Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The opening prayer of this Sundays’ Eucharist says that God shows us his power above all by pardoning and showing his mercy. It is such a wonderful action that God gives us today! This word of God is not a moralism, and his word is never that way. He doesn’t tell us that you have to be good, that you have to do everything correctly and if you don’t, I will cut off your head. It is a good thing the gospel didn’t say if you have a bad thought, cut off your head or if you speak badly of someone, cut out the tongue because here we might all be missing one eye. Only two or three might have a tongue or lack a hand or a foot. No, this word tells us that God knows who we are and that is why he manifests his power with his forgiveness and mercy, which renews each one of us.
The word mercy in Hebrew has the same root as the word for a woman’s womb. The etymology of the word means that we are regenerated, made new, born again due to his mercy. God makes us a new man thanks to his mercy. This Eucharist wants to do precisely that to each one of us and I hope it is succeeding. How I wish we all leave here with a new spirit. I hope you are not feeling bad about your sins but if you are it shows that you’re repenting, which is the beginning of conversion. Repentance means you see how sin is destroying you, hurting you in some particular way. If you don’t realize this, then you will continue to be a slave. At some point you will see it that sin is drawing the life out of you, that it destroys you, and it is a turning away from God’s love. Then like the prodigal son you will come to your senses and know that you have a father who loves you. The Eucharist is this: God loves you and when you return home, he has a huge banquet for you, like he did when the prodigal son returned. The banquet is the Eucharist. This is true of every Mass.
This celebration is not a theater, but something that God wants you to experience, unless you would rather be with pigs, spending all your money, doing whatever you want to do, and you keep eating more and more of what pigs eat. You might not even notice your sadness. It could be that you need to sink lower and one day the Lord will rescue you. For the Lord, no one is lost, nothing is impossible. It would be terrific if all of us can live this word in a way that God wants.
Little by little he will show us the mission he has given to each one of us in our baptism. In that sacrament you have been sent once the water was poured and your head anointed with Sacred Chrism. There are three sacraments where Sacred Chrism is used, and those sacraments can not be repeated. Do you know which ones? Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. The other four sacraments you can receive numerous times, even the Anointing of the Sick when in danger of death or with advanced age. Marriage can be repeated only if your spouse dies. The Chrism is also used to consecrate a new altar and ours smelled beautifully for two weeks after that event. I think the bishop used half the bottle of Chrism. Chrism is a sign that the Holy Spirit has descended upon you. A priest’s hands are anointed with this oil. During baptism the we hear that you are anointed priest, prophet and king.
The word speaks today of prophecy which is not to predict the future or speak a strange language. To prophesy is to love. Through baptism you have been called to love. This sacrament sends you out to live that mission of love, which often we do badly, very badly. It is not a call to love only yourself but to love the others, to give your life, to be another Christ. Prophesying is a service as we heard in the first reading. Moses hoped that all his people would be prophets because you can’t love unless you have the Holy Spirit and where do we find him, in the Church, in your community.
An atheist cannot love since he doesn’t have the spirit of Christ. There are substitutes for love, but they are not the same as what the Lord told us: love one another as I have loved you! This cannot be done by an atheist. It only can be done by a Christian who has the spirit of Christ, which is received through the Word of God, through the preaching, through seeing God in your history, through the forgiveness of your sins. Even your sins can give you this spirit, if they lead you to ask for forgiveness.
There are fanatics as we see in the gospel today. One of them is John, the youngest and best-looking disciple, the Beloved Disciple. We see him not at his best today, which can also give us hope. He says to the Lord, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons, in your name, and we tried to prevent him.” They think this is bad because they had not been able to cast out a demon from a young boy. Jesus told them that it was because they had little faith, and it could be done only by prayer and fasting. John was saying this because this ‘because this man did not follow us.’ He’s a bit extreme. Does he mean that only the chosen ones, the good ones, the pure ones can cast out a demon? Only the Twelve can do this! Our Lord wants to help us not to be zealots. The Church is very large, and we are called to love. John in this situation is demanding, but the man who cast out this demon is not doing a bad thing, and he is doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. Being a zealot blinds us since it makes us proud, believing we are better than the others. We cannot see that the other is doing something good. The one next to us is serving in some way and we may miss it.
The Lord wants to help us to be prophets, to love, but you cannot be a prophet if you have only one eye or with one leg or with one hand. How wonderful that Jesus uses the parts of the body where there are always two of them. If your eye is an occasion of sin, pluck it out and you still have another one or if your hand is too short, you have another one. He did not say the tongue because you have only one tongue. How do we understand this because we cannot take it literally which is to be a zealot, a fanatic.
Perhaps it helps us to see that there is a dualism in us as St. Paul says. I want to be good, but I often do the evil I don’t want to do. I want to be chaste, but I am not. You want to love your wife or your husband from the deepest part of your heart, but you can’t. You want to forgive the one who wronged you, but you cannot. You cannot cut off that hand. We cannot get rid of this old man that dwells in us. That old man is very well fed, he is chubby, robust, very strong and the new man that wants to come out of us is just beginning to be born. When it comes out the old man hits him and so we sin with the eye or we sin with the foot, because of this old man that lurks in us. How can we get rid of him. How can I cut off my hand or pluck out my eye? You cannot, but the Lord can. He will do it with his love. His love will transform your eyes, your hands, everything because the eye and the ears and the feet and the hands are meant to love.
God wants to use your whole body to love, not to scandalize the other, not to destroy the other, not to judge the other, but to love, to prophesy which is to announce to you the love of God. So, I encourage you, brothers and sisters, because the Lord will do it, little by little. He wants you to be at ease, he will do it. That is his job; the ball is in his court; cooperate with him. Lord, cut off my hand, pluck out my eye, cut off my foot, with your love, your mercy, with your forgiveness.
Let us end as we began. The Lord is showing us his power with forgiveness, with mercy. How is he starting to help us become Christians? With forgiveness, with mercy! This is why you can experience the mercy of God when you confess, when you feel this true love of the Lord in the Eucharist, in the preaching. When you hear it, welcome it, embrace it like a sponge. It all comes from God for you and for your life. This is going to change you. He is the only one who will change you!