Pope Francis has said the Church does not exist for people without faults, but for sinners in need of God's Mercy - a point he often returns to - and lamented the fact that there are many Catholics who believe the opposite.
We who are accustomed to experiencing the forgiveness of sins, perhaps too much like 'a cheap market', we should at times remind ourselves of how much we cost the love of God.
Jesus didn't go to the Cross because He heals the sick, because He preaches charity or because He proclaims the beautitudes. Rather, the Son of God goes to the Cross above all because He forgives sins, because He wants the total, definitive freedom of man's heart.
He does not accept that the human being consumes their entire existence with this irremovable 'tattoo', with the thought of not being able to be welcomed by the merciful heart of God.
And this, is how sinners are forgiven. Not only are they reassured at a psychological level, feeling free from a sense of guilt, but Jesus does more: "He offers the people who have erred the hope of a new life, a life marked by love."
After Jesus forgives the sins of a woman who anoints his feet with oil, Simon the Pharisee asks "who is this who even forgives sins?"
Jesus' act of forgiving the woman's sins was a scandalous gesture, noting that to have a known sinner come into the house of Simon to anoint Jesus was startling, because at the time the mentality was between the holy and the sinner, the pure and the impure, the separation had to be clear.
But the attitude of Jesus is different, noting that from the beginning of His ministry, Jesus embraced lepers, the sick and the marginalised.
Such behaviour was by no means normal, so much so that Jesus' sympathy for the excluded, for the untouchables, will be one of the most disturbing things for his contemporaries. Whereever there is a person suffering, Jesus cares for them, and that suffering becomes his own.
Rather than following the stoic philosophers, who linked physical suffering to sin and believed such punishment had to be endured with heroism, Jesus shared in human pain, and when He encounters it, from the depths of His being bursts that attitude which characterises Christianity: Mercy.
Jesus shows compassion, but literally: Jesus feels His inside quiver. This is often referenced in the Gospels, where Jesus incarnate reveals the heart of God and offers healing to those who are suffer.
It is for this reason that Jesus extends His hands to sinners. There are many people today living a life of error because they can't find anyone willing to look at them in a different way, with their eyes, or better, with the heart of God, which is hope. At times we forget that Jesus did not act with an easy love that comes for a cheap price. Jesus understands not only the physical pain of those who suffer, but also the internal pain of those who feel that they are bad people or that there is something essential "wrong" with them because of their faults.
How God did not choose people who have never done wrong as the first dough to form His church. Rather, the Church is a people of sinners who experience the mercy and forgiveness of God, St Peter understood the truth about himself when the cock crowed, instead of his generous works, which swelled his chest, making him feel superior to others.
The Church is not for the perfect, but for sinners. We can think of a lot of Catholics who think they are perfect and they despise others and this is sad.
We are all poor sinners in need of God's Mercy, which has the strength to transform us and radiate hope to us every day.
And to the people who understand this, God gives the most beautiful mission in the world, which is to tell of God's Love for their brothers & sisters, and the announcement of a Mercy that God does not deny to anyone.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar