English VI

Fr. James Liebner, SVD, is our English teacher. This class we have to practice speaking and listening skill and for the final exam I presented the homily on the 12^th Sunday in Ordinary time as followings;

The greater the sinner whose sins are forgiven, the greater is the love that he shall display towards the Lord Jesus.

In today’s Gospel Luke tells us the story of a woman whose sins are forgiven. Luke narrates how Jesus goes to the house of a Pharisee for a meal. Then there is a woman enters into the house with an alabaster jar of ointment. She is not named but she also had a bad reputation in the town. She anointed the feet of Jesus with her tears and wiped away with her long hair. Completely overcome, she repeatedly kissed his feet.

Jesus proves Himself to be a prophet by reading the secret thoughts of Simon. Jesus then tells the parable of the two debtors to Simon, asking him, which a person who loved the creditor the greater, the one who owed only a few or the one who owe much. Imagine that you were the one who owed that much then the creditor told you that now you don’t have to pay me anymore. How happy would you be to hear this kind of redemption?

When I was a seminarian in the minor one of my duties is to wash the car of the rector. As a driver I have to be responsible for any cars in the seminary. But one day after finish washing that wonderful expensive car of my reverend rector, I just wanted to keep it dry therefore I drove it out. It was a nice car with a powerful engine as a young guy like me I like to test it as fast as I can. The more you put your foot on it the faster it’s driven you out. Unexpectedly there was a motorcycle cross over me I suddenly turn the steering wheel of a car to the other side which there was a pole in front of me and of course I hit it.

I was really scared and did not know what to do. I came out of the car and wish that it would not hit much and I could fix it. But it was not the headlight was broken and some of the things need to be fixed. I got into the car again and drove it back this time was very slowly. Immediately I met the rector and reported him the accident I made. You would not believe that what he said to me is just exactly like the Jesus’ parable today. “Never mind” it’s o.k. but don’t do it again next time.

I really appreciated that not because he forgave me but the way he told me is the way he practice the teaching of Jesus. I was very happy to hear those words of forgiving. I also got a lesson not to drive too fast because we will not know about the accident. Otherwise we don’t call it accident.

Let us now come back to the first reading, when the prophet Nathan pronounced the judgment upon David. The king immediately repented of his sins. They were forgiven by God. God is merciful and always seeks to call us back to faithfulness and fidelity to Him. This is actually manifested by the grace of God. Without it, we could never repent and reconcile with God when we sin.

The second reading is from the Letter to the Galatians. There is also my favorite motto “It is no longer me but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) Because we the Christian have been crucified with Christ, so it is no longer he who lives, but it is Christ who lives in him. Through faith and the Sacrament of Baptism, we have been identified with the phases of Christ’s paschal mystery: passion, death and resurrection. So we can only “live for God”

When we are baptized, our faith transforms us to become one with each other in the Body of Christ. We have the right to call God the Father and everyone is brother and sister. Everyone is the same therefore there is no distinction between us.

My dear friends if you realize yourself as a forgiven one what should you do to the one who forgive you even you are a sinner?

“To err is human but to forgive is divine” the lesson we have to learn from today’s readings is how to forgive. No one is perfect what we have to do is first we have to forgive ourselves then it would be easier to forgive others. Because even you yourself can do the wrong thing why the others can not?

But we should not learn only how to forgive but also how to forget. Someone might say that I will forgive but never forget. This is not what Jesus thought us. Forgive and forget must come together and the moment you forgive and forget you will then realize that it is a little heaven in your heart. May God bless you.