This evening we gather here for the
purpose of celebrating and receiving God’s bountiful mercy. I thank Fr. Bill for inviting me back. I think this is my 4th straight
year of coming to St. Pius for these talks, so you haven’t gotten sick of me
yet! Thanks.
What a crazy couple of weeks this
has been. I for one was somewhat
saddened by the news that Pope Benedict was going to resign. But, recently we have been quite energized
along with Catholics throughout the world: habemus Papam, we have a pope, and
what a pope we have too. I don’t know if
you are like me, but I have been on the Vatican’s multiple websites every day
reading whatever I can about the words and activities of the pope. In fact, I got up at 3:30 this morning so I
could watch the Pope’s Mass of inauguration on TV. Francis is a compassionate and simple man who
speaks with a kind of directness I find very appealing. As I was composing my thoughts for this
penance service today, I thought the best thing I could do would be to share
with you a couple of things the Pope has said in recent days.
Tonight we just heard the story of the Prodigal Son, or, as it can be
called, the parable of the Older Son. I
don’t think anyone is exempt from the parable.
We are all sinners, we all need God’s mercy. We are like one of the two sons, or sometimes
a combination. Maybe we have wandered
far from God in our sinfulness, maybe we have squandered what God has given us
by our sins and selfish choices. God is
looking for us and ready to run out to meet us.
Perhaps we don’t see ourselves in the Prodigal Son, but one pitfall of
being a disciple of Jesus is that it is quite easy to become that Older
Son. It is quite easy to forget just how
much God loves us, it is easy for us to think we somehow deserve God’s love,
his gifts. Sunday morning, Pope Francis
celebrated Mass at a small parish church in the Vatican. His homily that day touched on mercy. He said something quite profound: “he has
come for us when we recognize we are sinners; mercy is the Lord’s most powerful
message.” How beautiful: he has come for
us, but we have to recognize we are sinners.
We all need God’s mercy. Christ
cannot be our savior unless we recognize that we are in need of saving. The prodigal son certainly recognized this,
he found that his life of sin left him totally miserable, so he decided to
return to his Father: he has come for us when we recognize we are sinners.
Maybe some of us have experienced
this profound conversion experience. We
find ourselves, like the prodigal son, fed up with our sins and we can only
turn to God for help. Maybe that is what
is bringing some of us here tonight, and that is great and wonderful. God rejoices to welcome us back. But, for most of us conversion is an ongoing
process. I don’t know if you are like
me, but I really do get sick and tired of confessing the same things over and
over again. Believe me, I know my sins,
I struggle against them, but I also find myself falling. It can get quite discouraging. How many times can we find ourselves in the
pig slop, how many times must we slog our way back to the father’s house? Again, Francis said something about this that
was quite beautiful. Sunday during his
angelus message he said: “let us not forget this word: God never tires of
forgiving us, but we sometimes tire of asking him to forgive us: Let us never
tire of asking God’s forgiveness.” No
matter how often we find ourselves in the pig slop, God never tires of
forgiving us, of welcoming us back. It
is we who sometimes tire of asking.
My friends we are here to encounter
our merciful God in the sacrament of confession. Let me leave you with some final words from
Pope Francis that he spoke to the people of Argentina this morning that I think
apply quite well to confession: “draw near to God. God is good. He always
forgives and understands. Do not be afraid of him. Draw near to him.” This is precisely what happens in confession,
we draw near to God, who never tires of forgiving us.
Thank you Father for this Blessing. If I may share a bit of bread with you as well. There are 2 parts to this Battle. One is to draw near to God as you say by going to confession but part two is to draw the sword on the battle field and stand alone and fight once again the great battle,the Battle of the heart we must learn to use the weapons our lord gave to us, to draw near to Him we must use the prayers he gave to us and use them often, prayer is the key it, it is the weapons of choice. As in any Battle the more weapons you have the stronger you are and the more you use these weapons the more damage you cause to the evil one. The reason we keep falling into sin the same sin is because prayer should be where the sin that we do is. You fight sin with prayer !!! Part of your Battle is knowing that you must always be in a state of prayer and that is one of your battles. Watch how the self rebels and resists, watch how it kicks and screams when you try to fill your day with prayer. Remember it is not the first prayer of the day that makes our Lord sit up and take notice it is the last prayer of the day, the one that is the hardest.
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