Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 462

You heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure
and tried to destroy it, and progressed in Judaism
beyond many of my contemporaries among my race, since I was even more a zealot for my ancestral traditions.

 

In Edmund Spencer’s Faery Queen, we hear the story of the Red Knight’s encounter with Despair. He had heard of a dreadful monster who lived in a cavern and consumed anyone who dared to enter. Enraged at such savagery, the valiant young man rushed into the cave only to find a naked, skinny old man sitting amid a pile of bones and skeletons. The defenseless nonagenarian invited the knight to kill him and take him out of his misery! And he told of how, in his old age, he was plagued by memories of his earlier sins. The older he got, the more he sinned. And the more his guilt, remorse, and shame troubled him. His senior years were nothing but misery.

As he continued this doleful tale the young knight began to think of his own shortcomings, misadventures, and crimes. Pretty soon, he began to despair of life itself. He had drawn his sword and was about to kill himself when his girlfriend, the virtuous Una, rushed in and hauled him out of Despair’s cavern.

Such is life without faith. When Martin Luther discovered Saint Paul’s principle of salvation by faith alone, he experienced an enormous freedom. A sensitive young man who had disappointed his father by becoming a monk, he despaired of pleasing God. Because his idea of God was based on his German father, rather than that of Jesus’ Father, he found no relief -- no salvation -- in trying to be good. No one can please an unhappy god. Neither their good works, accomplishments, triumphs, awards, recognition, nor innocence can satisfy the command to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. 

Saint Paul never forgot his early harassment of Christians and his determination to suppress the Gospel. He had persecuted the church beyond measure! But that was the past, he was not tormented because he trusted and surrendered to the Lord who had called him from his former way of life. With the same eager energy of his past, he visited the cities of the Roman Empire to speak of Christ Crucified. He could not atone for his sins; that is God’s work. But he could tell the world of atonement through the saving passion and death of the Lord.

Many Catholics suffer a dread of the Sacrament of Penance because they have yet to receive the Saint’s Revelation. Remembering their past, they do not begin with, “Thank God, he has delivered me from all that.”  Nor, “Thank God I have seen how wrong, foolish, and unnecessary that action was.”  Like the Red Knight, they are still burdened with shame, remorse, and fear of retribution. The only reason we were young is to have something to regret when we get old.

 

However, as they celebrate Penance often and hear the Words of Absolution, many permit themselves to feel loved, forgiven, and free. Approaching the Sacrament, they apply that spiritual salve to a healing wound and their Blessed Assurance becomes habitual. When thoughts of their shameful past arise, they shrug them off, saying once again, “Thank God, that’s over.”

Reconciliation is not about forgetting the past; it’s being reconciled to it through the grace of God. It’s remembering and seeing oneself through the compassionate, human eyes of Jesus. We are kith and kin to God! The Infant of Bethlehem has loved us like his own parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts, neighbors, and friends. He takes delight in our presence and admires our courage. He will not let anything come between us and him. Least of all, the death he suffered on Calvary.