God's Infinite Love Will Conquer All

Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time Reflection 2009
God’s Love will Conquer Sin
By Rev. Bob Johnnene OFD of Mission Sts. Sergius & Bacchus
Franciscans of Divine Mercy of Reformed Catholic Church International N.E.
www.missionstsergius.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Divine_Mercy_Franciscans


"Forget the things that happened in the past. Do not keep on thinking about them. I am about to do something new…. I am going to make a way for you to go through the desert. (Our daily struggle here on earth) I will make streams of water in the dry and empty land. … I provide water in the desert (the waters of Baptism and the water that is mingles with the wine in the Eucharist) for my people to drink. I do it for the people I made for myself. I want them to sing praise to me. (God wants us to be joyful and to rejoice and be glad for all that God does for us) …you have not prayed to me as you should or even begun to get tired while doing it. You have not brought offerings. You have not honored me with your sacrifices…I am not requiring you to burn incense….Instead, you have loaded me down with your sins. You have made me tired with the wrong things you have done. "I am the one who wipes out your lawless acts. I do it because of who I am. I will not remember your sins anymore. (Isaiah 43:18-25b)
With these words the lesson for this last Sunday before Lent, which begins on Wednesday, we are led onto that wondrous new path that Christ opened in the desert of life with his wiliness to become the perfect sacrifice to God for the forgiveness of our human frailty and sinfulness. God not only forgives us but, as we learned in Isaiah, Forgets forever.
The Psalm for this Sunday is another reminder of how God lifts us up, protects, and saves us. “God lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand…. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. (This is what we are called to do.) Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.”
Today’s false gods are Power, Fortune, Fame, Personal gratification at the expense of others. The servants of the false gods, Discrimination, War, Genocide, Perversion, Hatred, Greed, Dishonesty and Lust always accompany the false gods.
Psalm 40:2-14reminds us of all that God does for us with these words; “Many are the wonders you have done for us. The things you planned for us are without number; were I to speak of them, they would be too many to declare. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, … and sin offerings you did not require.”
God would love to hear these following words of Paul’s from 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 emanating from our lips; “Here I am, I have come—I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. I do not conceal your love and your truth from your people. Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD; may your love and your truth always protect me….my sins are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me. Be pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me."
Paul gives us the reasons why also; “It is ‘through Christ’ that we answer “Amen” to the praise of God. Remember it is God himself who assures us all of our standing in Christ, and has anointed us, marking us with his seal and giving us the pledge, the Spirit, that we carry in our hearts.”
To quote the final words from the Gospel reading of the events surrounding Christ healing the paralytic; “ they were all astounded and praised God saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this." (Mark 2:1-12). We also will never see anything like what is possible when we have complete trust in God. We need to be mindful that God’s love for us is stronger than any adversity and God will never give us an adversity we cannot overcome if we believe and turn to God. God will do, not just what we desire, but, what is better for us than anything we could ever ask for. God knows we are prone to be sinners since His perfect creation Adam and Eve disobeyed him after giving in to the temptations of Satan. Their punishment is our imperfection and we need to make it our life’s goal to attempt to live our lives with LOVE, Complete LOVE of God, ourselves as God created our neighbors and us. As Lent begins on Wednesday, let’s try to spend the Lenten season taking stock of how we need to improve our relationship with God. Let’s offer God our thanks and praise by making the changes we need to make in order to become better followers Almighty God. Let others be able to identify us as God’s children by our actions as we live our daily lives and not by what words our lips may say. Let our actions speak louder than our words and be examples of Compassion, forgiveness and love like that God has for us. AMEN