tvc.dsj.org | April 2, 2019
By Father Brendan McGuire
Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish, San Jose, and Vicar General for
Special Projects, Diocese of San Jose. Email him at [email protected].
SPIRITUALITY
11
Sunday Homily
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Forgive and Set Ourselves Free Palm Sunday, April 14, 2019
Not My Will, But Your Will Be Done
Corrie wasn’t quite prepared for the moment when she would meet the person
whom she had so often thought of; the guard at the Nazi concentration camp
that had been brought to trial. Now she was called to testify. She was ready with
so much hatred and vengeance inside her heart; she was ready for this event, or
so she thought. When he stood before her and their eyes met, he reached out his
hands and asked a simple question: “Will you please forgive me?”
She was overwhelmed because she had remembered so much abuse ; the humili-
ation, the starvation and all the hatred. Just then a little voice came from inside,
from Jesus saying, “Forgive him.” So she reached out her hands. Their hands met.
Their eyes met. And she said, “I will forgive you.”
She spoke of that moment as the moment that transformed her life. A peace
came over her body that she had never experienced before. She wrote about that
occasion: “Forgiveness is one of the most powerful things in the world; it is like
you set a prisoner free and then realize that prisoner is yourself.”
Often we hold onto judgments of others and the hurts of ourselves and we be-
come consumed with unforgiveness. Today’s Gospel is yet again another powerful
story of God’s outrageous mercy and forgiveness.
The core of the story in today’s Gospel is about God’s forgiveness and our need
to recognize our own need for forgiveness. The adulterous woman was placed
in the middle of the crowd: she would have been lightly clad if anything at all;
nobody had her back; there was nowhere to hide; she was in front of all waiting
to be stoned to death. She was exposed in all ways; her whole life before her.
They tried to put Jesus in the conundrum of doing or saying something that
they could later use to trap him. Jesus always finds a way out and reminds them
that they are not without sin themselves. “Go ahead, the one who is without sin,
throw the first stone.” In other words, if we expect God to forgive us then we
must forgive one another. It is not that he condones her sin; he tells her, “Go and
sin no more.”
It seems that the one person whom we all struggle to forgive the most is our-
selves. We cannot give to others what we have not received ourselves.
Can we allow God’s overwhelming, outrageous mercy and love to heal our own
wounds; to touch that part of our heart that is broken; that part that is wounded
and bleeding from something that we may have done or said or that we allowed
to happen in our life and we regret it; and to allow God’s forgiveness to heal our
wounds? It is only from there, from that healed broken heart, that we can then
genuinely offer the door of mercy to others. May we, like Corey ten Boom, set
ourselves free for we are the prisoners of our own unforgiveness. Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, was baking chocolate cookies
which were traditionally made with regular white flour and melted bitter sweet
chocolate mixed together, when she discovered she had run out of baker’s chocolate.
All she had was regular confectionary chocolate, so she took that and cut it into
small chips intending to let it melt in the dough. However, the pieces did not melt
and the cookies turned out to be what we now know as chocolate-chip cookies.
The interesting part of the story is that a mistake turned out to be a new inven-
tion - chocolate-chip cookies. We do not always know how things are going to turn
out. Sometimes, they turn out for the better even though in the midst it seems like
something bad. Something good comes as a result of it.
As Christians, we believe that all things can be worked out for the good. We
are not talking about little things like chocolate chip cookies. We are talking about
life as a whole.
No matter what happens to us, our family or to our friends, all things can be
worked for the good of salvation. Therefore, when bad things happen to us, as
they often do, we are called to have a deep faith that says “I know this is a bad
thing; I don’t like it but I also believe that God can work some good out of this.”
We say what Jesus says in today’s Agony in the Garden, “Not my will, Lord, but
your will be done.”
That sounds so easy to say but when we are in the midst of pain and suffering
it is very hard sometimes to let go of our own will and to allow the Father’s will
to take its course. We often think, “Why have you abandoned me, Lord?” And
that is the very cry we hear in the Passion narrative today.
Despite all of the good that God did in and through Christ, his companions
turned away from him. His enemies ganged up on him and found a way to have
him crucified. Luke’s Gospel even has Pilate and Herod not wanting him dead
but the crowd of enemies prevail.
That sometimes happens in our life. Things prevail around us and it becomes
painful. We are called to allow the Lord to work the good through and in us. It is
exactly what Christ did. Christ submitted himself to the Father’s Will and despite
what seems to be darkness and gloom, the Resurrection dawned a new era.
Nothing can thwart God’s Will. We do not always understand it. Something new
will be born and that is the clear message that Resurrection is our final destiny.
That we will all, no matter what happens on this side, we will all be welcomed
in to heaven on the other side. That no matter what our enemies may say or do,
Christ has our back. In the end, God’s love prevails. We say, “Lord, not my will
but your will be done.”
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