Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1780769 times)

cassini · « **Reply #95 on:** March 05, 2025, 11:53:56 AM »

Fr Sean again.
Lent: Spiritual Spring Cleaning

I have the greatest respect for homemakers. Trying to keep a house clean is a never-ending chore. It’s amazing how dust keeps gathering on furniture, clothes, floors, etc., almost immediately after they’re cleaned. I guess it’s a reminder that our body is dust and into dust it will return (Gen 3:29). There’s another kind of dust or grit that accuмulates in our heart, namely sin. Just as we need to wash our body, floors, windows, clothes, cars, etc., we also need to clean our hearts. This is why Jesus’ Church gives us the Liturgical season of Lent. It’s a time to spring-clean our soul, both as individuals, as family and Church community. Our spiritual soul gives us the faculties of intellect and free will. The choices we make through thinking and will determine the kind of person we become. If our heart isn’t clean because our soul has been stained by sin, then our thinking becomes distorted and we will make bad choices. We make bad decisions by choosing what looks good but turns out to be bad. Lent is a time to discover, through the light of God’s grace, the sad state of our soul by examining what is in our heart and asking the Lord to purify it. Our thoughts produce our feelings, which spawn actions that identify us as persons of either good or bad character; people who practice virtues or vices.

Spring-cleaning our sin-stained soul is about exposing and getting rid of the evil in our heart by replacing our vices with virtues, our lies with truth. Sin is a word, action, attitude, desire, or pattern of behaviour that offends truth, reason, and right conscience. God hates sin. “God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom 1:18-32). Sin is a failure to genuinely love God, neighbour, and our self. To expose and rid ourselves of sin we need truth. Sin is the lie that we can make ourselves happy. Jesus Christ is the truth about what it means to be truly human, fully alive and fulfilled. He is God-become-man. It’s in embracing Jesus - “the Truth,”- that sin is exposed (Jn 14:6). Sin is always a lie, and truth always exposes lies. That’s why the demons ran from Jesus. Jesus calls Satan the “father of lies.” “He brought death to man from the beginning, and has never based himself on truth; the truth is not in him. Lying speech; he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). A lie is the basis of every sin. How? A sin is putting faith in someone or something other than God to satisfy our desires, which is a lie since only the Creator can fully satisfy the needs of the creature. Sin is a lie because it masquerades as something good for us. The temptation of Jesus by Satan brings us face-to-face with the battle between truth and lies, good and evil. Jesus calls us to counter our tendency to self-gratification with fasting; our tendency to be prideful by being prayerful; and our tendency to be greedy by giving alms.

Preparing for His public ministry, Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days. Satan figured Jesus was at least physically weak and tried to tempt Him by appealing to His bodily need for food and the human need for power and to prove that God can be trusted. St. Luke (4:1-13) depicts Satan presenting himself as Jesus’ friend offering to fulfil His needs. This is how Satan always presents himself to us. We don’t sin because it looks and feels bad, rather we do it because it looks and feels good in the moment, like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden looked delicious to Adam and Eve. Satan always appeals to our desire for immediate self-gratification. Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations by shining God’s Word – the Truth – on them and exposing them for the lies they were. To cleanse our heart we must let God’s Word fill our soul thereby exposing the lies we tell ourselves in order to justify our sins. This exposure opens us to the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness which Jesus made available in His Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation. This we recommit ourselves to Jesus as our Truth and the true nourishment of our soul.

We all struggle with an inherited fallen nature that makes us susceptible to the lie that power, prestige, possessions, popularity and pleasure will make us happy. Satan promised these to Jesus if only He would put His faith in him rather than in God. But Jesus, as the Truth, saw through the devil’s deceitfulness and exposed his promises as fraudulent. Power, popularity, possessions, and pleasure actually undermine our happiness, because they make us addicted to them and we lose our freedom. Only God’s word is the bread that satisfies our hunger for eternal happiness. Only by worshipping God and serving Him will we receive true power and glory for they belong to God alone. “The Kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours now and forever.” God is trustworthy and our Protector. We don’t need to test His care for us by pulling stupid stunts.

