February 11, 2024
Jesus encounters a leper. Our sin is like leprosy of the soul. His Mercy offers us a Sacrament to liberate us from our sin. What did Jesus say to St. Faustina about this Sacrament?
This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable. It has not been verified by the author.
“If you wish, you can make me clean.” If you wish you can make me clean. The readings that are speaking about leprosy, and leprosy was often seen as a symbol of sin. Because God often uses visible, physical things that teach us about things which are invisible and spiritual. And so the psalm today right after the reading about leprosy, the Psalm says, “Blessed it is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered. Blessed the man to whom the Lord imputes not guilt. In whose spirit there is no guile.” And then the psalm speaks of confessing it says, “Therefore I acknowledged my sin to You, my guilt I covered not. I said, I confess my faults to the Lord, and you took away the guilt of my sin.” So it’s speaking about confession, and Jesus, confessing to the Lord and Jesus to the leper today, He says, “Go, show yourself to the priest.” And so that reminds us of the sacrament that Jesus has given to the Church, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where Jesus touches the leprosy of our souls, to heal us, to free us. I’m going to try to shorten my homily today, because we have the meeting afterwards. So some of you may not believe, like give a shorter homily, we’ll see. So I just want to focus on Jesus words to St. Faustina where He’s talking about this sacrament. He says, “Tell souls where they are to look for solace.” That is there, the greatest miracles take place. We’re a soul like a decaying corpse. That is because of mortal sin where a soul like a decaying corpse, so that from a human standpoint, there would be no hope of restoration, and everything would already be lost. That’s a very grave sin. He says, “but it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full,” the miracle of Divine Mercy. And another time, He said to St. Faustina, “when you go to confession, to this fountain of Mercy.” So that’s what confession is, a fountain of Mercy. The blood and water, which came forth from my heart, always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it.” So the blood and water which flowed from the Heart of Jesus at the cross. And that’s what’s represented in the red rays and the white rays in the image of Divine Mercy. That’s why we have the image of Divine Mercy, right there in our confessional to remind us that it’s the blood and water, which comes from Jesus crucified, which is not the power of the priest. It’s the blood and water from the Heart of Jesus crucified, which flows down upon our soul and washes it clean. That’s why it’s so powerful. That’s why no matter what the sin, if the person turns to Jesus, the power of His blood is more powerful than any sin. And so imagine that, the grace that you receive in the sacraments. It’s not like that, you know, if we’re all dirty, and sweaty, it’s good to take a shower, we’d like to take a shower. But this is like a shower for our soul. And He says, “when you approach the confessional, know this, that I myself, am there waiting for you. I’m only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in a soul.” Think of that, when we go to confession. It’s Jesus Himself is waiting for you. That changes that a whole lot. That’s not that the priest is the one we see, but it’s Jesus Himself. He says that He’s waiting for you. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy, souls join grace is solely with the vessel of trust. “If their trust is great, there’s no limit to My generosity.” But what He needs from us is our trust. First of all, to believe His words about the sacrament, and to believe in His mercy if it’s been a long time since we’ve been to confession, or if we have things that are hard to confess, maybe things we’re very ashamed of, things that maybe happened a long time ago. Or if we struggle with the same thing over and over again, this is an opportunity to give Jesus, the greater the joy that He has in forgiving. So think of the joy that you give to Jesus when you bring your sins to Him, with trust and humility in the sacrament. And so to conclude…. so that’s pretty fast, right? Remember, this day this was the first time. So to conclude, you might want to just close your eyes and listen to these words again. “When you go to confession, to this fountain of Mercy, the blood and water, which came forth from my heart, always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I myself, am waiting there for you. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy.” Amen.
KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Mark 1:40-45
Psalm 32:1-2,5,11