HOMILY

5th Sunday Lent C

Fr O’Grady

Have you ever had the experience or should I say the trauma of having to move from one house to another?

A few months ago I helped my nephew move into his new home in South Windsor. I don’t think my legs have ever been as tired from going up and down stairs. With the help of his many younger friends we all did our part.. sorting out, loading truck, unloading truck, climb stairs and down stairs…

But I think a move that is more difficult is when an older couple decides to downsize.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO DOWNSIZE? THEN YOU’LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

Sure there is the excitement of a new place and neighborhood and locations but that all diminishes when you have to start deciding what to keep and what to throw out of give away. Years of old clothes, years of all the children’s books, papers, mementoes.

Then the memories kick in when you see these things and you are tempted not to get rid of them

But then if I don’t let go of some of these things how will I ever fit into the new home?

Psychologists have listed moving as one of the more traumatic events in life… joyful and painful at the same time.

For part of the human heart wants to hold onto the past. In the past is security and often fond feelings of love that can never be captured again.

In the first reading today, God tells the people “don’t look at the past” look to new beginnings.

God also is referring to the sins and brokenness and mistakes of the past that so often some people have a hard time forgiving.

The Greek word used in the Gospels for “forgiveness “ is the word for “letting go”.

In the Year of Mercy and in this Season of Lent, we are fortunate as Christians that we have a God who wants us to LET GO of the past sins and not be afraid to seek a new and better spiritual life.

Yet easier said than done. Remember that great line from Frank Sinatra’s Song “My Way”? and the line “REGRETS, I’VE HAD A FEW..”

Sure we all have those regrets but Jesus came to heal those regrets and tells us all are called to conversion and healing.

Look for a moment at the Gospel of the adulterous woman who was condemned and ready to be stoned to death for her actions. The men condemning her wanted to punish her as if to tell her that she could never be a changed person. They wanted her to die in her sins with no hope for a better life.

Jesus comes around stops them and then writes in the sand.

Then immediately after writing in the sand they slowly drift away one by one.

I’ve often wondered what he wrote that made these men all scatter. I think that he named them as all having an illicit affair with her and hence they were as guilty as she was. Yet they could not see their own faults and hypocrisy.

But back to what Jesus said to this woman,.” I DO NOT CONDEMN YOU. GO ON AND FROM NOW ON SIN NO MORE”.

Jesus did not excuse her sin but he did not let it stand in the way of a better and more productive and holy life’

Some sins we can never forget but that does not mean God does not forgive. Such sins must never hold us back from seeking new and better life.

We are moving toward the end of Lent, a season when perhaps we wanted to give up something.

But in light of the Gospel today we should reflect on what we want to let go of.

There may be sins, resentments, behaviours, past hurts and pains , resentments, etc that shape our thinking and which Jesus asks us to leave behind.

Like moving into a new house.. some of these past things must be discarded, given away, thrown out… if not we’ll never leave the old house and never find new peace and joy.

Let’s all see this Lent as a MOVING experience.

And NO, You don’t have to call Amodio Movers , United Van lines for this….…

Simply call upon Jesus to do the moving..AND LET GO

from sin to forgiveness…

from repentance to forgiveness and

from pain to peace..

and then you’ll find out what a gift this lent can truly become!