis HGN