Repent

03-20-2022Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

God is a God of second chances for those who are willing to repent. This does not mean that God’s willingness to provide opportunities for change endures limitless elasticity and endurance. The justice of God will have to be administered to those who ignore the opportunities offered by Him or outrightly resist the pull of repentance. This is the message presented by the Gospel passage at the liturgy this weekend.

The Gospel passage begins with Jesus rebuking the tendency among the Jews of His day, including His disciples, to see people’s fortune or misfortune as a Divine assessment of the righteousness of one’s life. For Jesus, this is erroneous hermeneutics. Physical misfortune is not necessarily the direct consequence of sinful living as the Jews were quick to conclude. Likewise, a life of affluence and seeming material sufficiency is not necessarily the blessing for righteous living. As far as Jesus is concerned, the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices and the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell were by no means worse sinners than those who did not experience such unfortunate misfortunes. Jesus warns us that the consequences of procrastinating our repentance would be grave.

To illustrate how patient the God of second chances is and how He can apply His justice if we fail to utilize the various opportunities afforded us to repent, Jesus told the parable of a fig tree whose owner visited in due season in search of fruits but found none to his disappointment. The owner complained to the gardener about the fruitlessness of the fig tree even after three years of meticulous care and directed the gardener to cut it down to create space for fruitful crops. The gardener interceded for the fig tree, imploring the owner to give it one more chance, with more care and nourishment in order to induce yield. Obviously, this patient owner is God and each one of us, and together as a Church, is represented by the fruitless fig tree. The Lord is gracious and merciful, He keeps giving us opportunities to bear fruits of love and kindness in our lives, families and communities. When we fail to do the needful, He gives us further opportunities, nourishing us with His Word and Sacraments to make us yield fruits of good works. We should not take His patience, mercy and graciousness for granted because there is a practical limit to the time this “window” of grace is open to us.

Let us pray for grace to make good use of the window of grace open to us, particularly at Lent, and bear fruits of love and compassion. May our holy Lenten practices discipline our flesh to become docile to God’s will so that true repentance will be achieved by each of us.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh

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