New Life With Jesus

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.” This woman, we don’t know what happened to the man, but this woman, from one moment, she’s with the man committing adultery, and then suddenly she’s caught and then dragged out in public, and she’s about to be stoned. So, this is the last hour of her life. And what a terrible way to end suddenly, from that moment to suddenly being not only, not only dying, but dying with public humiliation and with the weight of the sin that she had just committed on her as she’s dying. And so in just a few moments, everything had changed from the when she was with the man, and then suddenly, in this situation as her life is about to end in the most tragic way. And then there’s an encounter with Jesus. And the encounter with Jesus, a lot of you know that the retreats we were giving were called ‘An Encounter with Jesus.’ And that wasn’t a title that we came up with. It was the Lord himself, when we began these retreats over 30 years ago, because they actually began even before our community began. Over 30 years ago, the Lord gave us that title, Encounter with Jesus.  And today we have an example of that. And so, this woman has the sin and weight of what she has done, and the sin and weight of her past, and now she’s just about to die. And last week, we were hearing the parable, “the prodigal son”, and which is another example of someone beginning to realize the weight the baggage of their past sins. And all of us, especially as we get older, accumulate as we’re all sinners, we accumulate the weight, the baggage of our past, and not just sins, but also all the sadness, all the problems that the humiliations that we experience, the injuries, whether the physical or other types of injuries. And there’s our failures, our defeats, and so there’s all that type of weight that can weigh down on us. But then we have a very different example in the second reading, which is about Saul of Tarsus, who will become St Paul. That’s a very different situation. He, on the contrary, was very proud of his past. He felt very righteous. So, there was a lot of spiritual pride. He boasted of his past. So, I’ll just start a few verses before the selection we had today. He says, “If any man thinks he has reasons for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, born of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” So, he had been very proud of his righteousness and of his privilege of being of the people of Israel. So, he had considered himself such a holy, holy person, and then he has an encounter with Jesus. And we can maybe say that he has an Illumination of conscience in that encounter with Jesus, and suddenly he sees his life very differently. Suddenly what he was so proud of, he now sees all that sin in what he had felt so righteous about, and so he has the horror of realizing how wrong he has been. So, this light, his encounter with Jesus, and the light that comes from Jesus, as I say, it’s like an Illumination of Conscience, reveals his sin. And so, we see these two different encounters with Jesus. The woman didn’t encounter Jesus because she was seeking Jesus. It was the terrible, tragic moment and the evil intention, actually, of the people who are accusing her, who were not so much, – their interest was, above all, trying to trap Jesus. But that circumstance was also an encounter with Jesus, and Jesus, who does not condemn her, but who gives her the opportunity to change. Last week, we had that key passage from St Paul. He says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.” And that’s the opportunity that Jesus is giving to this woman to begin something new, and also, with Saul. And so, I want to read this passage from Saul from St Paul, and where he’s talking about his encounter with Jesus and the effect that it had on his life. And listen, he doesn’t just say, then, I discovered the faith, I embraced the faith, I entered the Church, I became a Christian. All those are true. But he doesn’t say it that way. What he talks about is an encounter with a person, with the person of Jesus Christ. And I was thinking about how much that corresponds, for instance, to this great image of Divine Mercy. Because the image of Divine Mercy is not, it’s not something abstract, it’s a person, right? It’s clearly an image of a person, Jesus and with that, that very simple inscription, Jesus, I trust in You. And so that’s what St Paul is talking about. He says, “Whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord.” So, it’s all about Jesus, this encounter, this knowing Jesus, “for His sake.” So, he’s not talking about something abstract or theoretical. He says he’s talking about a person “for His sake.” He doesn’t just say, because I began to realize this idea or something like that. He says, “for His sake”, because of this person, Jesus Christ, “for His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things.” But it doesn’t just say I’ve suffered the loss of all things, that is, I’ve chosen Jesus and preferred to lose everything to gain Him. But he says, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as garbage.” So, all the things he was holding on to before. Now he sees them as garbage because of, he says, “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus.” St Paul is such a fiery personality, and we sense that fire in these words, that everything that he was holding on to, that he was boasting about before now he counts as garbage for Jesus. And so, he speaks of pressing forward. He says, “for His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as garbage in order that I may gain…” He doesn’t just say, gain Heaven or gain a new knowledge or gain a reward. What does he say? “That I may gain Christ.” Again, he’s always talking about the person of Jesus, Christ, “that I may gain Christ and be found.” He doesn’t just say, be found holy, or be found virtuous or be found as among the saints. He says, “be found in Him.” So he’s always talking about Jesus, the person of Jesus. “Be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own based on the law,” which he had before, “but that which is through faith in Christ.” So, he doesn’t just say Catholic faith. He says, “faith in Christ”. Jesus, I trust in You. “Faith in Christ, the righteousness that from God, that depends on faith that I may know Him again.” He doesn’t just say that I may know the Catholic faith, that I may study, the Catechism that I may know the creed. He says, “faith in Him, that I may know Him.” Because, you know, sometimes, like Catholics, we think knowing the Catholic faith is learning a bunch of stuff. And well, there is, there is a good bit that we can learn. But the essential thing is, knowing Jesus. And that’s not me that’s saying that, that’s St Paul; “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,” the