What lies does Satan use to tempt you and me to commit sin? He recommends that if something feels good we should do it. Something might feel good in the short term but can turn out very bad in the long term. He urges us to live only for the moment. Yes, it’s important to make the most of the present, but ignoring the past and dismissing future consequences is disastrous. Living only for the moment is conducive to selfishness and ignores our responsibility to others in the future. Finally, Satan emphasizes the necessity to look out only for ourselves. That translates into conceitedness and selfishness. Putting yourself first before everyone is the opposite of what Jesus teaches, namely “if you want to be the greatest, be the servant of all” (Mt 20: 26). These are the lies that underlie our sinfulness. These are the lies we buy into in the hope of achieving happiness, but they only bring us disappointment and betrayal. This Lent, let the Holy Spirit enlighten our thinking and examine our choices to expose the lies that motivate us to sin, so that we can spring-clean our heart through making Jesus the honoured Guest of our soul, so that we can think clearly and make good choices. Then, we will understand the words of the Psalmist (91: 1-2): “You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (fr sean)

St. Peter’s Teaching for a Spiritually Productive Lent
1. “Love one another intensely from a [pure] heart.” 1 Peter 1:22

Love can involve feelings, but it is an act of the will; it means seeking and desiring what is best for the other person. That includes everyone around us—the sick, the elderly, the preborn, and the people we don’t particularly like. Love is not just reserved for our friends and family. Furthermore, love takes sacrifice. If we are going to love intensely with a pure heart, we must show that love by giving of ourselves, by walking with others through their suffering, by spending time with others, by giving our time to those who need it, and by truly listening when people need a friend.

2. “Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” 1 Peter 2:1

This may seem like a tall order to some, as ridding ourselves of these vices can be incredibly difficult. But think of a life riddled with these sins. It’s the very opposite of the love St. Peter highlighted. When we allow ourselves to be overcome with lies and hatred, we give the devil a firm foothold on not just our lives but also our bodies. We allow him to direct our words and deeds. By doing so, we push God further away. So, if we truly want to advance the Kingdom of God on earth, we will , as faithful Catholics, do our best to act as Jesus would and to treat others with the respect and dignity they deserve as God’s children.

3. “Give honour to all, love the brothers and sisters.” 1 Peter 2:17

What does it mean to love the Church? Remember that love requires action, so loving our Church community means taking action to help one another when in need. Charity begins at home. But we can’t simply stay inside our homes and never give of ourselves to others. God asks us to think often about what others need and to perform what the Church calls “The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, e.g., visiting the sick, counselling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, feeding the hungry, visiting the homebound, etc. These acts of love allow Jesus to shine His light on the world while building His Kingdom here on earth.

4. “All of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble.” 1 Peter 3:8

Jesus taught the Golden Rule in His “Sermon on the Mount” – do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This rule seems to be forgotten in today’s world. Compassion and sympathy are in short supply today. The anonymity of social media has allowed people to say vile things to others, not caring about the damage it does. We must use our gift of speech to build others up, judge what is evil but also be merciful, not to tear down a person’s character. We must use our words to speak the truth about our Catholic Faith and God’s love, justice, and mercy experienced in the grace of repentance and the gift of repentance. This is how we truly love others.

5. “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” 1 Peter 4:9

If, when we do something for others, we do it with a complaint on our lips or in our hearts, we aren’t truly doing this service out of love. This takes effort and practice, but we must lean to joyfully give of ourselves through sharing our time, treasure, and talent. We must thank God for the opportunities he gives us to put others before our own convenience. Think about those who helped you when you were sick or injured and how their caring made a difference in your recovery. Mother Teresa said that she saw the face of God in all the people she cared for. Let’s follow her example and look for God in everyone around us (His bleeding and Divine Face) in everyone around us, especially those who need our help.

Lent is a time to examine what kind of person we are becoming through our behaviour and make positive changes – changes that we will make part of our life from here on out. Jesus calls us to be like Him – He gave the ultimate sacrifice – Himself – and in a truly painful and horrible way nailed to a tree. His agony and His death were pure gifts to us so that we can spend eternity with Him in a glorified manner. (from the Internet)

cassini · « **Reply #96 on:** March 12, 2025, 04:14:41 PM »

Fr Sean again.
Is a True Relationship with Jesus Your Ultimate Concern?

