From the Deacon's Desk | April 27, 2025

Today as we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, a day set aside to ponder and reflect upon the inconceivable mercy that Our Lord has for each of us, we’re reminded that Jesus wants to pour out his graces upon us; that despite all of the wrongs we’ve done both to offend Him and our fellow man, the Lord still desires us. Jesus still wants to be in relation with us, despite all of the sins we’ve committed, despite the times we’ve turned away from Him, He still wants to pour out His mercy upon each of us. We see that mercy exhibited time and time again in the Gospels. We see it as Christ meets the woman caught in adultery. A gospel we heard a few weeks ago.

Like you, when people find out that I’m Catholic, I sometimes hear things like, “Oh, I left the Church because it was too judgy” or “Don’t you Catholics have anything better to do than to tell people how to live?” or “You Catholics and all of your guilt, Jesus just wants us to be happy and to lead a good life and then everything will be okay.” And then sometimes they’ll kind of point to how Christ interacts with the woman caught in adultery and say something like, “see Jesus isn’t condemning this woman, why should I be worried about the wrongs that I’ve done in my life?” 

And often when I hear those things said, when I’ve had the chance to interact honestly with the people that say these types of things, I usually find one of two things has happened: the first is that they have remade Jesus into the God that they want him to be, rather than the God that he actually is. They remake Jesus into a God who allows them to do and say whatever they want, rather than recognizing Jesus as God that came to teach us how to live with the hopeful expectation of heaven by following the precepts, the laws, that Jesus and his Church have given to us - or, I find that two, and this is a subset of the first really, that they have committed some past sin or sins that they are unwilling to admit was actually a sin. And so, they kind of rewrite God’s law in their minds and claim that they know better than Jesus himself or the Church about what separates us from the Lord. Because right at the core, that is what sin is, the disordered things that we do that damage our relationship with God. 

While it’s true that Jesus doesn’t condemn the woman caught in sin to be stoned to death, what he does do is to affirm our belief that judgement lies with Christ alone, that sin does in fact exist, and that while we are still alive, it is never too late to return to the Lord no matter the type of sin that we’ve committed. That Jesus by saying something so simple as, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” Jesus instantly convicts all of the scribes and the pharisees, he convicts all of us, of being sinful. He reminds us that each of us carries the weight of our own particular sin, that each of us by our own disordered thoughts, words, actions and deeds have separated ourselves from God. And it’s tough to admit that fact. It’s tough to admit when we’re wrong. It’s tough to confront the things that we’ve done that are sinful. 

So, while Jesus doesn’t condemn this woman to be stoned to death because of her sin, he’s not saying that what she did was right, in fact Jesus himself calls what she did a sin. He admonishes her to “go and sin no more.” Because she is still alive, she still has the opportunity to turn things around. Jesus tells her to stop sinning.  And that’s a tough thing for us to admit because we all like our own little particular sin. We all have the things that we kind of brush aside and say that the Lord doesn’t mind, or the Lord understands, or this is how the Lord made me, when we make excuses to ourselves or to others about our own particular sin. But by its very nature, sin separates us from God, so we should start being honest with ourselves about the things that we are doing in our lives that are damaging our relationship with the Lord. 

The Church is not condemning us when it reminds us of sin. The Church is not judging the state of our souls when it provides guidance on the things that we should or shouldn’t do. The Church doesn’t send us to hell. Rather, the Church, by the very power invested in her by Jesus himself, offers to us a lifejacket from the stormy seas of own sinful nature. Jesus, knowing us and loving us, has provided a way for reconciliation, a way that we can confront our own sinfulness, admitting those times when we have been wrong and asking for and receiving God’s forgiveness and mercy. 

Jesus knows that we are sinful people, that sometimes we stray from his goodness. And he’s provided a way for us to reconcile with him, to address our sins, to name them, and then to be forgiven for them. I’d invite you today to think about the last time that you went to confession. If you can’t remember the last time you went, if it’s been a while, if it’s been more than a year, I would encourage you to go in the next few weeks. If you’re not sure what to do, if you’re apprehensive about going, lean into that. Pray for the courage to enter the confessional and then go in and tell the priest that it’s been a while, that you’re not sure what to do and ask him to help you through it. Name your sins, address those things that you’ve done to harm your relationship with God, and be forgiven of them. 

Let us not shy away from the Lord. Let us not be afraid of meeting Him in the sacrament of reconciliation. Christ desires to pour our His mercy upon us and we have the opportunity to experience his healing love and mercy in this beautiful sacrament. Let’s run to meet him and have life in His name.