Saturday, 30 March 2019

TRUE REPENTANCE

20190330 TRUE REPENTANCE

30 MARCH, 2019, Saturday, 3rd Week in Lent
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: Violet.

First reading
Hosea 5:15-6:6 ©

What I want is love, not sacrifice and holocausts
The Lord says this:
They will search for me in their misery.
‘Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us;
he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds;
after a day or two he will bring us back to life,
on the third day he will raise us
and we shall live in his presence.
Let us set ourselves to know the Lord;
that he will come is as certain as the dawn
his judgement will rise like the light,
he will come to us as showers come,
like spring rains watering the earth.’
What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I to do with you, Judah?
This love of yours is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that quickly disappears.
This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets,
why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth,
since what I want is love, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God, not holocausts.

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 50(51):3-4,18-21 ©
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
  In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
  and cleanse me from my sin.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
For in sacrifice you take no delight,
  burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
  A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
In your goodness, show favour to Zion:
  rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice,
  burnt offerings wholly consumed.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.

Gospel Acclamation
Ps94:8
Glory and praise to you, O Christ!
Harden not your hearts today,
but listen to the voice of the Lord.
Glory and praise to you, O Christ!

Gospel
Luke 18:9-14 ©

The tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified.
Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’


TRUE REPENTANCE

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ HOSEA 5:15 – 6:6LUKE 18:9-14 ]
We have come to the end of the first half of the season of Lent. In the first three weeks of Lent, the liturgy focused on the theme of repentance.  To help us to repent, the Church also recommends the various spiritual exercises, namely, prayer, fasting and alms-giving as the principal means to arrive at a repentance of heart and a conversion of life.  Hence, after three weeks, the Church invites us to reflect whether the spiritual exercises we have performed so far have brought about the desired effects.  Have we just performed them in a perfunctory manner, lacking the right motive in what we do?
In the first reading from the Prophet Hosea, the Lord lamented that the repentance of the Israelites was not genuine but superficial.  He said, “What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What am I to do with you, Judah? This love of yours is like a morning cloud, like the dew that quickly disappears.”  Would this disappointment of the Lord include us as well?  Have we been serious in seeking a real conversion of heart during the season of Lent, or have we just been paying lip service, doing the spiritual exercises without a real desire and sincere will to change our lives?  How might this have happened?
Firstly, when we return to the Lord out of self-pity and selfish interests.  The Lord said, “They will search for me in their misery: ‘Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us.'”   The Israelites came back to God not because they recognized that their sins had caused others to suffer and rendered the nation too weak to defend herself from her enemies.  They came back to God like little children out of fear and pain because of the punishment inflicted on them.  When we repent out of self-pity and fear, such repentance will not last.  The moment the punishment is removed we would go back to our old way of life.  Is not this the case for those of us who ask for God’s forgiveness for the wrongs we have done, and when the crisis is over we promptly go back to our old way of life?
Secondly, the Israelites were contented with external sacrifices.  They did not mind offering holocausts as sacrifices, but the rituals were not expressive of their interior spirit.  This is what the Lord said, “what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.”  The psalmist rightly says, “For in sacrifice you take no delight, burnt offering from me you would refuse, my sacrifice, a contrite spirit. A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.”  Rituals are important in any religion, culture and even for the government.  They are meant to help people to remember and inculcate the values that they believe in.  Rituals are not empty expressions and void of values so long as they are sincerely carried out.   In the Old Testament, various rituals, such as atonement sacrifices and the commemoration of significant feasts, such as the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost were celebrated.  In the Catholic Tradition, we also have numerous traditions and rituals celebrating the different feast and seasons of the liturgical year and various occasions seeking God’s blessings and divine protection.  However, unless they are celebrated with our hearts and minds they are merely externals and will not change lives.   Many Catholics go to mass on Sundays, abstain from meat on Fridays, some even attend mass daily, and say their prayers, but have these impacted the way they relate with people, to the elderly, their staff and their employees?
Thirdly, there was no real repentance because they were presumptuous of God’s mercy and love.  What they said about the mercy and compassion of God is true.  They said, “He has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds; after a day or two he will bring us back to life, on the third day he will raise us and we shall live in his presence.”  However, unless the people have genuine repentance, the Lord would not come to their aid.  Indeed, this was the case for Israel.  They did not repent and so instead of suffering for two or three days, the Lord allowed the kingdom to be conquered by Assyria.  They were exiled and banished from Israel.  We must not reduce the grace of God to cheap grace.  This is what St Paul also warns us after a long treatise on justification by faith alone through grace.  He said, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?”  (Rom 6:1f) We too, if we abuse the grace of God, we will eventually destroy ourselves.  “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”  (Gal 5:1)
At the other end of the spectrum, the Pharisee in the gospel did not feel the need for repentance at all.  He thought that everyone needed repentance except himself because he was such a righteous man.  Many of us fall into the sin of self-righteousness as well.  We think repentance and conversion is for others, the adulterer, the cheat, the abuser, etc, except ourselves.  Many of us pride ourselves as quite good Catholics, like the Pharisee in today’s gospel.  He said, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.”  If we belong to this group of self-righteous sinners, we are even worse than the Israelites who knew their sins but lacked the will to change their lives.  For those of us who are not even aware of our sinfulness, no conversion is possible.
Indeed, instead of focusing on our own conversion, those of us who are self-righteous are always looking at others, comparing ourselves with them, looking down on them and despising them.  This was the reason for the parable.  “Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else.”  Being self-righteous and presumptuous is ultimately the sin of pride.  When we are proud, we are blind to our weaknesses and our sins. We alienate ourselves from others and lack compassion and understanding for those who fail to live up to the Christian life.   As a result, we will never grow in holiness, which is to become like God in love, mercy and compassion.
Those who are self-righteous have failed to understand that salvation and holiness is the grace of God and not through good works.  Unfortunately, many Catholics think that by living a righteous life and following the laws perfectly they will be saved.  That is why Catholics are over scrupulous when it comes to breaking the commandments.  St Paul clearly teaches that salvation is through grace alone, and not by our works.  It is through His grace alone that makes it possible for us to do good works.  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”  (Eph 2:8f) Obedience is the consequence of receiving His grace and the expression of a life of gratitude for the grace we received freely.
True repentance is simply to be contrite and humble, like the Publican in today’s gospel.  We read that “The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  He did not say much because he knew that the Lord knew all his sins.  But God read his heart and understands his sorrow for all that he had done.  He was truly repentant from the heart.  There was no external show, no drama to attract others, but he simply acknowledged his sins, the pain he has caused to others and to God.  Hence, the Lord remarked, “This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Indeed, what the Lord is asking of us in true repentance is a contrite heart born out of love and expressed in obedience.  He said, “what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.”  Real repentance is the consequence of realizing that our sins are hurting God and the people that He loves.   Knowing that our sins are hurting us and causing us to suffer is not yet real repentance.  We must be moved by love for those whom we have hurt.  That is why the Lord said that what He wants is knowledge of Him.  When we know the heart of God and how much we are hurting Him, then we will stop inflicting these injuries on those whom He loves.  If in sincerity we repent of our sins, then this prayer of the Israelites will be effective in our lives.  “Let us set ourselves to know the Lord; that he will come is as certain as the dawn, he will come to us as showers come, like spring rains watering the earth.”

Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved



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