5th Sunday of Lent Year C
March 14, 2016
Dr. A.J. Cronin was a great Christian physician in England. One night he assigned a young nurse to a little boy who had been brought to the hospital suffering from diphtheria, and given only a slight chance to live. A tube was inserted into the boy's throat to help him breathe. It was the nurse's job periodically to clean out the tube. As the nurse sat beside the boy's bed, she accidentally dozed off. She awakened to find that the tube had become blocked. Instead of following instructions, she was immobilized by panic. Hysterically she called the doctor from his home. By the time he got to the boy, he was dead.
Dr. Cronin was angry beyond expression. That night Dr. Cronin went to his office and wrote his recommendation to the board demanding the immediate expulsion of the nurse. He called her in and read it, his voice trembling with anger. She stood there in pitiful silence, a tall, thin, gawky Welsh girl. She nearly fainted with shame and remorse. "Well," asked Dr. Cronin in a harsh voice, "have you nothing to say for yourself?" There was more silence. Then she uttered this pitiful plea, "...please give me another chance." Dr. Cronin sent her away. But he could not sleep that night. He kept hearing some words from the dark distance: "Forgive us our trespasses." The next morning Dr. Cronin went to his desk and tore up the report.
In the years that followed he watched as this slim, nervous girl became the head of a large hospital and one of the more honored nurses in England. Thank God for a second chance, and a third chance, and fourth chance!
The woman caught in adultery was facing condemnation and death and Jesus gives her the biggest second chance on life you can imagine. Jesus forgives her sin.
Place yourself in this woman’s shoes. You have been exposed, humiliated, you are surrounded by a mob with stones. You know that you deserve condemnation because of your sin. One temptation in the face of sin is to become discouraged or even to despair – to begin to think – there is no hope for me.
This can especially be true when we find ourselves falling into repeated sin or the same sin over and over. We can start to wonder: will I ever be free? Remember on the way to the cross Jesus fell three times and we pray in the stations of the cross that perfection doesn’t mean we never fall but that we keep getting back up, that we keep trying.
Getting back up quickly is so important. The devil wants us to wallow in our sin and start to think: OK, you’ve already done this once, you may as well do it a few more times before you go to confession. This is trap of the devil. What happens? Each sin wounds our soul and repeated since engrains a vice or a bad habit in our soul.
In the face of our sins, we all eventually realize: through my own efforts I’m powerless to keep all the commandments. That’s why I need Jesus! That’s why I need grace. I must continue to avail myself of the sacrament of reconciliation and in moments of temptation, I must surrender to Jesus – Lord, I can’t overcome this on my own but I believe in the power of your grace to save me!
Jesus wants to give us all another chance, the question is will I accept it? So, often we carry our sins around them like some albatross around our neck. We refuse to let go of them. Look, the devil loves secrets. He will do everything to get us to keep our sin in the darkness because he knows if we bring it to light of Jesus that’s how healing begins.
And so it is the evil one who wants us to feel embarrassed or ashamed of our sin and to begin thinking, “How could I ever confess that to a priest?” Sometimes our sin can be so emotionally painful or humiliating that we try to bury it and almost deny it ever happened.
Think if you had a wound on your arm and you wanted to be healed, you have to show your wound to the doctor. The same in our spiritual life, we cannot cover over our wounds, we have to bring them to the light so that Jesus the Divine Physician can heal them.
Now is the time to make a good confession! We are in the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Pope Francis keeps reminding us, “God never tires of forgiving us, it is we who tire of asking for forgiveness.” Each time we go to confession, we put our past behind us, and we are given a second chance.
Another temptation of the devil to make us keep our sin in the dark is to propose the thought, “I don’t need to listen to the Church. I don’t need to confess my sins to a priest. I can just go straight to God.”
I always go back to John chapter 20. The first thing the risen Lord did was institute the sacrament of reconciliation. He appeared in the upper room to the Apostles and breathed the Holy Spirit upon them saying, “Whose sins you forgive our forgiven them. Whose sins you hold bound are held bound.” These apostles laid hands on their successors giving that same gift of the spirit –and the ability to forgive sins in God’s name.
We’ve perhaps all had the experience when something is weighing us down how healing it is to get it off of our chest by sharing it with another. Burying things inside, keeping them in the dark is not the path to healing.
Please take advantage of all the opportunities this week to make a confession before Easter. We have confessions throughout JOCO Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night and again next Sunday March 29th so there are no excuses that I can’t find a time! The schedule for the communal penance services is on the front of the bulletin today. Our communal penance service will be here Monday evening at 7 pm and we will have confessions on Wednesday morning at 7:15 am and 6 pm.
This is the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Thanks be to God for his mercy. He’s always ready to give us another chance. All we have to do is ask for it – to tell the Lord we are sorry and that with the help of his grace we want to do better.