In today's first reading, Genesis 3: 9-15, 20, God enters the Garden of Eden and is looking for Adam. "Where are you", Adam?" God calls. Adam responds: "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself." We haven't changed. How often do we, when we have committed sin, try to hide from God, from our spouses, from our children/grandchildren, from our friends, fellow workers and even from ourselves by whatever distraction temporarily works! God asks Adam: "Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!" Notice God's gentleness and His understanding. God does not condemn Adam. He does not scold Adam. No, he simply states the truth! And what does Adam do? Blame Eve! Still trying to hide his guilt! We, also, recognize the pattern, as we, too, often blame others when we have made poor choices, committed sin, insisted on doing things our way and not followed God's way!
Only the truth will set us free and, so, God shares the truth with Adam: "You have eaten...from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!" When you and I have sinned, God also shows us the truth! In the depth of our being, Truth resides--God Himself. Gently, a small inner Voice says to us: You have done wrong and this Voice softly or loudly spells out the wrong we have done!
In today's second reading, Ephesians, 1: 3-6, 11-12, St. Paul praises God for blessing us with "every spiritual blessing in the heaven" and one of those spiritual blessings is that Truth dwells in the very core of our beings and that when we have chosen our will above God's we feel "naked"! We may try to hide our nakedness but grace prevails because, as we are reminded in today's Gospel, Luke 1: 26-38, "nothing is impossible for God."
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