THE TRAGIC LOSS OF THE SENSE OF SIN
According to Pope Puis XII, one of the greatest tragedies of modern man and woman is the loss of the sense of sin. Sin or moral evil is today widely dismissed as merely a religious notion. The notion of sin and its consequences are being watered down in the name that Christianity is not only guilt-lading. The mathematic simply removes sin from Christianity and it becomes a social organization of ethics of relative right and wrong.
OUR THEME
This Sunday’s readings offer us so many fundamental themes of our Christian faith. The sin and its consequences. The psalmist offers us the mercy and compassion of God that leads to the fullness of grace and redemption. Paul, equally, offers us living hope amidst the trials and difficulties of life, as well as the renewing grace of God daily upon us.
Jesus in the gospel faces all sorts of attacks on his image, person, teaching, and healing. Yet, Jesus with a deep sense of calmness teaches us many fundamental truths of our lives and faith.
FIRST READING: THE BOOK OF GENESIS 3:9-15
The first reading today, the Book of Genesis 3:9-15 sets forth the experience of sin and its consequences. It separates us from God´s presence, it robs us of the clothing of grace, and it makes us vulnerable because sin is contagious in so many ways. It also distorts the harmony between us and God, others, and nature. So often we blame sin on others instead of accepting our responsibilities.
SECOND READING: 2 CORINTHIANS 4:13—5:1
In the second reading, 2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1 St. Paul reminds us that, even though the threat of evil in human existence is deep and widespread. There is a restoration in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the newness, fullness, and renewal of life. This God will realize in Christ Jesus by remaking us into His image, which we have lost through sin.
THE GOSPEL: MARK 3:20-35
In the gospel of Mark 3:20-35, Jesus’ humanity was portrayed as one misjudged, misinterpreted, and called names intentionally. His image and person were unjustly distorted to discredit him and his work by supposedly religious leaders and family. The root of evil is blaspheming against the truth due to envy and jealousy.
The gospel of today is structured under three topics: namely, Jesus losing his mind, the accusation and sin against the Holy Spirit, and finally, true kinship with Christ.
JESUS HAS GONE OUT OF HIS MIND: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Sometimes a man drops a remark that cannot be interpreted otherwise than as the product of a bitter experience. Once when Jesus was enumerating the things which a man might have to face for following him, he said, “A man’s foes will be those of his own household.” (Matthew 10: 36.) His own family had concluded that he had taken leave of his senses and that it was time he was taken home. Let us see if we can understand what made them feel like that.
- Jesus had left home and the carpenter’s business. No doubt it was a flourishing business from which he could at least have made a living; and quite suddenly he had flung the whole thing up and gone out to be a wandering preacher.
In his family’s opinion, no sensible man would throw up a business where the money came in every week to become a vagrant who had no place to lay his head.
2. Jesus was obviously on the way to a head-on collision with the orthodox leaders of his day. These are religious authorities who can do a man a great deal of harm, people on whose right side it is better to keep, and people whose opposition can be very dangerous.
No sensible man, they must have been thinking, would ever get up against the powers that be. No one could take on the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the orthodox leaders and hope to get away with it.
3. Jesus had newly started a little society of his own-and a very queer society it was. There were some fishermen; there was a reformed tax collector; there was a fanatical nationalist. They were not the kind of people whom any ambitious man would particularly want to know.
They certainly were not the kind of people who would be any good to a man who was set on a career. No sensible man, they must have been thinking, would pick a crowd of friends like that. They were not the kind of people a prudent man would want to get mixed up with.
JESUS RISKS IT ALL
By his actions, Jesus had made it clear that the three laws by the motto of which men tend to organize their lives meant nothing to him.
i) He had thrown away security. The one thing that most people in this world want more than anything else is just that.
They want above all things a job and a position which are secure, and where there are as few material and financial risks as possible.
ii) He had thrown away safety. Most people tend at all times to play safe. They are more concerned with the safety of any course of action than with its moral quality, its rightness, or its wrongness. A course of action that involves risk is something wandering from which they instinctively shrink.
iii) He had shown himself utterly indifferent to the verdict of society. He had shown that he did not much care what men said about him. In point of fact, for most people “the voice of their neighbours is louder than the voice of God.” “What will people say?” is one of the first questions that most people, of us, are in the habit of asking.
