3rd
Sunday of Easter
17-18 April
2021 at St. Mary’s in Salem
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
1 Jn 2:1-5a
Lk 24:35-48
People in our day and time tend to be
rather calloused when it comes to talking about sin, especially about mortal
sin. For whatever reason, it seems those are not few who deny the possibility
of serious sin in their lives, the kind of sin which amounts to a rejection of
Jesus Christ. If we were to go around the table of the Last Supper with today’s
Catholics there in place of the 12 Apostles, they would not use the words of Judas,
Christ’s betrayer, to respond to Jesus when He announced that one at table with
Him would betray Him. You will remember Judas’ comeback to Jesus; he said, “Is
it I, Lord?” The people today to whom I refer are those with the attitude, “No way, Lord! It cannot be me!”
All three readings this Sunday address
the issue of Jesus come to save us from sin, both personal and passed down to
us from the wrong choice our first parents made at the dawn of creation. The
mystery of salvation is just that: it is pondering how God could have so loved
our world as to forgive our repeated transgressions, first, healing the wound
of Original sin, and then, opening up the gates of heaven to all who sincerely
repent of personal sin. Jesus did not come to dismiss imaginary faults and
failings; He came to raise up our humanity from the depths to which it had fallen.
Three quotes from today’s readings stand
out for me:
(I
repeatedly ask myself whether I do enough preaching on that point!)
“He is expiation for our sins…”
(Expiation basically has to do with
making amends for our wrongdoing.)
“…that
his Christ would suffer. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins
may be wiped away.”
Let me assure you that this “No way,
Lord! It cannot be me!” attitude, which I am talking about, is an almost
universal phenomenon among Catholics in Western society. I have seen it in the
United States, in Central and Western Europe, as well as in the Caribbean. It
has to do with hardness of heart or a stubborn refusal to embrace something central
to the Gospel message.
As a young priest at the Cathedral in Sioux Falls, 40 years
ago, I experienced this very attitude in parents by home visits in preparation
for their children’s first confession. The real problem was not so much with the
children preparing for first confession, but with mom and dad. It seemed, back
then maybe fewer in number or percentage than today, that there were parents
with children in our religious education programs, both school and CCD, who had
no sense of any kind of personal debt of sin, mortal or venial, and clearly
communicated their personal dread of the sacrament of penance to their
children. “No way, Lord! It cannot be me!”
Most everywhere, we encounter this
refusal to accept the possibility of serious sin in our lives when talking to older
adults, who often jokingly claim they have no opportunity to commit sin, and for
any number of reasons: because they are always working, because they never get
out (some probably have used Covid isolation as an excuse), or because they are
too old and crippled for that sort of thing. They deny or do not recognize or will
not accept responsibility for their sins, no matter if they are big or small.
Why? Simply in most cases because they never examine their lives. And hence unlike Judas, who knew he had taken
money to turn Jesus over to those who sought to eliminate Him, their response
is: “No way, Lord! It cannot be me!”
But Father! or in this case, Archbishop! You are trying to lay a guilt trip on us! No, not at all! My object is that we grow in our understanding of why the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became Man, came down from heaven to save us both from the consequences of Adam’s sin and from our personal share in it evident by reason of our own bad behavior, by what we personally have done or have failed to do. We should not be so much guilt-ridden, but rather recognize or accuse ourselves of being guilty as charged of personal sin. We need to own up to our sins in the light of just who our loving Christ is for us and who we are and can be in Him.
“Thus it is written that the Christ
would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for
the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all nations,
beginning from Jerusalem.”
Well, I guess I sort of laid it out
there. Responsiveness to the Lord Christ Who saves us has radical but truly
wondrous consequences for us as we strive to live out our Baptism. In the early
Church where Easter was the time for baptizing all kinds of new Catholics,
these men and women wore their white baptismal garment for eight days straight,
from the time of their baptism at the Easter Vigil until the next Sunday, now a
week ago for us, namely Divine Mercy Sunday. From my three years stationed in
the Holy Land, I remember that during Easter Week in Jerusalem the Ethiopean and
Eritreian pilgrims wore white in the spirit of that old tradition from the
first days of Christianity. Thinking about it, the words we use to clothe an
infant with the white garment after baptism have their striking importance:
“You have become a new creation and
have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of
your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and
example, bring it unstained into eternal life.”
Would that it were so! My request is
that you rededicate yourself to examining your conscience every night before
going to bed. Start with the two great commands of love of God and love of neighbor,
go through the ten commandments and the precepts of the Church. Before you
close you eyes on another day, sincerely ask the Lord’s pardon for what you
have done wrong or failed to do. If you are guilty of grave sin, make the firm
resolve to change your ways and to get to confession as soon as you can.
Jesus, yes, “He is expiation for our sins…” It is our
firm belief that God so willed “…that his Christ would suffer. Repent,
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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