A woman recently sent me a text with the question: What are you willing to die for? It set me to reflecting on what is my greatest concern as I look to the future? Concern is defined as that which affects our happiness, or wellbeing. It can also be an expression of anxiety or caring for someone or something. Jesus calls us this 2nd week of Lent to reflect on how much concern we show for our relationship with Him. We have lots of concerns such as family, work, health, finances, children, spouse, neighbours, growing old, school, career, physique, appetite, food, addictions, or the future. But what’s our ultimate concern? What would we be willing to die for? Why is that important? Because our ultimate concern, our greatest value, is what consciously or unconsciously directs us in dealing with our day-to-day concerns. What do you want most for yourself and those you love and how will you attain it? Your answer will tell you much about your life’s goal. Our ultimate concern identifies what we think we’re here on earth for and what will bring us lasting happiness.

Lent is a time to identify our desires and direct them in such a way that satisfying them deepens our relationship with Jesus. All too frequently we’re driven to satisfy our physical desires rather than our soul’s desires. We’re much more concerned with pleasing our bodily desires, our ego, than we are with addressing our soul’s desire for God. Think about how much time you spend on thinking about food, what, when, where, and with whom you’re going to eat or cook. Eating is a major concern for everyone because it’s necessary for the health of our body. But it can become such a concern that it drowns out the cry of a starving soul. St. Paul told the Philippians: “Don’t make your stomach your God.” We can have a well-fed body but a malnourished soul and it shows in our selfish attitude. No matter how concerned we might be with feeding our body, we should be much more concerned about properly feeding our soul. The seven deadly sins, namely pride, anger, lust, greed, sloth, envy, jealousy, gluttony and an obtuse spirit reflect a soul that is famished. That’s why God, who fully revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, is essential in our life. He is the necessary food for our soul. We can satisfy our physical desires but only Jesus can satisfy our spiritual desires. An ill-nourished soul always causes life to be sluggish, no matter how well-fed the body might be. Our ultimate concern should be how we can have a healthy soul so that we can live fully and joyfully.

Since God created our soul, we must turn to Him to nourish it. Our spiritual soul is what makes us human and is the essence of who we at in the depths of our being, our self. Our parents created our body but God directly infused a spiritual soul into our body at the moment of conception, which makes us God’s creation and not just our parents’ child. To be concerned about our soul is to be concerned about our self – the kind of person we are and want to become. The more we ask God to nourish our soul the more positive and self-possessed we will be. A miserable, angry, mean, greedy, lustful, slothful, prideful, jealous, envious, gluttonous self always signifies a mal-nourished soul. Jesus alone can feed our soul and free us from these vices by replacing them with virtues, making us pure and wholesome. He has made Himself the “Bread of Life” for our soul (Jn 6:35).

To ensure that we possess a well-nourished soul, a healthy self, we need to realize that God created us to be citizens of Heaven and therefore Heaven should be our ultimate concern. “As you well know, we have our citizenship in Heaven; it is from there that we eagerly await the coming of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will give a new form to this lowly body of ours and remake it according to the pattern of His glorified body, by His power to subject everything to Himself” (Phil 3:20-21). God the Father makes us citizens of Heaven through Baptism into Jesus’ Church where He transfigures our fallen nature and makes us adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus through the love of the Holy Spirit. A good citizen is recognized by making a positive impact on the world. That means you and I must strive to make a positive impact on the Church and the world. To be good citizens of Heaven we must freely subject ourselves to Christ as members of His Church by doing what He teaches. Why? Because, in the words of the Psalmist, Jesus is, “…my light and my salvation … the Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?” (Ps 27:1). As our light, Jesus focuses us on what makes us fully human, namely our soul. The more we focus on our soul’s health the more we will also maintain a healthy body and keep its desires in check, thus avoiding self-gratification and binging. We want our body to be the means through which we express who we are in our soul, what makes us who we truly are. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus shines His light on us to expose our sinfulness, so that we can repent and be cleansed by His grace, thus refreshing our soul. What affects our soul affects our body and vice versa. Sin is a sign that we’re abusing our soul by overindulging our bodily and its blind desires. Jesus asks, “What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and suffered the loss of his soul?” (Lk 9:25).