What appalled Jesus’ friends was the risks that he was taking, risks which, as they thought, no sensible man would take.
THE SENSE OF SIN
The greatest plague against humanity and Christianity is the damage to conscience formation and the loss of the sense of sin. This is a deliberate demoralizing of everything related to God, Christianity, and the Church by reason and enlightened minds who trivialize and relativize every knowledge to deny the sense of absolute.
In our time, it has become more fashionable to reject the doctrine of original sin and to water down the effect of actual sins. Like abortion as, women´s rights, same-sex marriage as freedom of choice and expression, stealing into smartness, pretence as prudence, fornication and adultery as socializing, lack of forgiveness as being principled, lying as diplomacy, scheming as being wise. Gossiping and backbiting as being honest and sincere. Etc.
THE SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognizes six Sins against the Holy Spirit. These are:
- Despair means to give up hope that God can ever save us; we think that salvation is lost to us forever and that there is consequently no reason to keep striving for it.
- The presumption of God’s mercy means the exact opposite of despair. We think that we are guaranteed salvation and that we need not worry about whether we will get to Heaven.
- Impugning, criticizing, or attacking the known truth: this means to question the Deposit of Faith through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Traditions, the dogmas of the Faith, the teaching of the Magisterium, and those teachings that the Church upholds as true and necessary for our salvation. This is also called heresy.
- Envy of another’s spiritual good: this is where we wish to deprive the other of the sacred gifts that justly belong to him — the blessings and graces that God has bestowed upon his soul — because we are jealous of them.
- Obstinacy in sin, that is, we have no intention of repenting from our sinfulness and changing our ways; we are happy the way we are, and we do not care that our sin separates us from the love of God.
- Final impenitence, this is when we never repent, even on our deathbeds. We freely choose to enter into eternity fully attached to sin, rather than accepting God’s grace and repenting.
A BEAUTIFUL ARTICULATION BY WILLAM BARCLAY
There is only one condition of forgiveness and that is penitence. So long as a man sees loveliness in Christ, so long as he hates his sin even if he cannot leave it, even if he is in the mud and the mire, he can still be forgiven.
But if a man, by repeated refusals of God’s guidance, has lost the ability to recognize goodness when he sees it, if he has got his moral values inverted until evil to him is good and good to him is evil, then, even when he is confronted by Jesus, he is conscious of no sin; he cannot repent and therefore he can never be forgiven, That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.
WHO ARE JESUS’ BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND MOTHER?
Even, though, the gospel text of today portrays Jesus’ family as being against him or his ministry. It is fundamentally important to note that Jesus did not trivialize or devalue family ties. Equally, he did not despise his mother, who of course did the will of God.
On a more appreciative note, he did present his mother the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model of faith. For Jesus, her mother is a perfect example of our belonging to kinship with God and his kingdom project.
TRUE KINSHIP WITH CHRIST
HERE Jesus lays down the conditions of true kinship. It is not solely a matter of flesh and blood. Really, it can happen that, a man is nearer to someone who is no blood relation to him at all than he is to those who are bound to him by the closest ties of kin and blood. Therefore, wherein lies this true kinship?
- True kinship lies in a common experience, especially when it is an experience where two people have come through things together. That is profoundly true. The basis of true kinship lies in a common experience, and Christians have the common experience of being forgiven sinners.
- True kinship lies in a common interest. 1. It can happen that bound together Christians have that common interest because they are people who desire to know more about Jesus Christ.
- True kinship lies in a common obedience. The disciples were a very mixed group. All kinds of beliefs and opinions. A tax-collector like Matthew and a fanatical nationalist like Simon the Zealot ought to have hated each other like poison and no doubt at one time did. However, they came through and were bound together because both had accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord
- True kinship lies in a common goal. There is nothing that binds men together like a common aim and purpose. The basis of a new approach to the ecumenical problem based on biblical rather than ecclesiastical considerations? The churches will never draw together so long as they argue about the ordination of their ministers, the form of church government, the administration of the sacraments, and all the rest of it. The one thing on which they can all come together is the fact that all of them are seeking to win men for Jesus Christ.
OUR PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Lord Jesus Christ, the palmist prayed: ¨with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption because if you O Lord should mark our sins- who will stand? ¨ Help us to admit to our sins and faults and as such merit your infinite mercy and love. Amen
