Setting Things Right

Imagine our God, a God who is determined, in the words of the prophet Isaiah to “set things right.”  “Though … [our] sins be like scarlet,” God, through Jesus Christ, makes them “white as snow” and  “though they be crimson red,” God makes them “white as wool”  (See the first reading of today’s liturgy, Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20).  However, our cooperation is needed, Isaiah tells us, as he addresses his message to us directly:  “Come, now, let us set things right,…Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as  snow; though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.” How? Through the good that we do. Through our reception of the sacraments, time spent in prayer, in reflection upon the Scripture, in seeking the truth from others and from the depth of our own being, by loving others as we love ourselves and by reconciling with others when we are wronged or do wrong to others.  “To the upright I will show the saving power of God,” the psalmist says to us in  Ps. 50, today’s responsorial psalm.  Truly, those who do good experience the “saving power of God” and see it in others and in the world around them.