Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: It Is Never Too Late

Jan 23, 2015

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10;
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

Once a year, I put on my classical duds and go to New York City to see an opera or two. A few years ago I saw Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The story is sometimes called Don Juan. It is the story of a horrible man who uses and dumps as many women as he can; laughing at the fact that he can’t even count his victims. At the end of the opera Don Giovanni or the play Don Juan, or for that matter, at the end of the opera Faust, the main character has the ability to be forgiven, but out of pride, refuses to recognize his sins and would rather be condemned to hell.

These are just plays or operas, but what saddens me is that many people act the same way. There are people who think that it is too late for them. They think that they cannot be forgiven. They think that their sins are too numerous, or too grave, to merit forgiveness.

Perhaps you know some of these people. Perhaps you are one of these people. If you think that it is too late to be forgiven or that your sins are too grave, you are wrong.

Look at the first reading for this weekend. It is from the Book of Jonah. Now when we hear about Jonah, we think about the fellow who spent three days in the belly of a whale, foreshadowing Christ’s three days in the tomb. That is only part of the story. The whole reason why Jonah got gobbled up was because he refused to listen to God and preach to the people of the largest city of the area, Nineveh. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people that they were condemned due to their sins. Jonah was afraid of them, and was convinced that they would attack him if he did as God told him. Nineveh was to the Northeast of Jonah. Jonah fled to the Southwest, and got onto a ship he hoped would take him to a far away land. Instead, he ended up being thrown overboard. A tempest hit the ship, and the mariners were convinced that this was not a normal weather occurrence, but the hand of God. They soon learned about Jonah trying to flee God, and threw him off the ship into the ocean. The whale saved Jonah’s life, giving him a chance to redeem himself by doing God’s will and telling the Ninivites that condemnation was coming. But the Ninevites heard Jonah, recognized their own sins, and repented, hoping that it was not too late for them.

It wasn’t. God saw their determination and decided against punishing them It wasn’t too late for Jonah. It wasn’t too late for the Ninivites. It is never too late for us. So people come to Church the last few weeks and see crosses or other reminders of the pro-abortion laws in our country. Many people are reminded not just of Roe vs Wade, but of the fact that they were involved in an abortion. They think that it is too late for them to be forgiven, or that the sin was too much to forgive. They think that they don’t belong in Church. They are wrong. God wants them here. We need them here. God wants them here because he wants them to receive healing from the community. We need them here because we need people who will proclaim to the world that there is only one choice a Christian can make, and that is the choice of life. We need them here because they are hurting, and we, the Body of Christ, cannot bear to see any of our members in pain.

Some people come to Church battling sin, and frequently losing that battle. They might have gotten through a week or two, but then they succumb again. Once in Church, they see so many around them living a moral life that they feel that they don’t belong here. But they are wrong. They need to be here because they need to be in the presence of compassion and love, compassion and love emanating from Christ and reflected by the Catholic community. It is not too late for them. It is never too late for any of us.

Today’s Gospel sums up all of Jesus’ teaching. His message was simple: repent and believe in the Gospel, the Good News. The Good News is that happiness and peace are offered to us if we are willing to fight against sin and turn to the Lord. The Good News is that nothing can take Christ from us. No one, no situation in life, nothing can destroy the joy that we have in being united to the Lord.

And this joy is there for us, every one of us. We can embrace the joy. We do not have to be like Don Giovanni. We cannot allow our pride to destroy us. We must have the humility to embrace the Lord’s compassion. The Lord never gives up on us. We do not have the right to give up on ourselves. -- By Fr Joseph A Pellegrino

Thoughts of the Early Church

Repent, and believe the good news.
In today’s Gospel, beloved, we heard the exhortation to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now the kingdom of heaven is Christ, who, as we know, is the judge of good and evil and scrutinizes the motives for all our actions.

We should therefore do well to forestall God’s judgement by freely acknowledging our sins and correcting our wrongheaded attitudes; for by failing to seek out the needful remedies and apply them, we place ourselves in danger.

And our knowledge that we shall have to account for the motives behind our shortcomings makes the need for such a change of heart even greater.

We must recognize the greatness of God’s love for us; so generous is it that he is willing to be appeased by the amends we make for our evil deeds, provided only that we freely admit them before he has himself condemned them. And though his judgments are always just, he gives us a warning before he passes them, so as not to be compelled to apply the full rigour of his justice.

It is not for nothing that our God draws floods of tears from us; he does so to incite us to recover by penance and a change of heart what we had previously let slip through carelessness. God is well aware that human judgment is often at fault, that we are prone to fleshly sins and deceitful speech.

He therefore shows us the way of repentance, by which we can compensate for damage done and atone for our faults. And so to be sure of obtaining forgiveness, we ought to be always bewailing our guilt.

Yet no matter how many wounds our human nature has sustained, we are never justified in giving ourselves over to despair, for the Lord is magnanimous enough to pour out his compassion abundantly on all who need it.

But perhaps one of you will say: “What have I to fear? I have never done anything wrong.” On this point hear what the apostle John says: If we claim to be sinless, we deceive ourselves and are blind to the truth. So let no one lead you astray; the most pernicious kind of sin is the failure to realize one’s own sinfulness.

Once let wrongdoers admit their guilt and repent of it, and this change of heart will bring about their reconciliation with the Lord; but no sinner is more in need of the tears of others than the one who thinks he has nothing to weep for. So I implore you, beloved, to follow the advice given you by holy Scripture and humble yourselves beneath the all-powerful hand of God.

As none of us can be wholly free from sin, so let none of us fail to make amends; here too we do ourselves great harm if we presume our own innocence. It may be that some are less guilty than others, but no one is entirely free from fault; there may be degrees of guilt, but no one can escape it altogether.

Let those then, whose offenses are more grievous be more earnest in seeking pardon; and let those who have so far escaped contamination by the more heinous crimes pray that they may never be defiled by them, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. --Caesarius of Arles