Jesus’ light is always for our good, as experienced by Peter, James and John when they saw Him transfigured before them. Peter, totally awed by the vision, exclaimed, “Master, how good it is for us to be here” (Lk 9:33).Then God revealed to them, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to Him” (Lk 9:35). This is why Jesus gently chided Martha when she was upset that Mary sat listening to Jesus while she felt alone preparing dinner: “Martha, Martha you are concerned and upset about many things; one thing only is required. Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it” (Lk 10:41-42). Martha’s concern was different from |Mary’s. Martha’s concern was preparing dinner. Mary’s concern was spending time listening to Jesus. You and I may be concerned or anxious about many things, but what should concern us most is being with Jesus Christ. This calls for us to sacrifice our time to be with Him in prayer, adoration, and Holy Mass. Only He can nourish our soul and make us happy. This week, examine your many concerns and decide to make your relationship with Jesus your ultimate concern. That will put all your other concerns and anxieties in perspective making sure you won’t become overwhelmed. If you want to be happy, let your ultimate concern be about deepening your relationship with Jesus Christ in His Church. It’s always fulfilling to be with Jesus listening to Him because He has the words of eternal life. But for that to happen, my relationship with Him as a member of His Church must be my ultimate concern! Because Jesus is the only one who died for love of me, He is the only one worth dying for love of Him. (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #97 on:** March 19, 2025, 12:18:20 PM »

Fr Sean again.
Without Repentance There’s No Forgiveness

In the lives of the Church’s saints the one thing all have in common is that the closer they came to God the more conscious they became of their sinfulness and their need for repentance. Lent is a special time when God gives us the grace through His Church to prepare ourselves to be like Simon and help Jesus carry His cross. The more we focus on empathizing with Jesus on the Way of the Cross the more we experience the great sacrifice He made on our behalf so that we might be saved from our sinfulness. The more we see how much He suffered for us the more we will be motivated to stop nailing Him to the cross by our sins which are our refusals to love Him and do what He tells us. Repentance and a commitment to change our sinful behaviour are necessary for forgiveness. Jesus reminds us that “if you do not repent, you will perish” (Lk 13:5) because forgiveness without repentance means that we aren’t truly sorry and therefore we’re neither receptive to the grace of forgiveness nor willing to change our sinful behaviour. Remember that God gives us only so many chances to get our lives in order so let’s not procrastinate.

Repentance is the freely chosen act of recognizing and deeply regretting our wrongdoing, accompanied by a deep desire to atone for the damage our sins have done to ourselves and to others. Apart from its spiritual value, repentance is essential for the mental and emotional wellbeing of our relationships with God and with one another. The spiritual writer, Thomas a Kempis, noted that “the acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step toward repairing our loss.” In repenting we face who we are and what we need to change if we want to be truly faithful members of Jesus’ Church. Jesus’ Church emphasizes the importance of repentance, which must be heartfelt, by teaching us that His “call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before Him, does not aim first at outward works, ‘sackcloth and ashes,’ fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false …” (CCC 1430). Remember that “Nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him impure; that which comes out of him, and only that, constitutes impurity …wicked designs come from the deep recesses of the heart” (Mk 7:15, 21). It is what’s in our heart that drives us either toward good or bad.

To repent is to change one’s heart. How? The Holy Spirit tells us, “Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (Joel 2:12-13). Jesus reminds us that “where your treasure is there is your heart also” (Mt 6:21). Repentance comes from recognizing God as our most precious treasure and to Whom we give our whole heart. God wants our whole heart, not just a piece of it, because He wants to inflame our heart with His to bless, heal, and perfect our flawed humanity. Jesus has no time for half-heartedness. “But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:16). Repentance is about coming back to God with ALL our heart. What does this involve?

