Yes Is In Him

February 22, 2009

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers. Isaiah 43:18-19

Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?” Mark 2:8-9

Piety

Happy those concerned for the lowly and poor; when misfortune strikes, the LORD delivers them. The LORD keeps and preserves them, makes them happy in the land, and does not betray them to their enemies. The LORD sustains them on their sickbed, allays the malady when they are ill. Once I prayed, "LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, I have sinned against you. Psalm 41:2-5

Study

The Sacrament of the Present Moment gets a wonderful plug from Isaiah 43. “Remember not the events of the past.” The Lord is forever doing something new in our present moment. Reality therapy is the becoming fully alive in the moment we are living. We worry the Lord with our yesterdays when we keep going back to our sinfulness as if the Lord did not forgive what we have done. The Lord is our forgiveness and he wipes out what is our imperfection in the glorious summer of his Resurrection.

Paul captures the reality of our forgiveness in Christ by his second letter to the Corinthians where he says that Christ is a “yes” to our asking for forgiveness. God has given us the seal of forgiveness in the Spirit he has put in our hearts as a first installment of his love for us. The Spirit takes the groans of our heart to himself and God listens to God when our hearts are crying for forgiveness. Jesus is a perpetual “yes” to the cries of our heart for forgiveness.

Our Gospel is one of the most poignant stories of Christ’s power to forgive our sins. The paralytic carried by the four men and let down through the roof which they broke through to bring their friend closer to Christ hears Christ offer forgiveness for his sins. The Scribes ask the question of how Christ can forgive and hear the Question they had not even spoken out answered with Christ healing the paralytic so that they might realize he also has the power to forgive sins. We know the power of the miracle he does to prove to an honest soul that he can forgive sins.

Action

The actions of our lives when we are reaching out to the poor and the needy in the name of Christ become the proof of our piety and of the study we do. The forgiveness of sins is how we keep from judging our past. Charity covers a multitude of sins. The words of forgiveness of the Church are engraved on the hearts of each of us by the good we do in our lives. We are challenged to love our enemies. The forgiving of others opens our hearts to the forgiveness of Christ. Our hearts are open to his forgiveness by how we forgive one another. We are open to God’s forgiveness in Christ by how forgiving we are to one another. Our world will discover peace again when it can see how we love one another even as Christ has loved us.