Honesty with the Lord

The Gospel for today, Luke 6: 36-38, opens with the challenge to “[b]e merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.”  The image comes to me of Mary of Magdala washing the feet of Jesus and Simon, the Pharisee, thinking to himself: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has.”  Jesus immediately confronts Simon and says to him, among other things, “…I tell you that her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love.”  The situation in which we find ourselves is no different from the woman who washed Jesus’ feet, as acknowledged in the first reading of today’s Mass, Daniel 9: 4b-10.  Daniel says to the Lord: “ Lord,….we have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.” Yes, each of us has transgressed against the Lord. We have done so individually as well as collectively, as we are one Body in Christ, brothers and sisters in the Lord. The sin of one is the sin of many and the repentance of one is also the repentance of many.  In Christ Jesus we are all one.  We rise with one another in God’s mercy and grace and we fall with one another in dis-grace. And thus Daniel says so rightly: “O Lord, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers [and mothers], for having sinned against you…[W]e [have] rebelled against you and paid no heed to your command, O Lord, our God, to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets.” And, so we pray in today’s responsorial psalm: “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins”   and help us to be merciful toward one another as you are merciful toward us,.