Jesus’ Church teaches us that repentance involves a radical conversion. To be radical is to get to the root of something, the basics, and the kernel of who we are, namely sinners who can’t save ourselves and are in desperate need of God to raise us up from the corruption. The Church teaches us that, “Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end to sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and the resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of His grace” (CCC 1431). The motivation for this “radical reorientation” comes from God Himself through Jesus present in His Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit promises us that by repenting God “pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion … secures justice and the rights of the oppressed … so surpassing is His kindness toward those who fear Him” (Ps 103:1-11).

We hear a lot about inclusion today but we don’t hear much about repentance and the fact that if we don’t repent God doesn’t include us in His Church. Why? God’s Word is neither taught or preached by many bishops and priests, nor understood by many Church members. Relativism and self-absorption along with the illusion of saving the planet are our downfall. We’re so stuck today on thinking that we must save the planet that we can’t risk admitting our flaws and our sinfulness demonstrating that we can’t even save ourselves. Without God there is only death on our horizon. Instead of repenting for our sins we avoid them by making everything permissible even though it leaves us stressed, lonely, and isolated in superficial, broken or perverted relationships. We suffer from the illusion that we can heal and forgive ourselves. St. Paul warns us: “Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1 Cor 10:12). But without God’s Spirit we can’t help but fall since we’re all sinners. Sin is like cancer; even if we don’t admit that we’ve sinned it still eats away at our soul and disposes our heart to Satan’s wiles that cause our humanity to deteriorate. Again, like cancer, the sooner we recognize sin’s existence in us and repent the better are our chances of healing and living joyfully.

Repentance is powerful. In a homily, St. John Chrysostom (c. 388 A.D.) noted that repentance, “alone will turn a wolf into a sheep, make a publican a preacher, turn a thorn into an olive, make a debauchee a religious fellow.” It brings about a radical reorientation of our heart toward the things of God expressed in faith, hope, and charity. To facilitate this need for repentance in preparation for forgiveness Jesus bestowed on His Church, through her bishops and priests, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is a powerful expression of God’s initiative in saving us from our sinfulness. Here He enables us to enter into a more intimate relationship with Jesus and through Him with one another empowered by the Holy Spirit. The grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness are two of the most important gifts Jesus brought to this fallen world. Repentance calls for an examination of conscience: Where have I failed to lovingly obey God’s Commandments and live Jesus’ Beatitudes along with fidelity to the laws of the Church? Let’s remember to repent, confess our sins, and experience the forgiveness of God that brings us a refreshed sense of wellbeing. You and I, with a repentant heart seeking forgiveness can experience God actually saving us when the priest pronounces the holy words of Absolution in the Sacrament of Penance. It is in the repentance and forgiveness of sins that we know that God is saving us in that moment (Lk 1:77). (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #98 on:** March 27, 2025, 01:43:42 PM »

Fr Sean again.
The Marvelous Ministry of Reconciliation

The Church has now passed the midpoint of her holy season of Lent. In Jesus’ Name she speaks to us about the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation etymologically means “calling together again.” Thus the ministry of reconciliation is actually God the Father calling us together again after we’ve separated ourselves from Him and from one another through our sinfulness. He initiates that call through Christ. Thus God wants us to be "re-newed" - freed from the corruption of sin - and restored to His original design for us. St Paul (2 Cor 5:17-21) under the guidance of the Holy Spirit informs us that, “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” Jesus replaces the old things reflecting the way of sin with new things that reflect the way of grace. “And all of this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation …”

Grace is God’s presence to us in the Person of Jesus, present in His Church in His glorified body, making us new through rebirth into a new Kingdom giving us a new hope – the hope of Heavenly happiness. He brought the ministry of reconciliation to the fallen human world. Christ is God’s Reconciler. Jesus is the means through which the broken relationship between human beings and God has been mended through the New Covenant that we break when we sin. That renewal of the Covenant relationship between God and us is experienced in reconciliation and celebrated in the Holy Mass. Reconciliation is the visible sign that forgiveness is real and relationships have not just been mended but made new, deepened and enriched because of confession, contrition, satisfaction, and absolution from sin. All this Jesus makes possible in and through His Catholic Church.

