20190407
LETTING
GO OF OUR PAST
07 APRIL, 2019,
Sunday, 5th Week in Lent
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Violet.
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First reading
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Isaiah 43:16-21 ©
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See, I am doing a new deed, and I will
give my chosen people drink
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Thus says the Lord,
who made a way through the sea,
a path in the great waters;
who put chariots and horse in the field
and a powerful army
which lay there never to rise again,
snuffed out, put out like a wick:
No need to recall the past,
no need to think about what was done
before.
See, I am doing a new deed,
even now it comes to light; can you not
see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness,
paths in the wilds.
The wild beasts will honour me,
jackals and ostriches,
because I am putting water in the wilderness
(rivers in the wild)
to give my chosen people drink.
The people I have formed for myself
will sing my praises.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 125(126) ©
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What marvels the Lord
worked for us! Indeed we were glad.
When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage,
it seemed like a dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
on our lips there were songs.
What marvels the Lord
worked for us! Indeed we were glad.
The heathens themselves said: ‘What
marvels
the Lord worked for them!’
What marvels the Lord worked for us!
Indeed we were glad.
What marvels the Lord
worked for us! Indeed we were glad.
Deliver us, O Lord, from our bondage
as streams in dry land.
Those who are sowing in tears
will sing when they reap.
What marvels the Lord
worked for us! Indeed we were glad.
They go out, they go out, full of tears,
carrying seed for the sowing:
they come back, they come back, full of
song,
carrying their sheaves.
What marvels the Lord
worked for us! Indeed we were glad.
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Second reading
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Philippians 3:8-14 ©
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I look on everything as so much rubbish
if only I can have Christ
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I believe nothing can happen that will
outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have
accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if
only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for
perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I
want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God
and based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his
death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the
dead. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still
running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I can
assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I
can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come;
I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to
receive in Christ Jesus.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Joel2:12-13
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Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal
glory!
Now, now – it is the Lord who
speaks –
come back to me with all your heart,
for I am all tenderness and compassion.
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal
glory!
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Gospel
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John 8:1-11 ©
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'Let the one among you who has not
sinned be the first to throw a stone'
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Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At
daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he
sat down and began to teach them.
The
scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing
adultery; and making her stand there in full view of everybody, they said to
Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery,
and Moses has ordered us in the Law to condemn women like this to death by
stoning. What have you to say?’ They asked him this as a test, looking for
something to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the
ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he looked up and
said, ‘If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw
a stone at her.’ Then he bent down and wrote on the ground again. When they
heard this they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until Jesus
was left alone with the woman, who remained standing there. He looked up and
said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir’ she
replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus ‘go away, and do not sin any
more.’
LETTING GO OF
OUR PAST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Is 43:16-21; Ps 126:1-6; Phil 3:8-14; Jn 8:1-11 ]
We all have our
past. Sometimes
it is our glorious past, our successes and achievements that we reminisce with
pride and satisfaction. Sometimes, it is the mistakes that we look back
on with remorse. Sometimes, it is the golden opportunities that we failed
to seize that cause us to regret.
Remembering our past is
important. That
is why we need to know our history. When we cut off our history, we
paralyze the future. History is more than just a record of events that
happened in the past but they are lessons to be learned so that we will not
repeat the same mistakes of our past and that of our forefathers. On the
other hand, the achievements and heroic sacrifices of our forefathers become
inspirations for us to make further progress.
But why do the scripture
readings this Sunday, invite us three times to forget our past? From the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said,
“No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done
before.” St Paul wrote, “All I can say is that I forget the past and I
strain ahead for what is still to come.” To the adulterous woman, the
Lord said, “‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’
she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus ‘go away, and don’t sin
anymore.'” Indeed, this theme of letting go of our past seems to be the
focus of this Sunday’s liturgy. So, what does it mean to let go of our
past?
Remembering is a
two-edged sword when we remember the past in a negative way. In the first
instance, remembering the past could lead people to wallow in the sad moments
of their life. When
that happens, instead of helping us to grow in grace and in focus, the past
events cripple us. This is what happens to many people who
fall into depression, who are morbid and negative towards life. They
allow their past to condition them negatively and color their vision towards
life and people in a warped manner. They keep recounting their past pains and
their sufferings so that the fear of the future cripples them from letting
go. Some simply cannot forgive themselves and end up condemning
themselves as hopeless and incorrigible. By so doing, we will also not be
able to look at others positively through our hurtful eyes.
