Seeking Forgiveness

Nelson Mandela sought forgiveness with one another

In today’s news, we sometimes hear of corruption: for example, funds sent for disaster relief, yet rebuilding seems mysteriously slow.

The word of God today takes us back to Abraham, who is talking/praying with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah: cities symbolizing corruption. Abraham engages in a spirited conversation with God about justice: why should the innocent suffer? Abraham’s openness indicates his close relationship with God.

We know the end of those two corrupt cities. Some scholars say they were destroyed in a catastrophe, probably an earthquake. Anyway, the story challenges us to ask ourselves about our relationship with God. How do we pray? As a close friend? A distant relative? A stranger?

Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Colossae, speaks of the new identity we have through baptism. We have become sons and daughters of God our Father, heirs to the kingdom of God, graced by God. Paul may be asking whether we live a life worthy of our calling.

In the Gospel of Luke, the disciples ask how Jesus talks to his heavenly Father. Jesus speaks to God like a trusting son or daughter with a parent, like a close friend. Jesus urges us to be persistent in prayer, to go on asking, seeking, knocking, even though our heavenly Father knows what we need. God likes to hear our voice.

There’s a pattern to prayer that Jesus taught us. Here’s a paraphrase:
Our Father, because we are family, heirs to God’s kingdom; Your name be honored and reverenced; May your kingdom of justice and peace and freedom permeate everyone; May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Satisfy our basic needs. Forgive us for the things we do wrong as we forgive those who wrong us. And protect us from evils that jeopardize our relationship with you.
This is the pattern Jesus gave us.

When I think of modern examples of forgiveness, I recall Nelson Mandela. For nineteen years as a political prisoner in South Africa, he was forced to do hard labor, ate little and slept in a six by five cell. That he overcame hardship, that he saw the glory of God in his fellow prisoners and in his jailers was remarkable. When Mandela was released, he asked all South Africans to seek not vengeance but to seek reconciliation and forgiveness with one another.

We are all sinners, Pope Francis reminds us. The third chapter from the book of Genesis, the so-called fall from grace, is a sketch about how we sin: through ingratitude, self-absorption/narcissism, the arrogance that believes that we can get along without God.

It’s interesting that the people who really upset Jesus were not sinners but hypocrites, those who refused to see anything wrong with their own prejudices, those who had no sense of a need for repentance, those who were smug.

But Jesus offered forgiveness aplenty to those who admitted they needed it. May that forgiving hand change us. And may our active forgiveness change our fellow human beings.

God's Mercy Outweighs Our Sins

Rio's Christ the Redeemer

According to a Grand Jury Report in Pennsylvania, over a 70-year period, about 2% of clergy committed despicable crimes of abuse, and bishops covered them up.  Two-thirds of those accused are dead; but allegations against them were deemed credible.

For the past sixteen years, policies and protocols are in place to safeguard children and vulnerable adults, and these protocols require regular review and improvement.

These incidents are but one reminder that the community of disciples is also made up of sinners. We must continually – each and every one of us -- ask for God's grace and forgiveness, be “doers of the word,” and rebuild community.

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus challenges the disciples to make a choice: believe in him as God’s holy One. What do the disciples do? Some walked away. Others stayed, acknowledging, “…to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Eternal life is ultimately a gift from God. But Jesus says that we have to struggle to enter through the narrow gate into the kingdom of God.

Many people struggle during the cycle of human development. God is with us through the narrow gates of life. Our faith can sustain us.

Our faith fosters a healthy self-image. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and through baptism, God lives within us, and we live within God.

Our faith satisfies our longing for happiness. Within every human being there is a subconscious quest for the ultimate, the all-good. St. Augustine wrote, “O God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Our primary purpose is to be in relationship with God and one another forever, and in that relationship our yearnings for happiness are completely satisfied.

Our faith gives us a sense of belonging, linked together by a common bond of faith in Jesus Christ, with heroes and heroines who inspire us, saints who encourage us in our pursuit of God and God’s pursuit of us. God gives us each other to support and protect each other.

We gather to thank God, to acknowledge our absolute dependency upon God as our Creator, and to ask God in the Our Father prayer to satisfy our basic needs. These encounters with the triune God are wrapped up in the mystery of the sacraments. God in particular gives us sacraments of healing, service, and grace. Jesus assures us that God’s mercy outweighs our sins.

Finally, God provides us with a guide with the best news ever: how God offers each one of us salvation through Jesus. The Bible demonstrates God’s unconditional love. As we go through narrow gates of life, with fears and weakness at times, embracing our faith in Jesus Christ will sustain us so that we can eventually enter safely through that final gate into the kingdom of God.