How easy it can be for us to treat our Lord like the disturbing neighbor across the street. How often do we offend our Lord and then ask God for favors (prayers) without acknowledging and confessing our sins. How common is it for us to act like “God understands” our ways without admitting our faults and humbling ourselves through repentance and the sacrament of reconciliation? How frequently do we skip any real prayer time with the Lord and yet expect the Lord to look favorably upon our requests? How blind are we at times to the patterns of our sinfulness or simply complacent about them, failing to beg God for his mercy, yet expecting his swift answer to our prayers?
In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles for Sunday’s Mass, St. Peter speaks boldly to the Jewish people saying, “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead…Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.” Now that Jesus has been raised from the dead, the way forward for those who handed him over to be crucified is repentance and conversion. Those who shouted “Crucify him! Crucify him!” must acknowledge this through repentance, “that their sins may be wiped away.” Likewise, we see in Sunday’s gospel, after his Resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name….” Ongoing repentance is a necessary part of the life of every Christian.
Having celebrated the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the great tragedy for the baptized Christian is our failure to repent and be converted. The tragedy is that we have not allowed ourselves to be affected by the magnitude of God’s mercy. If Jesus had to undergo such a horrendous scourging and violent crucifixion, it was because of the immensity of wickedness and human brutality which takes place in the world every day. While we ourselves are not engaged in the violent destruction of human life as we see so ever more frequently in the news, there is also a kind of spiritual indifference that can envelop us by which we exonerate ourselves from any complicity in the passion of our Lord.
I think, for example, about the sentencing of a man who has been convicted of 1st degree murder. At his sentencing, the family of the one whose life he has so callously destroyed is present. Does he express any type of remorse for what he has done? Does he apologize to the family who has been devastated by his actions? Does he publicly beg God for mercy with true sorrow for this most grievous sin? Or does he remain in silence, simmering in anger that his life will forever be that of incarceration?
If Psalm 130:7 is true, that “With the Lord there is mercy and plentiful redemption,” how do you and I appropriate that gift for ourselves? The Scriptures this past weekend teach us that it is through repentance and conversion. This is not simply a Lenten theme to be endured for six weeks every Spring. No, the effects of our annual Lenten observance ought to leave us truly humble, more in touch with our fallen humanity, more open to the mercy of God and more eager for the freedom that is ours in Christ, who has been raised up. Again, my word for this is “affected.”
When Jesus appeared to the apostles he said, “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” This encounter truly “affected” them. Then he said, “…repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name…”
A similar encounter with God’s merciful love for us takes place through our repentance in the sacrament of reconciliation, while failing to confess our sins is to remain obstinate, like the neighbor across the street who has no sense of his wickedness. What makes anyone apologize for their faults? Usually, it is when they allow themselves to be affected by the consequences of their actions.
Our own encounter with the Lord and his merciful love for us takes place in the sacrament of reconciliation. A nightly examen of our consciousness is a good way of allowing ourselves to be confronted by the reality of our sins as well as to recall how we have been faithful to the Lord. To end each day with a sincere Act of Contrition is good preparation for our next confession. The practice of regular (perhaps monthly) confession of our sins helps us avoid the presumption that “God understands” our patterns of sinfulness. It keeps us from overlooking our own faults or ignoring their effects.
As we regularly examine our own lives and confess our sins, our Blessed Mother encourages us to pray for the conversion of sinners and to do penance and offer sacrifices in reparation for sins, our own and those of others. Living a penitential life, even if perhaps in simple and hidden ways, while praying for the conversion of hearts so hardened to the truth of the Gospel or against the saving love of Jesus, is a great work of charity. As St. Paul says (2 Corinthians 4:10) “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”
Is there unfinished business in your life with the Lord? Are there sins you have overlooked or failed to acknowledge as offenses against him? Ask the Holy Spirit for the interior illumination of your soul to see yourself as He sees you. Then ask our Lord for the grace to have true sorrow for your sins and approach the sacrament of reconciliation with absolute confidence in his mercy! Let us rejoice during this Easter Season in the salvation Christ won for us by his Passion, Death and Resurrection! Let us run to the embrace of his mercy!
