3rd Sunday of Easter (B) 14 April 2024 Price of Salvation
We say in every Mass, Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world. In times before Christ there were many religions in the world, and they usually involved some kind of offering sacrifice to whatever gods they believed in.
This was usually animal sacrifice, sometimes even human!
When God became Man, He abolished all previous sacrifices and made Himself the one necessary and sufficient sacrifice for sin.
The idea of a sacrifice is that the people who have offended their god want somehow to atone for that sacrifice.
They do this by giving something that is valuable to them and hope that the gods will find the offering valuable enough to forget the sin, and all is back to how it should be.
We want to give something to our God, whom we believe to the be the only God that actually exists.
We have offended Him in many and various ways. What can we give Him that is valuable both to Him and to us.
God Himself answered this question for us. He established things so that we could give Him Jesus Christ, His own Son, who would be the sacrificial lamb of all future offerings.
When we come to Mass this is what is happening each time. The sacrifice Jesus made on Calvary is made present again each time the Mass is offered.
Each time we pray that the sacrifice will be acceptable to God the Father, and it always will be acceptable in view of who the Victim is.
The Son is infinitely valuable to God and to us. We give Him; God receives Him. His value is more than enough to atone for the sins of the world, all sin of all time.
The only part of the process that may not be as it should is our degree of sorrow for sin.
If this is inadequate, then that sorrow can be more appropriately felt as we attend each Mass. We can get better at being sorry, more in tune with God's own way of seeing matters.
Jesus takes away the sins of the world – our sins, potentially the sins of everyone who wants to be forgiven.
He takes the sin to the throne of God and there it is dissolved as though it had never happened.
There is an abundance of mercy available. Some of it will fall back on us, enabling us to break free from sinful habits, replacing vice with virtue.
As our sorrow becomes more clearly defined so does the mercy which takes away that sorrow.
Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
Our souls are made right, able to choose rightly, always to find the best way forward.
Other souls can benefit also from the Lamb’s sacrifice, even if they do not ask for mercy, or even admit their need for it.
The graces generated by the perfect Sacrifice will be offered to all people and for many of them at least there can be a change of heart; they can be converted and healed.
This is our strong prayer at every Mass. That the one true God will be acknowledged by all the nations of the world, and that every knee shall bow before Jesus Christ, the Lamb of sacrifice.
Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb. What do they eat at that supper? Heavenly food, which changes those who eat of it in faith.
That is what we are doing here, now.
I am not worthy but my soul shall be healed. If I am not worthy I can at least become less unworthy! A little more each time.
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