If Jesus is the reconciler, His followers must be both beneficiaries and promoters of reconciliation. This is one key way that we show that we are His followers and participants in the salvation of the world. We can truly represent Jesus only if we thoroughly believe in and promote reconciliation in our families, parishes, workplaces, wherever we are. His greatest gift to mankind is the gift of reconciliation which He brought about in uniting divinity and humanity in Himself – one Person with two natures. We, as His followers, must be promoters of this essential gift necessary for salvation from sin. Reconciliation is about the reunification of humanity and divinity.

St. Paul reminds us that we “are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.” Appealing for what? God appeals to everyone to seek the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. The word “ambassador” means servant or minister.

What does it mean to be an ambassador of Christ? In the secular world an ambassador represents a political government or group and serves its interests by promoting its values. An ambassador of Christ serves the interests of Jesus’ Church by explaining and promoting and defending its values. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be able to give reasonable explanations of the teachings of Christ and policies and disciplines of His Church. Bishops, priests, and deacons have a special role as ambassadors of Christ because Holy Orders leave an indelible mark on their souls designating their unique service and ministry to the laity.

Every member of the Church, whether ordained or lay, is obligated to give witness and hand on the Faith. Therefore each of us must be trustworthy in serving Jesus according to our ministry. Trustworthiness requires us to be obedient to Christ as faithful Catholics, honest, reliable, loyal, and people of integrity unafraid to confront those who would mock or destroy Catholic teaching. An ambassador must have the utmost respect for his or her government or organization. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must have total respect for Him and His Church. Respect requires us to always be civil, courteous, decent, and tolerant, but never at the expense of His truth. It also requires us to be autonomous by taking responsibility for ourselves. We must make sure that our sense of honesty is not diluted by self-interest, self-protection, self-deception, and self-righteousness.

An ambassador has an acute sense of responsibility to be loyal to his or her government or organization. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be responsible and loyal to Him and His Church. Responsibility calls for accountability and a commitment to excellence. This calls for prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance enhanced by the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The ambassador as a servant of Jesus in His Church must pray daily in the words of the Psalmist (34:2-7), “Glorify the Lord with me, let us together extol His Name.”

Jesus is God’s Ambassador and the Reconciler par excellence. We hear Him in action this Sunday in His Church’s proclamation of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:1-2, 11-12). In this story, Jesus demonstrates what it means to be an ambassador of reconciliation in the person of the father who willingly welcomes back his repentant son and pleads with his hard-hearted and unforgiving older son to be happy that the family is intact once again. Jesus reveals that His Father is a God of reconciliation waiting for us to repent and seek His forgiveness for our selfishness. Jesus is His Ambassador calling all people to come together and be united with Him in His Church. We as the Church are Jesus’ ambassadors. Thus we must be believers in reconciliation both for ourselves and others. This is our challenge during this season of Lent. The unity of the world is depending on the example of the Church members practicing repentance and forgiveness through the grace of God. How privileged we are to have the great Sacrament of Reconciliation available to us that engenders hope in our hearts despite our proneness to sin! Let us benefit from it frequently so that, as God reconciles us to Him and to His Church, we in turn may be able to genuinely call others to benefit from this divine grace that reflects God’s justice and mercy in the ministry of reconciliation. (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #99 on:** April 02, 2025, 11:31:18 AM »

Fr Sean again.
Let Go of Your Past and Let God into Your Present

Everything we do is motivated by the belief that there is some benefit in it for us. The moment we see that there’s no benefit in it, either directly or indirectly, we stop doing it. A psychiatrist asked his patient what was the problem. Patient: “It’s my wife, she’s historical!” Doctor: “You mean, hysterical?” Patient: “No! I mean historical. She keeps bringing up the past.” Alcoholics Anonymous have a slogan, “Let go and let God.” God is the One who is always present – Yahweh. Holding on to the past prevents us from living in and making the most of the present. The value of the past is that it shows us our mistakes and sinfulness so that we can avoid them in the present. So seeing that what we thought benefited us in the past actually was bad for us, we’re now able to see through its false promise and the good we thought was in it for us was actually evil disguised as good. If we’re to be free we must let go of the past and let God perfect us in the present rather than trying to perfect and make ourselves happy. We must neither become victims or prisoners of our past nor fearful of our future. Refusing to let go of the past or put aside fear of the future robs us of making the necessary changes in the present, which is the only time we have to live life as fully as possible.

