11th Sunday Ordinary Time (Year A) 18 June 2023 The Sacred Heart
God looks with sorrow on the people because they are like sheep without a shepherd. Little do they know that their Shepherd has come
This reminds us that all of God's doings among us are governed by His compassion for us, for the lost and the sinner, and the sinned against.
When God created the world it was perfect as it came from His hands.
Yet He sees that all is not well with that creation; that man has defaced the beauty of God's work.
Jesus grieves for the unnecessary loss of all that happiness.
If Adam and Eve had simply stayed on course; if every other generation had simply decided to do everything as God instructed, how much trouble would we have saved.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it would be destroyed by Rome, unless they repented, and by and large they did not repent.
The creation was defaced but not beyond repair.
God decided to intervene in human affairs and hence He came among us in human nature.
We cannot reclaim Eden but we can go one better and claim Heaven instead.
God feels sorry for us, but He also has the power to rectify all that is wrong.
He rectifies things through forgiveness of sin. He moves people to a sense of true sorrow for their sins; when they realize what they have done, and are so moved that they will not sin again – this is coming back to life, life for the soul and right order for creation.
Once we have reached that point ourselves we can then offer to the world the only solution that will work – union with God-made-man, so that we live according to His will at all times.
Many will grieve over the state of the world but respond by moving away from Jesus instead of towards Him. They will blame Him for the disorder in the world, when it is really human rebellion against God that has made all the trouble. End the rebellion and peace will be found.
Jesus made a special visit in the seventeenth century to call people back to right thinking. If only they would make Me some return for My Love, I should think but little of all I have done for them and would wish, were it possible, to suffer still more. But the sole return they make for all My eagerness to do them good is to reject Me and treat Me with coldness. Do you at least console Me by supplying for their ingratitude, as far as you are able.(To St Margaret Mary)
So we see that even after His death and resurrection there
is still a lot of blockage to reconciliation.
But He is there all the same and in every age at least some will come to that moment of awareness and repentance.
Mercy is offered to all, no matter how lost a person may appear. Jesus came for the sick not the healthy. People we might write off are on His radar.
He wants the Church and all within it to have compassion for sinners, compassion rather than anger.
Why ever people have fallen away from Him, they can be retrieved and set straight for Heaven.
We do not deny the sin, but repent of it completely. We are forgiven and also strengthened against repeating the sin.
We become stronger as we experience the mercy of God, assisted by Our Lady who also loves the rejects.
Many take the world as it appears and rest with that. They do not see any hope of any great change.
We have better hopes than that. We see that God has been actively saving souls for thousands of years, and especially since the time of Christ.
It is not so hard as we make it look. We have offended God but He is willing to forgive. Not only willing but has a burning desire to save.
A simple act of contrition can be the beginning of the way back, for anyone. We pray that all people will see the obvious goodness of God and turn towards Him.
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