The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite contemplation of the connection between love and forgiveness as we reflect on what we have learned from the wounds of our life.
Our journey in love
The reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians relates the Resurrection of Christ.
* [15:3–7] The language by which Paul expresses the essence of the “gospel” (1 Cor 15:1) is not his own but is drawn from older credal formulas. This credo highlights Jesus’ death for our sins (confirmed by his burial) and Jesus’ resurrection (confirmed by his appearances) and presents both of them as fulfillment of prophecy. In accordance with the scriptures: conformity of Jesus’ passion with the scriptures is asserted in Mt 16:1; Lk 24:25–27, 32, 44–46. Application of some Old Testament texts (Ps 2:7; 16:8–11) to his resurrection is illustrated by Acts 2:27–31; 13:29–39; and Is 52:13–53:12 and Hos 6:2 may also have been envisaged.1
Psalm 118 is a song of victory.
* [Psalm 118] A thanksgiving liturgy accompanying a procession of the king and the people into the Temple precincts. After an invocation in the form of a litany (Ps 118:1–4), the psalmist (very likely speaking in the name of the community) describes how the people confidently implored God’s help (Ps 118:5–9) when hostile peoples threatened its life (Ps 118:10–14); vividly God’s rescue is recounted (Ps 118:15–18). Then follows a possible dialogue at the Temple gates between the priests and the psalmist as the latter enters to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice (Ps 118:19–25). Finally, the priests impart their blessing (Ps 118:26–27), and the psalmist sings in gratitude (Ps 118:28–29).2
In the Gospel of Luke, a Pharisee witnesses a sinful woman forgiven.
* [7:47] Her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love: literally, “her many sins have been forgiven, seeing that she has loved much.” That the woman’s sins have been forgiven is attested by the great love she shows toward Jesus. Her love is the consequence of her forgiveness. This is also the meaning demanded by the parable in Lk 7:41–43.3
Cindy Costanzo knows that another message of today’s reading is to honestly bring my weakness and sins to God. That God forgives and loves me.
I know that I am called to be a companion of Jesus and I know that Jesus calls you also. We are here for a specific purpose. We are here to serve and love our families, our neighbors, our communities. Jesus' message is to love, to forgive and to provide for each other. It’s simple, its basic and it’s the truth. In this current time of suffering, tribulation, and an abundance of sin, let us ask our God for forgiveness, to love one another and to offer our hand in taking evil and converting it to a good. Forgiveness can change a life. Forgiveness will make a transformational change in a life. Let's take this opportunity to forgive someone close to us. Let’s recognize that if each of us today forgives one person, the world can be transformed. How easy is that?4
Don Schwager quotes “Jesus the Physician brings miraculous healing to the woman's sins,” by Ephrem the Syrian (306-373 AD).
"Healing the sick is a physician's glory. Our Lord did this to increase the disgrace of the Pharisee, who discredited the glory of our Physician. He worked signs in the streets, worked even greater signs once he entered the Pharisee's house than those that he had worked outside. In the streets, he healed sick bodies, but inside, he healed sick souls. Outside, he had given life to the death of Lazarus. Inside, he gave life to the death of the sinful woman. He restored the living soul to a dead body that it had left, and he drove off the deadly sin from a sinful woman in whom it dwelt. That blind Pharisee, for whom wonders were not enough, discredited the common things he saw because of the wondrous things he failed to see." (excerpt from HOMILY ON OUR LORD 42.2)5
Friar Jude Winkler connects the kerygma preached by Paul to the mysterious Suffering Servant in the Hebrew Testament. Two meanings of “apostle” are “one of the Twelve” and “witness.” Friar Jude notes that the woman in the Gospel is saved rather than healed.
Gerard J Hughes SJ, former head of the philosophy department at Heythrop College, University of London, comments that the notion of resurrection is beyond our grasp; and belief in the resurrection is, as the early creed cited by Paul says, ultimately based on the experience of the earliest Christians.
But I believe it is important to see that at least a good deal of the mystery is there before we ask any religious questions at all; it is our material universe and our place in that universe which, for all the amazing progress made by our scientific endeavours, seems almost more mysterious to us than it would have done to Paul or Luke. Yet the disciples as Luke depicts them on the road to Emmaus can, through their meditation on the scriptures and their sharing in the eucharist, open themselves to an experience of God. That is what enables us, who have not seen, nonetheless to believe. Perhaps also it points us towards a hope that transcends anything we can say, whether in science or in religion.6
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces the work of Lama Rod Owens, a Black, queer, American-born, Tibetan Buddhist teacher, who was raised in the Christian church and graduated from Harvard Divinity School.
Healing is movement and work toward wholeness. Healing is never a definite location but something in process. It is the basic ordinary work of staying engaged with our own hurt and limitations. Healing does not mean forgiveness either, though it is a result of it. Healing is knowing our woundedness; it is developing an intimacy with the ways in which we suffer. Healing is learning to love the wound because love draws us into relationship with it instead of avoiding feeling the discomfort.7
As we receive grace to love more generously, we embrace our wounds as experience that brings us closer to Christ and others.
References
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