10th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 5th June 2016)
God’s Mercy is always greater than the sins of the entire world – (Luke 7: 11-17)
In this Year of Mercy we are all being invited to contemplate the tender mercy of the Lord Jesus whose teaching, life and example proclaim the merciful love of the Father for all humanity. In this Sunday’s Gospel we are presented with the sad spectacle of a widowed mother accompanying the remains of her only son to its place of burial. Everything about this scene is tragic and no doubt this poor widow would have gladly taken her son’s place if it meant that he could live again. Life’s cruel twists and turns quite often present us with scenes such as the one Jesus encountered in that funeral procession.
However, an encounter with Christ means that there is hope and possibility for change. Jesus is moved with compassion and, taking pity on this widow and her son, He reaches out, and sorrow is turned to joy, tragedy is transformed to victory and death is overturned by new life.
But this physical restoration of the young man to life points to an even greater restoration which Jesus came to bring to our poor pitiful human situation. Jesus came to restore the life of grace and blessedness in souls. St. Anthony of Padua, commenting on this passage, saw in it a deeper spiritual meaning lying just beneath the physical miracle. He saw that the dead young man could symbolically represent a soul dead in its sins; what is traditionally called a state of mortal sin. Those who are carrying his body to the grave he saw as symbolic of the sinful habits and compromises which can and do lead the soul into the spiritual death of serious sin. And suddenly Jesus steps into the scene, He reaches out and touches the bier. Those who carry the dead man are immediately halted. With the authority of His words He wondrously commands the young man to live again.
In our own lives we can find that there are sinful habits or tendencies – even serious ones, which trip us up and rob us of the life, joy, peace and grace which is our inheritance as children of God. Sin always robs us of life; it is never life giving and it always leads us away from the Lord. Jesus, however, can and does step into the midst of that mess we’ve made. Though we, through our sin, might abandon Him, He never abandons us. And He is always ready and willing to reach out, put a halt to the dynamic of sin in our lives and restore us again with the powerful words which we hear in the Sacrament of Confession; words which fall from the lips of the priest but which flow from the merciful heart of Christ.
In this beautiful Year of Mercy it is important that we remember well in our lives, and especially when we have fallen into sin, that God’s mercy is greater, always greater, than all the sins of the whole world. Jesus, speaking to St. Faustina spoke about the great miracle of Divine Mercy which is willing and able to restore even the most sinful souls if only they will allow that encounter with his tender heart:
“Write, speak of My Mercy. Tell souls where they are to look for solace, that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy [the Sacrament of Reconciliation]. There the greatest miracles take place and are incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage, or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to Him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were souls like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint there would be no hope of restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full.”
Fr. Philip Kemmy