Laetare Sunday
Joshua 5,9. 10-12; Psalm 34; 2 Corinthians 5, 17-21; St. Luke 15, 1-3. 11-32
When our brothers and sisters do not share our faith in the Church and are led by scandals to disbelieve in her, they repeat the sin committed by those who professed scandal at the Lord himself, for he today associates with tax collectors and prostitutes, and all sinners, in his body, the Church.
Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God’s own attitude toward them. (Cf. Mt 9:13; Hos 6:6) He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet. (Cf. Lk 15: 1-2, 22-32) But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mk 2:7) By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God’s equal or is speaking the truth, and his person really does make present and reveal God’s name. (Cf. Jn 5:18; 10:33; 17:6, 26.) (CCC 589)
Only the divine identity of Jesus’ person can justify so absolute a claim as “he who is not with me is against me”; and his saying that there was in him “something greater than Jonah, … greater than Solomon,” something “greater than the Temple”; his reminder that David had called the Messiah his Lord, (Cf. Mt 12:6, 30, 36, 37, 41-42.) and his affirmations, “Before Abraham was, I AM”; and even “I and the Father are one.” (Jn 8:58; 10:30.)
Let’s pray for each other until, together next week, we “meet Christ in the liturgy”, Father Cusick (See also nos. 545, 589, 1423, 1439, 1468, 1700, 2795, 2839 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)