Wiping the Slate Clean: The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Wiping the Slate Clean:

The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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October 27, 2019

Exodus 17:8-13; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

As we approach the end of the year, we tend to think about final judgments, and we wonder if we will be saved. (The short answer is “yes, of course.”) The readings urge us to be vigilant and to lead moral lives, but Jesus cautions us about self-justification, when we declare ourselves to be “pretty good persons.” The Jewish faith acknowledged that self-justification is insufficient as a path to salvation because one cannot testify to oneself. Someone else must be our defender and come to our aid. Justification comes from outside ourselves, and in the case of salvation, it comes from God. For a person of faith, we escape the wrath of God through the justification by Jesus.

What really is justification? Look at it this way. If we justify ourselves, we prove the reason we are right, but if someone else justifies us, that person proves that we acted in the right way. We are in a posture of defense. When God justifies sinners, God is not proving that they are right. It means that God treats sinners as if they had not been sinners at all. Sinners are not criminals but are children that are to be loved. Our slates are wiped clean, and God treats us as friends.

The entire work of Jesus was that he enabled people to enter into a new friendship with God. We become friends with God in this relationship that is based on love and confidence. Before the incarnation and resurrection, one’s relationship with God was based on distance, enmity, and a reverent fear, but because of the obedience of Jesus, God rewards us with forgiving and redeeming love that puts us in right relationship with God. Fear is gone, and love prevails. The person who is just, the one who is justified, is someone who is in right relationship with God. All this is due to our acceptance of God’s amazing mercy.

We get this concept when we participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation when we know God not only forgives our sins but wipes the slate clean and treats us as if we never had sinned at all. We believe God does this for us, but the problem is, we don’t ever forget our sins. We don’t regard ourselves as people who have never sinned before. We have this amazing mercy that we don’t deserve offered to us, so that we can live in freedom and happiness, but we don’t fully accept the invitations. Instead, we pile our bad choices onto of other burdens and we get weighed down. We live in the past. We keep the past present instead of letting it go and having it vanish once and for all. We keep ourselves as slaves to our past instead of allowing us to become free in Christ. Why do we do that when God remains faithful to us?

I think most of us have had an experience of being forgiven when we were in the wrong. Do you remember how that felt? We did nothing to merit it. We did not deserve it, but the bonds that we formed because someone wiped the slate clean was astonishing. We wanted to be in right relationship with the one who forgave us and accepted us as friends. We need more of that in this world, to be in a culture in which we better understood God’s mercy, which increases our capacity to be more responsible for one another. We don’t understand fully what God offers us.

Forget about defending yourselves and explaining your actions. That is not very interesting, and it won’t get you very far but concentrate on the one who is your Advocate and the eraser of your debt. You have no worries. You are already saved. God is going to look upon you and only see a friend who deserves even more mercy. God will always have your back. We have an invitation before us. Let’s look more fully into this offer of mercy. Let’s try to understand how it changes our life, and let’s see how it can create a culture of grace in a world that is starving for it.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (Ephesians 2) You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.

Tuesday: (Romans 8) I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.

Wednesday: (Romans 8) The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.

Thursday: (Romans 8) If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?

Friday (Revelation 7) After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.

Saturday (Wisdom 3) The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 6) Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles.

Tuesday: (Luke 13) "To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened."

Wednesday (Luke 13) "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.

Thursday (Luke 13) "Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you." He replied, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose.

Friday (Matthew 5) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.

Saturday (John 6) And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.

Saints of the Week

October 28: Simon and Jude, apostles (first century) were two of the Twelve Disciples called by Jesus, but little is known about them. We think they are Simon the Zealot and Judas, the son of James. Simon was most likely a Zealot sympathizer who would have desired revolution against Rome; Jude is also called Thaddeus, and is patron saint of hopeless causes. Both apostles suffered martyrdom.

October 30: Dominic Collins, S.J., priest and martyr (1566-1602), was a Jesuit brother who was martyred in his native Ireland. He became a professional solider in the Catholic armies of Europe after the Desmond Rebellion was put down in 1583. He joined the Jesuits in 1584 at Santiago de Compostela and was sent back to Ireland in 1601 with a Spanish contingent. He was captured, tried for his faith, and sentenced to death.

October 31: Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1532-1617) was widowed at age 31. When his three children died, Alphonsus joined the Jesuits as a lay brother at age 40 after attempting to complete the rigors of study. He was sent to the newly opened college in Majorca where he served as a porter for 46 years. His manner of calling people to sanctification was extraordinary. He served obediently and helped others to focus on their spiritual lives.

October 31: All Hallows Eve (evening) owes its origins to a Celtic festival that marked summer's end. The term was first used in 16th century Scotland. Trick or treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling when poor people would go door to door on Hallomas (November 1) receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2.)

November 1: All Saints Day honors the countless faithful believers - living and dead - who have helped us along in our faith. Our liturgical calendar is filled with canonized saints, but we have many blesseds and minor saints who no longer appear on it. We have local saints across the world. We have many people who live Gospel values who we appreciate and imitate. We remember all of these people on this day.

November 2: All Souls Day is the commemoration of the faithful departed. November is known as All Souls Month. We remember those who died as we hasten towards the end of the liturgical year and the great feast of Christ the King. As a tradition, we have always remembered our dead as a way of keeping them alive to us and giving thanks to God for their lives.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      Oct 27, 1610. The initial entrance of the Jesuits into Canada. The mission had been recommended to the Society by Henry IV.

·      Oct 28, 1958. The death of Wilfrid Parsons, founder of Thought magazine and editor of America from 1925 to 1936.

·      Oct 29, 1645. In the General Chapter of the Benedictines in Portugal, a statement published by one of their order, that said St Ignatius had borrowed the matter in his Spiritual Exercises from a Benedictine author, was indignantly repudiated.

·      Oct 30, 1638. On this day, John Milton, the great English poet, dined with the Fathers and students of the English College in Rome.

·      Oct 31, 1602. At Cork, the martyrdom of Dominic Collins, an Irish brother, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for his adherence to the faith.

·      Nov 1, 1956. The Society of Jesus was allowed in Norway.

·      Nov 2, 1661. The death of Daniel Seghers, a famous painter of insects and flowers.