Exodus 32:7.9.14 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. “I see how stiff-necked this people is.” So the Lord relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people. 1 Timothy 1:15a This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ came into the world to save sinners. Luke 15:32 “But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”
Dear Parishioners and Friends,
All of the recent popes, and now Pope Francis, have warned us about the modern dismissal of the reality of sin. Addressing a group of catechists in the United States via radio from the Vatican back in 1946, Pope Pius XII said that “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.” This exact statement was repeated by Saint John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation
Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Reconciliation and Penance), writing that it had become “almost proverbial.” Yet the matter seems to worsen year by year. Our culture, which Saint John Paul II often called the “culture of death,” is drifting further and further away from the teachings of Christ and God’s holy commandments. What the Church has always taught as wrong is now considered by many to be right, and what we always considered to be right is now thought wrong. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is much confusion in matters of faith and morals. This confusion has even crept into some parts of the Church, when after scandals that have seriously undermined the faith community, Pope Benedict apologized for the corruption of moral teaching in some of our catholic institutions that have bought into Modernist theories that compromise the unchanged and unchangeable teaching on the nature of sin.
In the Scriptures presented to us today we read about the loss of the fear of the Lord in the days of Moses. In Exodus 32:7 God complains to Moses that the people “have become depraved.” In Exodus 32:9 God laments, “I see how stiff-necked this people is.” No doubt sin exists and there are many sinners. In the traditional Litany of Saints we sing: “
Peccatores; we are sinners.” Yes, we are all sinners. To think otherwise is to hold God in contempt. The main reason Jesus could not get through to the Pharisees is that they thought they were sinless. A sinless person has no need of a savior. Perhaps that is what our popes have tried to point out to us. If we think that we are sinless, then there is no reason for Jesus to come into the world for us. If the gates of Paradise were not closed by the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, why should a savior come down from heaven? If we have saved ourselves then a savior is superfluous. That is the Big sin, the “loss of the sense of sin” that deceives souls and continues to alienate us from God, that makes us “stiff necked” or like the “prodigal son” in the Gospel. If Jesus doesn’t save sinners, then why go to confession or receive any of the sacraments? What is the point of catechetics? If we are born automatically saved, what is the purpose of struggling by the grace of God to live a holy life? Isn’t this the lie that is wreaking havoc in America and even among Christians? In short, we are all without exception called to conversion in Christ Jesus Our Divine Lord and Savior.
St. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:15: “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Only with this doctrine firmly in place can we understand God’s mercy to His people in Exodus, His forgiveness of St. Paul in Timothy, and the father welcoming home his prodigal son in the Gospel. God is prodigal, rich, and lavish in Mercy to those who repent of their sins and turn back to Him. And He washes our sins away with His Most Precious Blood, restores us to life in Him by His Glorious Resurrection, adopts us as His children through Baptism, and reserves a place for us in heaven. Our God is so good, but let us never let familiarity breed contempt for His greatness.
Yours in the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Fr. Mark G. Mazza, Pastor