Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
This week’s gospel
takes off where last week’s ended. If last week’s passage had a certain
emphasis on corporal works of mercy; this week’s text focuses on one of the
spiritual works of mercy, admonishing the sinner. Between the corporal works
and the spiritual works of mercy, the latter would prove to be the harder
because as today’s gospel demonstrates, it would be the less popular. The
conclusion to last week’s passage was favourable because he spoke with
authority and his message was pleasing to the ears. However, when he began to
challenge their set ways and manner of thinking in this week’s text, he earned
their displeasure.
When Jesus made
the comment that no prophet is ever accepted in his own country he was clearly
identifying himself with the long line of prophets who suffered a similar fate.
He was not in the popularity game. He
had not come to preach a gospel of nice but the liberating truth of the Kingdom
of God regardless of how well it would be received. What happened that day in
Nazareth was to be repeated over and over again during his ministry, with the
crucifixion as the inevitable final outcome. This mission of Christ points to
our mission which we received at baptism, to witness to the values which he
represents. It will certainly be a work that does not promise popularity or
easy success. The task will always be difficult because people are often too
comfortable in their sin and they resent interference.
Many people
confuse being prophetic with being a rebel or a critic. But the premise of
prophetic ministry is not just being a ‘rebel’ for the sake of rebellion,
neither is it to be merely a critic for critique sake. We live in a world of
social critics who hide behind the anonymity of social media, which is far from
being prophetic. We must remember
that the goal is not to tell others how terrible they are, or heap insults upon
the other. Neither is the goal to win an argument or to feel superior. Rather,
the goal is to win the sinner back from a destructive path, to announce
the forgiveness of sins available to all who repent. The premise of prophetic
ministry is always about the exposure of sin. It is always a work of mercy. The
goal is salvation. As such, to admonish sinners is to call lovingly to those in
danger and draw them back from the edge of the abyss. Being prophetic is
speaking the Truth in love. Never merely stating an opinion, no matter how
convinced we are of its veracity, and never letting vent our anger and
frustration in revenge. It is essentially a work of grace and love.
To admonish others
effectively, there are two other points we must keep in mind. First, we must
practice what we preach. In other words, we have to be working at striving for
holiness and avoiding sin in our own lives if we expect others to do the same.
The argument, “Do what I say and not what I do,” will never work. The second
point is to avoid the terrible attitude of self righteousness with its
judgmental view of others. In order to avoid descending into a blind
self-righteousness that only sees faults in others but never with ourselves,
the task of admonishing or correcting the sinner must begin with ourselves. To
carry out this work of admonishing the sinner, a person must have a sense of
compassion for human weakness, and we can only learn that by recognising our
own weaknesses. If we fail to do so, we will be casting stones at others, and
it is never advisable to throw stones when you live in a glass house.
Jesus demonstrates
the true reason behind this spiritual work of mercy. The basic reason that we
admonish sinners is because their salvation may well be in jeopardy. As
mentioned already, their salvation is the greatest good and need in their
lives. If a person were drowning, and we were standing near a life preserver,
and we did nothing to throw that life preserver out to that person so that
person could be saved, this would be a terrible act of lack of love. It is even
worse if souls are in jeopardy of their eternal loss from God, and we say
nothing to make them realise the moral danger they are in. So even greater than
all our bodily needs is the spiritual need to be set free from sin and receive
the life of God. This is why admonishing the sinner is so important. Nothing
should take precedence over the work of the salvation of souls. We can never
remain indifferent to their predicament.
Despite its great
importance, this is a difficult and dangerous work of mercy because people do
not like to be reminded of their sins and faults. None of us likes to be
corrected. This is even more so today if people have entered into denial of sin
in their lives. The great American TV evangeliser, Archbishop Sheen would say
that 150 years ago, when the Catholic Church declared the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there were people who were up in arms that the
Church would dare say that there was even one person without sin! Now, he said,
everybody would be up in arms if you claim they had sin!
What does it mean
to admonish the sinner? First of all, it means calling someone to conversion.
Jesus Himself did this from the very outset of His public ministry when.
Another way to admonish is to inform or remind someone by way of a warning of
the moral danger they are in. In this manner, admonishing the sinner is
connected to another spiritual work of mercy, instructing the ignorant. Another expression of this admonishing is by
fraternal correction. This is considered an expression of charity. Out of love
and concern for a brother or sister in Christ, one brings to their attention
faults or shortcomings that may be harming the individual or affecting others
negatively, such as in a family or community. True friends would want to do
this for one another. A caution here is to avoid pettiness in matters that one
corrects. We have to learn to put up with the annoying behaviour of others. Many
shortcomings which do not affect others negatively should be borne patiently. But
such tolerance should never be extended to sin. A final form of admonishing
sinners is to encourage or even urge them on to greater efforts or to persevere
in their struggle to break from a life of sin.
Silence can never
be confused as an act of mercy. Unfortunately, this seems to be an unwritten doctrine of the modern ideology of political correctness. There is an old saying attributed to Edmund
Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing.” Silence in the face of evil
allows that evil to continue and even to spread. Such a terrible silence must
be broken. To paraphrase one of Archbishop Sheen's famous quotes, “We don't
need a voice that speaks when everybody else is speaking; we need a voice that
speaks when everybody else is silent!”
In this Jubilee
Year of Mercy, let us return to the true mercy of Christ who wishes to set us
free from our sinfulness. In a recent book, a series of conversations with the
Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, identifies
himself as “a sinner in need of God’s mercy,” and explains his motivation for
calling the Jubilee Year of Mercy. “The Church condemns sin, because it has to
tell the truth: this is a sin,” he says. “But at the same time, it embraces the
sinner who acknowledges what he is.” The mercy of God can never be separated
from the condemnation of sin. Rather, it is in teaching properly the gravity of
sin that the Church has always opened hearts to the true mercy of God. May our
daily prayer to the Lord be that He grants us the courage and humility to
admonish sinners and the grace to do it in love. Let us never forget to ask the
Lord for the courage and humility to accept correction ourselves, and
to grant us the grace to see it as an act of love, even if it is not always
artfully done.
