Elevent Sunday in Ordinary Time

Link to Mass Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/061310.shtml

“Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan answered David: ‘The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.’”

This is what it is to be a member of the Church: to acknowledge we are sinners, to be sorry for our sins, to acknowledge who and what we are before God and ask His forgiveness. And to be forgiven: “Blessed is the one whose fault is taken away,/ whose sin is covered./ Blessed the man to whom the Lord imputes not guilt,/ in whose spirit there is no guile.” God’s forgiveness is complete, it leaves no stain upon us. And more, because “yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

Not that there remains no consequences for our sin. In the first reading, while Nathan tells David that the Lord has forgiven him, the next line reads: “But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” The eternal consequence of our sins is wiped away when we confess, and the threat of hell averted, but the temporal consequences remain. We are still tempted to gossip, lie, cheat, and steal, and must continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

But the readings today focus on salvation in forgiveness, and the hope we are given therein. Under the law, there is no hope of salvation. When we sin against the Ten Commandments, we feel shame but not hope. We break a law and resolve to do better, but Paul reminds us in the second reading that “through the law I died to the law.” But in being crucified with Christ, we have faith in Him, who did not sin against the Ten Commandments but was sacrificed under the law anyways. His sacrifice is our justification, our faith in him is our hope. We cannot triumph under the law, but by the grace of God and Christ Jesus who lives in us we can rejoice with the psalmist “You are my shelter; from distress you will preserve me;/ with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round.” Even the righteous man falls seven times a day, but the beauty of Christ is that sin is not the end of righteousness, but with forgiveness, the beginning.

Each of us have the sins we feel are the worst. Relative to each person, they are that which make us feel dirty, unworthy of love from God or anybody. Even these God will forgive. We shall not despair against God, but recognize that in us the one with the larger debt was forgiven. Our faith in God will save us, and from our pain we will find love that replaces it. It is this fountain of forgiveness and loves that the martyrs die for, a salvation unearned, but a lifetime of trying to be worthy of it.