Sunday, March 25, 2007

The Pharisees go away

What strikes me as being significant about todays Gospel, is the fact the Pharisees go away. They are praiseworthy in so far as they recongnise they too are sinners, when Jesus says, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

If we think of ourselves as being sinless we have no part in Christ. He came for sinners, not the just. He came as the physician for the sick, not the well.

In order to be part of Chirst we have to own our sin.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My priest also added the regret that the Pharisees walked away. If they had only stayed to hear the end of the discourse they would have heard Christ's message of forgiveness and perhaps they too could have had their hearts changed.

All of which led to Father offering an always-appreciated encouragement of the faithful to avail themselves of the sacrament of confession. He was pretty fired up today.

Anonymous said...

The worst thing about the Gospel readings about the Pharisees is that people hear them, think "Thank God I'M not like that" and feel smug about themselves, and so we end up with a Church full of Pharisees.

The Lord’s descent into the underworld

At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...