“Give him absolution. Look how much it has cost Me!”
I am a sinner.
No matter how hard I try I can never seem to bring about any long term or serious improvement in my character.
I receive the sacraments, but I am a weak soul and though the sacraments cleanse me the effects seem to last a matter of hours rather than a matter of days or weeks or years…
And my diligence and discipline in spiritual matters does not even reach to the height of an ant.
And I have been thinking about that. You see, even despite all this weakness in me, I know that God loves, and I know this with a surety that I cannot even put into words…
“A woman of the city, who was a sinner... brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment... Jesus said to the Pharisee, ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’” (Luke 7:36-50).
And Saint Simon Peter, who was always trying to please God and always stumbling on his way, knew this too. He saw the love of God in His forgiveness of sins. And those who sin more are loved more when they repent. And there is such a miracle of love in that that I cannot even understand it.
There is a story about a crucifix in Majorca which was given to King James I by Pope Innocent. It is called “Christ of the miracles”. The story goes that a very sinful man went to confession and the crucifix was hanging outside the confessional as a silent witness… After the priest heard the man’s sins, he was horrified and refused to give the man absolution. The man left the Church heartbroken, but as he walked out of the Church, he felt a voice in his soul calling him to return and try again. And so he went back into the confessional. The priest began to send him away for a second time, and then, the right hand of Christ came away from the crucifix and showing the priest the scar from the nail, Christ Crucified said, “Give him absolution. Look how much it has cost Me!”
And I have been thinking about that today. For Christ gave all of that for a miserable sinner like me. And the miracle of His love for a soul as unworthy as mine is surely the greatest gift that was ever conceived in the history of creation…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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