This explains why the
Lord set the woman free from her past so that she could move forward in
life. In
the story of the adulterous woman, the Lord said to the accusers, “‘If there is
one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at
her.” Of course, everyone has sinned and so they left one after
another. The truth is that all of us have sinned and that is why it
shows that we have no right to condemn others. It has been suggested that
what Jesus wrote on the ground was the sins of the woman’s indicters. We
are often so blind to our own faults that we focus only on others and overlook
our own.
In the case of St Paul,
he too kept recounting the past, but as something positive. He used his past mistakes to glorify God’s
mercy and love which changed and transformed His life. He wrote, “I am
grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged
me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a
blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I
had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for
me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure
and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners – of whom I am the foremost.” (1 Tim 1:12-15) If our past is seen as
truly past, then it has no more hold over us. Instead, we become grateful
for the mistakes we made because we see them as grace moments through which we
learn and grow.
In the second instance,
when we think of the past too much from the perspective of our achievements and
successes, we can also delimit ourselves from further growth. We tend to fossilize our successes,
strategies and plans that were then suitable for its time. We keep going
back to the past glories of our forefathers. Indeed, there are those who
take refuge by clinging to their past glories because they cannot handle the
present challenges. They keep on evoking the past instead of being
receptive to the new challenges ahead of them and make the necessary changes
and adaptations. They are escapists and traditionalists. They will
become redundant.
This was what happened
to the Israelites when they kept recounting the marvelous things the Lord did
for them during the first Exodus.
They were hoping for a similar miraculous liberation from their exile.
But the Lord said, “No need to think about what was done before.” He would be
doing something even greater than what their Fathers saw at the Exodus.
It would be incomparable. The Lord was going to do greater things that no
one could imagine. “See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to
light; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in
the wilds.” And what would this great miraculous event be?
This miraculous event is
none other than the Passion, death and resurrection of our Lord. Indeed, this is the greatest
miracle of all time. God who became man in Jesus at the Incarnation did
not simply stop there but He emptied Himself, “taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled
himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a
cross.” (Phil 2:7f) Indeed,
this was the new Exodus that Isaiah was ultimately referring to beyond the
Israelites’ return from exile under Emperor Cyrus of Persia. With the
passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord, God showed us His power over life
and death; evil and sin. For St Paul, encountering the passion,
death, and resurrection of our Lord was the key to living fully in the present
for the future, with faith and confidence. He said, “I believe nothing
can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything
as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.”
Consequently, for St
Paul to let go of his past meant that justification could no longer come from
observing the law as he was taught by his forefathers. He said, “I am no longer
trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the
Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is
from God and based on faith.” St Paul who was a true rabbi came to
realize that the law could not justify him because one either cannot observe
the laws completely or one observes them in a legalistic manner out of egotism,
pride or fear. Using one’s efforts alone cannot make us perfect.
The law cannot deliver us from sin because knowing what is right does not give
us the capacity to observe them. St Paul writing to the Galatians said, “We
have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in
Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified
by the works of the law.” (Gal 2:16)
So how can one be freed
from his past so that he can live a new life? It is faith in Christ alone who gives
us the capacity to do good because of His love and mercy for us. In
Christ Jesus, we know that God always forgives us for the sins of our
past. He does not take into account what we have done wrong. He is
only concerned about our future. He has, as St Paul wrote, “For our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21) And in the letter of Peter,
he wrote, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that,
free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been
healed.’ (1 Pt 2:24)
Having received God’s
mercy, what is now required is to reproduce Christ’s death and resurrection in
our lives. St Paul wrote,
“All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share
his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can
hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead.” What we are
called to do is to imitate the Lord because of what He has done for us.
But we need to rely
on the primacy of grace, not on our efforts alone. This is what the psalmist reminds
us. “When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage, it seemed like a
dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, on our lips there were
songs. The heathens themselves said: ‘What marvels the Lord worked for
them!’ What marvels the Lord worked for us! Indeed, we were glad.”
We can perfect ourselves with the love and mercy of God. St
Paul wrote, “Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am
still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me.
I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won.”
Nevertheless, we take
courage that every time we fail, we can turn to the Lord for forgiveness
and seek a renewal of His love and mercy. He wants to do greater things
for us through our failures. But
we must leave the past behind by learning from our mistakes and that of others
so that we might use them for our growth. We must remember the past with
gratitude and joy for what God has done for us by transforming our mistakes
into graces for a new life. Indeed, St Paul wrote, “We know that all
things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according
to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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