power of His resurrection, “and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” And so St Paul wants to live the resurrection of Jesus, and He knows that that also involves sharing His suffering, even becoming like Him in His death, “that if possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ, Jesus has made me His own.” Christ, Jesus has made me His own. And so, St Paul, again, is not just saying, well, I gradually came to buy a lot of study, a lot of reflection, to understand that the Catholic faith is the true faith. He said that Christ, Jesus has made him His own. He’s aware that the Lord, this Jesus has done something to him, has taken him, has made him His own. “Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own.” So, he realized that he still has a lot to go. “But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ, Jesus.” So, we talked about the weight of the past. And St Paul says, forgetting what lies behind the past that for him, he had been so proud of, and now he began, he’s realized how much sin was in his pride. So, he says, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal.” So that’s a message for all of us Christians, forgetting what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal. And so what lies behind it can be taught things that we’re very tied to, things that we would be tempted to hold on to. Like St Paul was tempted. Would have been tempted, had been tempted to hold on to his past, and now he wants to put that behind him. Even good things, there are even good things that he had, for instance, being born a Hebrew. That was a good thing, but it could become a temptation, because now he’s being offered the fullness. And so, there’s even good things. Our past is not just bad things, it’s also good things, but those can become temptations to want to hold on to those and not move forward. And then there’s, as I said, oftentimes, the weight of there’s always in our life, as I said, especially as we get older, weight of sin and sorrow that we have this beautiful Psalm today, which says, “those who sow in tears, will reap with shouts of joy.” But so, St Paul is talking about forgetting, putting back what lies behind, and straining forward to the goal. And so this is the opportunity that Jesus offers us, the opportunity for a new beginning, No matter what age we’re at, no matter what stage we’re at in our life, Jesus offers us the opportunity to make a new beginning. So, he sheds the light of mercy on our sins, but not so that we be discouraged and just be weighed down by our sins, but on the contrary, so that we can turn to Him and be freed from our sins. So, if He reveals our sins, like He did to St Paul, He revealed his sins, not so St Paul can just say, “Oh, I realize I’ve lived such a terrible life, so, there’s nothing. There’s no hope. I was even persecuting Christians. I was leading Christians to be killed. So, there’s no hope for me.” St Paul doesn’t say that, but his encounter with Jesus makes him realize his sin, so that he can be freed from his sin, freed from his past. And again, that passage, which he himself said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come.” And St Paul himself is an example of that, that because of his encounter with Jesus, there’s a new creation, the old, the proud, boastful, arrogant, Saul, Saul of Tarsus, he has put behind. And now Jesus has created a new creation in Him. And so, we have this beautiful psalm, rather this beautiful prophetic word from Isaiah, from the Lord through Isaiah, he says, “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago, consider not. See I am doing something new. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it.” “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago, consider not. See I am doing something new. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?” And this word from our Lord, is true both of our personal lives, and it’s the opportunity to offer to this woman caught in adultery, it’s the opportunity offered to Saul of Tarsus. But it’s also true for the Church, and our world. And I think the reconquest that the Lord has spoken to us about is an example that He’s doing something new, something new in the Church, something new in the world, in our world, and in a Church which has been so affected by sin. So much corruption of sin has contaminated in a way down, the Lord is doing something new. And even here in this little mission here in our little huddle today, in our little chapel, even here in the hiddenness of the way the Lord often acts in very hidden, humble ways. But we know that the Lord is doing something new. This reconquest is something new. And so, to conclude, “remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago, consider not. See I am doing something new.” And that’s a great message of mercy from God to free us. Free us and free our world, free the Church from the weight of the past. Every Mass is an opportunity to encounter Jesus, not just to learn stuff, not just to make efforts, but to encounter, to meet, to come into communion, to holy communion with Jesus Christ. That’s what Holy Communion is. Holy Communion is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus, to liberate us from our sins and our past. And we know that that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen just all in one day. We still feel in our mind, and we still have the consequences of our past, and so on this earth, it’s a gradual process, but the Lord even uses the very memory and the very pain our past causes. When we turn to him to receive His mercy, He frees us from our sin, but we still feel the consequences of those sins, but when we offer that pain to the Lord, the pain that causes us, like I’m sure, St Paul, he was in his life, he continued to feel that the pain of how he had been, but that helped him become more merciful, more humble and more merciful. And so the very memory of our past does not mean that we’re not freed from it, but it means that we can use that memory to offer it to the Lord as our part of our ongoing purification and liberation. So, every Mass is an encounter with Jesus to liberate us from our sins, liberate us from what we’re holding on to in the past, so that we can press on towards the goal. And we ask our Blessed Mother to help us, help us and Lent is this opportunity to free us from what is holding back, to press on towards the goal, which is, as St Paul says, “Jesus Christ.” The goal of Jesus Christ Himself; sharing with the pain of His suffering, to experience forever the glory, the power of His resurrection. And so, I’ll end just by reading, once again, this passage of St Paul. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.” Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
John 8:1-11
Philippians 3:8-14
Isaiah 43:16-21