Fr. Ernald M. Andal, SJ
Third Sunday of Lent
February 28, 2016
It is not uncommon to encounter people who still cling to an image of God who is vindictive, punitive, and wrathful. Our culture seems to be teeming with this sense of “bad karma” and “gaba” that comes from a god whose watchful eyes are always waiting for us to make a mistake so he could pounce back.
How easy it is for us to project our own sense of justice to our God whose sense of mercy and forgiveness is infinitely and qualitatively different from ours. We are not just quick to judge, we are quick to punish as well. Worse is our notion that God is the same as we are.
But if we reflect on our readings today and ponder on our profound experiences of God’s abundant mercy in our lives, we might get a better picture of why we must repent now and how we could actually begin to bear the fruits of holiness.
We must urgently move away from sin, not so much that God will punish us for not doing so, but because our sins have their natural destructive consequences in our lives. You cheat in an exam and you may suffer the consequences, not just of possibly being caught and expelled but also of missing an opportunity to be more disciplined and knowledgeable. You venture into extra-marital affairs and you may have to bear not just the regret of a broken relationship but also the devastation of guilt, loneliness, and separation. You engage in gossips and you may have to agonize not just the painful effort of explaining yourself before your “subject-matter” but of endlessly convincing others that not all that come out of your mouth is un-truth.
We must repent now and move away from sin or else we will perish from the result of our wrongdoing, not just in the life to come but also in the here and now. It does not take a wrathful deity for us to suffer the logical consequences of our misdeeds.
If we repent now and choose to obey God’s voice, then we will know and experience that abundant life which comes from God alone. If, however, we choose to wander off from the Way, the Truth, and the Life then we bring wrath upon ourselves. We wittingly or unwittingly choose death—a spiritual death that contaminates our hearts and corrupts our souls until there is nothing left. We condemn ourselves to bareness; bereft of goodness, truth, hope, peace, meaning, and joy.
But how must we begin to repent? One thing is certain; we do not start by hopelessly tearing our sinful selves down to smithereens to “start from scratch.” We’ll only end up tired and frustrated and not at all contrite and changed; but desolate and all the more fruitless.
We must begin with God. We begin with a profound appreciation that our God is “kind and merciful.” In all eternity, He has seen us with His loving gaze and has not focused on our weaknesses and sins, but on how we are beloved to Him.
He watches over us not from a distance to wait for us to trip and fall, but He looks after us by our side, so that we may not trip and fall. But in case we still stubbornly stray away and do trip and fall, He is there to reach out to us, lend a hand, lift us up, and encourage and empower us to try again, and again, and again, until little by little we trip and fall less and follow His Way more closely and assuredly.
We then begin true repentance by first acknowledging that it is God’s infinite mercy, His unconditional love that ultimately changes us. It is not of our own strength and will-power do we become holy, but we must at least desire and choose to turn away from sin and approach Him who is All Holy.
Our merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Ex 34:6) will never cease in His compassion for us who fall short of holiness. Let us allow Him now to cultivate and fertilize our oftentimes barren lives; so that in His time, gently, gradually, we may bear the same fruits of holiness we long to see in ourselves.
Fr. Ernald Andal, SJ serves as School Director of St. Isidore High School and Assistant Parish Priest of Our Lady Mary Mediatrix of All Grace in our mission district in Zamboanguita, Bukidnon. If you wish to be our mission partner, click here.