Our first readings this week during the first full week of Lent present us messages from different books of the Old Testament. Today, the message comes from the prophet Ezekiel. A couple of days ago we heard from the book of Jonah, how Jonah brought a message of renewal and repentance to the Ninevites, the mortal enemy of the nation of Israel. The Ninevites believed in the love and mercy of God that was offered to them as they changed their ways and repented, much to Jonah’s dismay. In today’s reading, Ezekiel also speaks of repentance, of how God rejoices when the sinner repents. God offers us a chance to repent through his freely given gift of salvation. But, salvation is an on-going process in our lives as we are called to a continuous process of conversion and renewal. Even though this is a freely given gift, each one of us have the responsibility to act upon this invitation, to repent and turn away from our sins. We are all ultimately held accountable. But even if we do something wrong, if we break God’s laws and commandments, if we truly repent and reform our lives, God will forgive us, just as he forgave the Nineties when they repented.
But Jesus tells us that we must go one step forward. Love is not just obeying God’s laws and commandments. We are to love and we are to forgive out of an inner conviction. Our actions and all that we are must flow from our heart and our faith. But, in order to be true to ourselves and true to our faith, we are called to develop our consciences according to the norms of God’s laws and the norms of our Church. But that is not something we do in an instant or in one day. It is something that we work on everyday as we continue on our journey of faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment