Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in OT, Year C
September 12, 2010
Ex 32:7-11,13-14; 1 Tim 1:12-17; Lk 15:1-32
The following text guided today’s homily:
- St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
- Easter Sunday evening, Jesus said, “as the Father sent me, so I send you.” Jesus’ mission was to save sinners from their sins; the apostles’ mission, the Church’s mission, would be the same. He breathed the Holy Spirit on the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven; those whose sins are retained are retained.”
- Today’s readings are all about God’s mercy.
- First reading, Moses intercedes with God for mercy on behalf of the Israelites, who were proudly returning to the worship of money and nature in the golden calf.
- The Responsorial Psalm is all about God’s mercy, in which we ask God in his goodness to have mercy on us, to wipe out our offenses, to thoroughly wash us from our guilt, cleanse us of our sins and give us a new, clean heart and contrite and humbled spirit.
- The second reading – St. Paul describes how, though he was once a blasphemer, a persecutor and arrogant, even though he was the foremost sinner, he was mercifully treated so as to serve as an example that God’s mercy is real.
- In the Gospel we have three parables about God’s mercy and the joy it gives God to reconcile. We have the lost sheep, and how Jesus goes out in search of us. The lost coin (marriage, like an ancient wedding ring that is so valuable) and the lost Son (or two lost sons).
- Faced with the reality that Jesus came to the world to forgive sinners and that the Church is called to live this same mission, we need to ask ourselves whether we, as disciples and apostles, are living within this mission. If to be saved, we need to be saved from our sins, are we? Second, if our task for Jesus, is to continue his mission of the salvation of sinners, are we fulfilling that mission? I’d like to focus on each of these aspects.
- Receiving God’s mercy
- In the parable of the prodigal son, we see what sin is. It first begins with pretending that God is dead, at a practical level. Then we wander from him and his house. We waste our inheritance of grace and dignity. We fall further and further until we hit rock bottom. Hopefully we come to our senses and begin the journey home.
- The reality is that many Catholics prefer the path to moral pigsties rather that the Father’s house. Jesus on Easter Sunday evening created the essence of the sacrament of confession, but often they never receive it. They are practically speaking Protestants in their understanding of the sacrament, thinking that God can forgive their sins in the way they establish rather than in the way he established. This is ludicrous. Could you just take bread and wine and go to your basement and somehow make the Eucharist yourself without doing it the way Jesus established through priests he ordained to do this in memory of me? What makes you think you can have your sins forgiven on your own by excluding the very same priests Jesus sent out with the power of the Holy Spirit to forgive and retain sins in his name? This is a trick of the devil. If we need to be forgiven of our sins to be saved, and if we need the sacrament of confession to have our sins forgiven, then he is going to do everything he can to prevent our making a good confession.
- Yet there is a more common problem, again brought about by the devil. Many believe in the power of the sacrament, but just don’t come to receive it, or receive it far less often and as quickly as they need. Rather than nipping a sin in the bud — for example, when they began to consider leaving the father’s house, or desiring a life of dissipation — they stay away from God’s sacrament until they wander further and further away and hit rock bottom. Priests see this all the time. For example, someone will come to confession during Lent and confess that it’s been a year since his last confession. Then they will recount the big sins of the last year: missing several Masses on Sunday and Holy Days; harboring hatred or lack of forgiveness toward some family members or in-laws; confessing to sins of impurity like pornography; barely praying; using some foul language; telling some lies. When the priest asks them, why they stayed away for so long when they had committed several mortal sins, they often have no real reply. When the priest asks them, as he must, whether they abstained from receiving Holy Communion, either way the penitent responds, it’s a tragedy. If the person received in the state of mortal sin, it’s obviously a tragedy. But if the person justly did not receive, the tragedy is that the person stayed away from the greatest gift in human life for months, when all the person needed to do was to repent and come and make a good confession and be filled with God’s mercy.
- One of my biggest concerns as your pastor, with the duty to try to bring you to heaven, is that many parishioners won’t make it because they don’t come to get their sins forgiven. I’d estimate that only about 20 percent of parishioners come to confession here. I know there’s some who will go to LaSalette, or to the Chapel, or to one of the local parishes — all of which is good — but then there are others who just don’t come regularly, who say they come to Mass every Sunday but who haven’t been to confession in several years. Catholics are supposed to go at least once a year, but that’s just if the only sins that have been committed are venial; if we commit serious sins, we should go to confession as soon as possible, because we don’t know the day or the hour. I hear confessions six days a week here because I know that people commit sins on other days of the week except Saturday morning or early afternoon. The first lesson we learn today is to come to receive God’s mercy.
- Sharing the Father’s Joy in Reconciling Sinners
- Setting of Parable, Pharisees were upset that Jesus was a friend of sinners, welcoming them, eating with them, saving them.
- One of the reasons why we don’t rejoice is because of our sins. We take comfort in the fact that others’ sins are worse. But the older brother was full of jealously, didn’t relate to his father as a son or his brother as a sibling, had not forgiven for not having a kid to kill to celebrate with friends.
- What would happen here if we had 100 drug dealers and prostitutes here at Mass next week? Would you be happy or would you have felt happier the previous week without them? Would we actually make them feel comfortable or treat them in a cold way?
- Bringing others to receive his mercy
- Not by pointing a finger and telling them they need forgiveness but attracting them back.
- St. Paul shows us the path in today’s second reading by understanding he’s proof positive that God in fact reconciles sinners.
- In order for us to be able to do this, we first need to receive the sacrament so as to be able to describe those fruits and invite them to come with us.
- God’s greatest joy is to reconcile lost and dead sons and daughters.
- Do we love others enough to save them?
- Our mission, the reason why we’re alive, is to continue Jesus’ mission of the forgiveness of sins. May he strengthen us to do our part, by loving his mercy, receiving it and then singing his merciful love to others, so that we and they both can say, as we sang in the responsorial psalm, “I will rise and go to my father.”
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 EX 32:7-11, 13-14
“Go down at once to your people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
“I see how stiff-necked this people is, ” continued the LORD to Moses.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation.”
But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying,
“Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with such great power and with so strong a hand?
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
and how you swore to them by your own self, saying,
‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky;
and all this land that I promised,
I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.’”
So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.
Responsorial Psalm PS 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. I will rise and go to my father.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. I will rise and go to my father.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. I will rise and go to my father.
Reading 2 1 TM 1:12-17
Beloved:
I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord,
because he considered me trustworthy
in appointing me to the ministry.
I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant,
but I have been mercifully treated
because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.
Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant,
along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Of these I am the foremost.
But for that reason I was mercifully treated,
so that in me, as the foremost,
Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example
for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.
To the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God,
honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia 2 COR 5:19
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 15:1-32
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So to them he addressed this parable.
“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?
And when he does find it,
he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous people
who have no need of repentance.
“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one
would not light a lamp and sweep the house,
searching carefully until she finds it?
And when she does find it,
she calls together her friends and neighbors
and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’
In just the same way, I tell you,
there will be rejoicing among the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Then he said,
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’
So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him,
and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns,
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’
He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”