Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Praised be Jesus and Mary.
The mercy of God for sinners and His willingness,
even His eagerness with which He welcomes back the sinner
is the principal teaching of today's Gospel.
Nevertheless, there are other lessons in this Gospel as well.
The first lesson is that the pardoned sinner should show gratitude to God.
One of the greatest proofs of gratitude is a firm purpose of amendment,
a firm resolution to avoid offending our good God anymore.
Do we really mean when we solemnly promise in our act of contrition during confession
that we will never more do this?
Never more.
Never more to offend God and to amend our lives.
Believe it or not, and I heard this story from a school teacher,
but there are Catholics who believe and who teach their children
that they can eat.
They can drink and be merry, you know, break any of the commandments you want to for on Saturday.
You can just go to confession, receive Holy Communion,
and go out the following week and do it all over again.
We know that's not the attitude with which we should have.
That's not what the church teaches about the sacrament of confession.
That confession just isn't magic where we go in and have our sins forgiven regardless.
And then you have people who don't bother going to confession at all.
And, you know, they boast, well, Father, I'm a good person.
You know, I don't hurt anyone.
I don't get in fights.
I don't steal from anyone.
You know, my spouse and I have, we're mature adults and we don't kill anyone.
We don't, we think abortion is wrong.
But, you know, we've made the mature decision to practice artificial contraception.
We're responsible.
And these are things people are saying today.
But, you know, I think that's the way it is.
But, and, you know, I'm not saying that these people do not love God.
There are many people who claim to love God.
And I believe them.
They're sincere.
Hitler was sincere.
You know, he sincerely believed every Jew must die.
And these people love God, but they love God on their own terms.
They don't love God on his terms.
And we know Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
But non-Catholics are, are scandalized that these people who don't have the proper concept
of confession, you know, and they even accuse us of hypocrisy in this, that, oh, you Catholics,
you know, you just consent.
You know.
And sin, and tell your sins in confession, and be forgiven, and then go back and, and
sin again.
But we know that if a person does not have a firm purpose of amendment, not only in avoiding
the sins that we fall into, but avoiding the occasions of those sins.
Amen.
It's, it's not a good confession and a person who doesn't have a firm purpose of amendment.
If, if he's going to confession and in the back of his mind, he's, he's thinking, well,
you know, I'm going to go out tonight and party and tie one on, you know, this is, none
of his sins are forgiven without a, a firm purpose of amendment.
Amen.
And not only does he have none of his sins forgiven, he leaves the confessional with
one more mortal sin, a sacrilegious confession, a bad confession.
And it's another sin on his conscience by abusing God's mercy and insulting God in that
great sacrament.
The sacrament of his love, the sacrament of confession.
So to be repentant means that we're going to avoid our, the sins that we fall into in
the future.
Now this doesn't mean that.
We may be successful.
I mean, we're going to have a firm purpose of amendment, not to sin, but scripture even
tells us the just man, the good person sins seven times a day.
People say, but father, you know, I don't know what to say when I go into confessional.
How can I, how can I go to confession, you know, once a week or twice a month or whatever
it may be.
Well, we have to examine our conscience a little more.
You had saints who raised people from the dead and cured cripples and they would go
to confession every day.
So if we can't see how we're offending God, we have to pray that he cures us of our blindness,
our spiritual blindness.
That's what we have to do.
In the second reading for, for those who have been given the grace to avoid serious sin,
we can turn to the second reading.
And admit that it's only due to the grace of God.
We don't want to fall into the sin of the, the Pharisees.
You know, these were, were good men.
They paid tithes on all they possessed, they fasted weekly, they did good deeds, but we
learned from our Lord.
They did these things to be seen and they gave credit to themselves and not to God.
So we don't want to pray like the Pharisees, you know, thank God I'm not like the rest
of men, you know.
Thank God I'm not like all those who can't control their temper or control their, you
know.
Their passions or fall into all kinds of sins.
But rather we say with the saints, you know, when we hear of mass murders, school shootings,
people accused of pedophilia, we pray, you know, therefore the grace of God go I.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
The avoidance of serious sin is something that we should thank God for.
But we should never praise ourselves because of this.
You know what our Lord teaches to say, after we've done all that we're supposed to, we
say, Lord, you know, I am an unprofitable servant.
I've done nothing more than what is required of me.
And never.
Never should we despise our neighbor who's not so fortunate.
Instead we need to help them with our prayers, with our sacrifices, our mortification, what
has Our Lady told us time and again.
Penance.
Penance.
Penance.
Souls are going to hell.
Souls who don't take advantage of the sacrament of confession or who think they can commit
all the sins they want to and have them whitewashed in confession and go do it again.
These people are jeopardizing their eternal salvation.
So we need to pray for them.
We need to do penance for them.
This is what is going to prove our love for God.
Prove our love for our neighbor.
Not like the Pharisee who was despising this woman that came in, kissing the feet of our
Lord.
So.
So.
So let us pray that we can have that humility to see our sins.
Pray to this woman in today's gospel for that great love.
And we know how much we've been forgiven during our lifetime.
And as our Lord pointed out to the Pharisee, you know, that she has loved much.
The one I suppose who paid the larger debt was forgiven.
He told our Lord.
When you say, the Lord has given you a greater sin and given you a greater text, it was forgiven.
It was forgiven.
It was forgiven.
So the Pharisee, Simon was a good man.
He did not need to be forgiven much because maybe his sins were small and insignificant.
So therefore he didn't love as much.
He wasn't....
It says...
Our Lord.
Our Lord has forgiven.
Our Lord has forgiven.
Our Lord has forgiven.
Our Lord has forgiven.
Our Lord has forgiven.
Our Lord says, but the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.
So if we just have little sins to be forgiven,
let us not be accused of loving little, but let us love much.
We can love much by doing those, saying those extra prayers,
performing those extra penances for those who do sin much.
In this way, we can show our great love,
our great appreciation for our Lord who is keeping us in His grace.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!