RENEWING OUR CONVERSION EXPERIENCE

20150813 RENEWING OUR CONVERSION EXPERIENCE

Readings at Mass

First reading

Joshua 3:7-11,13-17 ©

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘This very day I will begin to make you a great man in the eyes of all Israel, to let them be sure that I am going to be with you even as I was with Moses. As for you, give this order to the priests carrying the ark of the covenant: “When you have reached the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you are to stand still in the Jordan itself”.’ Then Joshua said to the Israelites, ‘Come closer and hear the words of the Lord your God.’ Joshua said, ‘By this you shall know that a living God is with you and without a doubt will expel the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite and the Jebusite. Look, the ark of the Lord,’ the Lord of the whole earth, is about to cross the Jordan at your head. As soon as the priests with the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, have set their feet in the waters of the Jordan, the upper waters of the Jordan flowing down will be stopped in their course and stand still in one mass.’

  Accordingly, when the people struck camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the ark of the covenant in front of the people. As soon as the bearers of the ark reached the Jordan and the feet of the priests who carried it touched the waters (the Jordan overflows the whole length of its banks throughout the harvest season) the upper waters stood still and made one heap over a wide space – from Adam to the fortress of Zarethan – while those flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah, that is, the Salt Sea, stopped running altogether. The people crossed opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood still on dry ground in mid-Jordan, and all Israel continued to cross dry-shod till the whole nation had finished its crossing of the river.

Psalm

Psalm 113A:1-6 ©

Alleluia!

When Israel came forth from Egypt,

  Jacob’s sons from an alien people,

Judah became the Lord’s temple,

  Israel became his kingdom.

Alleluia!

The sea fled at the sight:

  the Jordan turned back on its course,

the mountains leapt like rams

  and the hills like yearling sheep.

Alleluia!

Why was it, sea, that you fled,

  that you turned back, Jordan, on your course?

Mountains, that you leapt like rams,

  hills, like yearling sheep?

Alleluia!

Gospel Acclamation

Ps118:88

Alleluia, alleluia!

Because of your love give me life,

and I will do your will.

Alleluia!

Or

Ps118:135

Alleluia, alleluia!

Let your face shine on your servant,

and teach me your decrees.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 18:21-19:1 ©

Peter went up to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.

  ‘And so the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents; but he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt. At this, the servant threw himself down at his master’s feet. “Give me time” he said “and I will pay the whole sum.” And the servant’s master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt. Now as this servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii; and he seized him by the throat and began to throttle him. “Pay what you owe me” he said. His fellow servant fell at his feet and implored him, saying, “Give me time and I will pay you.” But the other would not agree; on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison till he should pay the debt. His fellow servants were deeply distressed when they saw what had happened, and they went to their master and reported the whole affair to him. Then the master sent for him. “You wicked servant,” he said “I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?” And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.’

  Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and he left Galilee and came into the part of Judaea which is on the far side of the Jordan.

RENEWING OUR CONVERSION EXPERIENCE

SCRIPTURE READINGS: JOS 3:7-11. 13-17; MT 18:21-19:1

The one most crucial event and the turning point of the history of Israel is undoubtedly the exodus experience.  It was the most stupendous experience of being saved by the power of God.  God fought the battle for them.  He led them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire.  He was the army commander.   It was therefore appropriate for them to bestow on Yahweh, the title of the Lord of Hosts.   More humbling still was that they were mere slaves in Egypt and a motley crowd of immigrants.  They had no status, no land and no wealth.  So for God to liberate them and then make a covenant with them at Mount Sinai where the people became His people and He became their Lord was simply too gratuitous of Him.

But then, like us, they had short memories. They forgot all His deeds and works.  Human frailty, ingratitude and forgetfulness crept in.  They began to complain about their lot. They were dissatisfied with what they got.  They began to exaggerate how good their life was before they left Egypt, forgetting the miseries they suffered under the Egyptians. They doubted the love and power of God again.  As a consequence, they were left to wander in the desert for forty years before they were ready, spiritually, psychologically and militarily to occupy the land of Canaan.