Jesus’ Church alerts us to God’s call not to be stuck in the past but to focus on what He is doing in us in the present. “Thus says the Lord,…Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! … I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink…” (Is 43:16-21). What is He doing in and for us that’s new? He slakes our spiritual thirst for Him. The human spirit longs for the divine Spirit for its refreshment, encouragement, hope, perfection, passion, and joy. But this requires us to surrender to God, admitting that we can’t move forward and be happy without the Holy Spirit in us watering our soul. That means we must be present to God who helps us to live fully in the present, having learned what to avoid from the past. We can’t undo the past, but we can learn from it what’s good or bad for us. What we think will make us the happiest determines what we see as good or bad for us. What we think is good for us, we allow to control us. The only one to whom we give control over us without losing our freedom is God.

The Psalmist prayed, “The Lord has done great things for us, we are glad indeed … Those that sow in tears shall reap rejoicing” (Ps 126:3, 5). What great things has the Lord done for you and me? He sent a Saviour to save us from our sinful past, so we can let it go in order to enter a peaceful present with a joyful future in which to hope. That’s why St. Paul proclaimed, “I believe nothing will happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…. I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in Him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts … but I want only the perfection that comes from faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith” (Phil 3:8-9). The great thing Jesus did for Paul was to help him see that what he thought would benefit him as a Jew would actually lead him away from the God he thought he was serving. Jesus helped St. Paul to let go of his past beliefs and embrace God’s new revelation that would bring him to Heaven. Having let go of his past that he thought would benefit him, Paul concentrated on the new way to perfection through faith in Christ Jesus. “My entire attention is on the finish line as I run toward the prize toward which God calls me – life on high in Jesus Christ. All you who are spiritually mature must have this attitude” (Phil 3:14-15). St. Paul let go of his past and let God enter his present showing him what would truly perfect him, namely unity with Jesus, now and forever.

St. John’s Gospel demonstrates why Paul considered everything he relied upon as rubbish compared to being in the presence of Jesus. We see the great things God does in the story of the woman caught committing adultery. She’s both a victim and a prisoner of her past immorality. According to Jєωιѕн law her past actions were punishable by stoning to death. The scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus to determine her fate based on her past. They didn’t really care about the woman but were using her to try and trap Jesus into breaking the law. If He didn’t condemn her they could accuse Him of breaking the Mosaic Law and have Him put to death. If He condemned her they could ridicule His teaching on mercy and forgiveness. Jesus saw through them and went to the root of the matter, namely the hypocrisy of sinners calling for punishment of other sinners. He challenged the accusers to reflect on their own sins: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7). They all walked away beginning with the oldest. No one is without sin and, therefore, no one is in a position to cast a stone at anyone else. Jesus was the only one without sin, and the only one who could cast a stone of condemnation. So He asked the woman, “Has no one condemned you? … Nor do I condemn you. You may go, but from now on don’t do sin anymore” (Jn 8:10-11). Jesus didn’t come to condemn the sinner to death but to call the sinner to repentance and to amend his or her life. He condemns sin in all its forms but not human beings. He loves the sinner to repent and seek His forgiveness. He saved her from her sinful past and told her to let it go, so she could enter a grace-filled present and a hope-filled future free from the slavery to her sinfulness. He came to tell us that our sin which we do because we think it benefits us actually destroys us. He told the woman not to sin anymore because if she did there might not be anyone to save her. Jesus helps us let go of our sinful past, our tendency to judge others as worse than us, and recover the freedom God wants us to have, namely the freedom that comes from growing in His image and likeness witnessing justice, peace, and mercy to others. Let go of your past and let God enter your present with His promise of a bright future as a faithful member of His Holy Church. He does new things in you when you meet Him in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Mass. (fr sean)

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