Four Models of Mercy

User's Guide to Sunday, June 12

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Sunday, June 12, is the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C). Mass Readings: 2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13; Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 7, 11; Galatians 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-8:3 or 7:36-50

Today’s readings introduce us to four characters who demonstrate the elements of mercy.

David, a model of repentance.

Too often, we respond with defensiveness and rationalization when we are confronted by our sin, proudly refusing to admit we are wrong. When David is confronted by the prophet Nathan today, he responds with repentance.

“I have sinned against the Lord,” he says, boldly and clearly. God responds the way he always does to honest repentance: “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin,” says Nathan. “You shall not die.”

Today’s Psalm captures the stages of David’s repentance: the straightforward admission of fault (“I acknowledged my sin to you; my guilt I covered not”); total forgiveness from God (“You took away the guilt of my sin”); and euphoric joy at freedom from sin (“With glad cries of freedom, you will ring me round”).

All of this is available to each of us.

Jesus Christ, the model of forgiveness.

Jesus in today’s Gospel is dining with a Pharisee when a weeping woman bathes his feet with costly ointment in an elegant alabaster jar. He reveals why the woman is behaving this way: He has forgiven her many sins. He compares himself to a creditor faced with a debtor who owes nearly two years’ of wages.

When he gives the creditor’s reason for forgiving the huge debt, he reveals the divine logic of God’s mercy: “Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it.”

The Pharisee at dinner defines the woman by her sin and dismisses her; to him, she is helplessly trapped in her sin. Jesus refuses to condemn the woman. Instead, he frees her from her trap and finds a way for her to go forward in her life.

She cannot pay her debt, so he takes the loss on himself.

The sinful woman, a model of worship.

This is one of several women whom Jesus puts forth as a model of the Christian life. “When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears,” he says. “You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.”

The Catechism treats her behavior as a model, too. “Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more,” the Catechism says (2712).

The forgiveness we receive should inspire us to prostrate ourselves at Christ’s feet, too, and pour out all our energies on the God who has freed us: It should lead us to worship.

Paul, a model of the life of grace.

St. Paul’s life sums up all of these lessons.

Today’s reading comes as part of his story in the second chapter of Galatians, describing his movement from a sinful life persecuting the Church to his conversion and new life in Christ.

Today, he describes that new life: “Christ lives in me,” and “I live by faith in the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself up for me.”

He calls this being “justified.” Vacation Bible schools often describe being “justified” as living “just as if I’d” never sinned. Paul is not justified in some automatic way by external observances; like David and the sinful woman, he is justified by grace feely given by Jesus. His forgiveness leads to a new life in God.

“God loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins,” says today’s Gospel acclamation. In this Year of Mercy, we all have the opportunity to be set free by Jesus, thank him for paying our debt and receive the grace to live as if we had never sinned at all.

 

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

His book What Pope Francis Really Said is available for preorder at Amazon.com.

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