We, too, had our exodus experience at baptism.  As St Peter tells us, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Pt 2:9)  We were under the bondage of sin and Satan, but Christ “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 3;13f)  Having died to sin in Christ at our baptism, we are now children of God and adopted sons and daughters in the Son.  “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:3-5)

But like the Israelites, we too have forgotten how great it was to experience freedom in Christ when we gave up sin and Satan at our baptism.  This is especially true for those of us who were baptized as adults. We went through the Catechumenate and were filled with joy on our day of baptism.  But after that, routine set in and we found ourselves further and further away from the Lord.  Our relationship with Him became lukewarm and then cool.  We have gone back to our old way of life, except for the rituals that we might continue to celebrate, such as attending Mass on Sundays.  For those of us who were baptized at birth and have been brought up in the Catholic Faith, we might have taken our faith for granted and only practised it nominally, never really seeking to deepen the faith we have inherited. Those of us who have recently been touched by the Lord and gone through a conversion experience too, might have returned to our old way of life and continued with the bad habits and the vices we renounced earlier.  In one way or another, we can say that we too abandoned our baptismal promises.  We have not been faithful to the Lord and His people, the Christian community.

So like the Israelites, what we all need is a renewal of our baptismal or conversion experience.  This, precisely, is the theme of today’s scripture readings.  We read in the first reading how the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  What happened was almost a repetition of the Exodus experience although on a smaller scale and less spectacular: “as soon as the priests with the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, have set their feet in the waters of the Jordan, the upper waters of the Jordan flowing down will be stopped in their course and stand still in one mass.”  As a result, “the people crossed opposite Jericho.  The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood still on dry ground in mid-Jordan, and all Israel continued to cross dry-shod till the whole nation had finished its crossing of the river.”

This miracle of course is reminiscent of the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt.  Nevertheless, it was important for a new generation of Israelites who never saw what happened at the Exodus. This whole new and younger generation needed to recover their own experience of the power and love of God as their forefathers did.  Hence, once again, God showed Himself to be their living God by being the Lord of Hosts.  Once again, the Lord fought the battle for them.  Once again, they passed over the river Jordan dry shod.  Once again, the Lord assured them He was with them, only this time, not in the pillar of cloud and fire but in the Ark of the Covenant.

Similarly, in the gospel, we have a renewal of the sacrament of baptism in a concrete life situation.  The parable of the Unforgiving Servant illustrates once again the initiative of God who is allegorized in the Master who forgave his servant of an enormous debt of ten thousand talents.  Baptism brings about the forgiveness of sins and our reconciliation with God and with our fellowmen.  It inserts us into the community of grace.  Baptism is a pure gift of God given to us in Christ’s death and resurrection.  By His paschal mystery, we celebrate our Passover with Him, from death to life.  By His death on the cross, all our sins have been taken away and we are once again at peace with God, reconciled with Him.  In the gospel, for the master to forgive his servant’s debt of 10,000 talents, it must have been at a great cost to his estate as well.  So when Christ took away our sins, it was done at a heavy price.

Consequently, we too are expected to do the same by forgiving others, especially when they owe us so little.  The sin they have committed against us is nothing compared to the offences we have committed against God.  So if God has forgiven us so much, how much more should we forgive the failings of our brothers and sisters?  This is what Jesus is asking of us when He said, “And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debts.  And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.”  To Peter’s question therefore as to “how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me?  As often as seven times?” Jesus answered, “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.”  The starting point remains that it is God in Christ that takes the initiative to forgive us.

Truly, to be a Christian is to be a reconciler like Jesus.  It is not merely about making converts and bringing people to Christ.  It means to restore unity among members of the family of God and then the whole of humanity.   And because we are imperfect people and sinners, Christ left to His Church the sacrament of reconciliation for those of us who are already baptized, but occasionally alienated from Him and His Church.

The sacrament of reconciliation is actually a renewal of our baptism and has the same purpose for the forgiveness of sins and restoration of our communion with Him.  What is needed for us if we have strayed away from Him or refused to forgive and be reconciled with those who hurt us, or those whom we have hurt, is to recall and relive our baptismal experience; which is His merciful and forgiving love and His power to liberate us from our bondages.

Otherwise we too will suffer a similar punishment like that of the Israelites in the desert for 40 years, or like the unforgiving servant who was handed “over to the torturers till he should pay all his debts.”  Let us not let God pass us by again and miss the opportunity of grace.  Let us seize the grace that comes to us in so many ways, through people and events.

And finally for those of us who already have had the conversion experience but, like the unforgiving servant, forgot so quickly the mercy of God, we must continue to renew this experience daily by participating in daily Mass, which is a memorial of His love for us in the paschal mystery; daily adoration of the Eucharist, regular sacrament of reconciliation and praying the Word of God.  However, it is also important that we minister the love and mercy of God to each other so that we can see the power of God at work in our daily life.  Only then will we remember that our God is real and powerful.  “Bless Yahweh, O my soul, from the depths of my being, his holy name.  Bless Yahweh, my soul, never forget all his acts of kindness.”  (Ps 103:1f)

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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