Ordination at St. Patrick's Cathedral

Ordination at St. Patrick's Cathedral
June 19, 2010

Friday, January 31, 2020

Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned


 
The Scripture reading for this reflection can be found at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/013120.cfm

Our first reading for today has everything that would make for a great soap opera: love, lust, deceit, intrigue and murder. In this reading from the second book of Samuel we have the familiar story of King David and his relationship with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. King David allowed his lust to overtake him and as a result had an adulterous relationship with her. In his abuse of power, he first entered the relationship that was sinful. He then gets her pregnant and then tries to hide his guilt from Uriah. He does this by trying to get Uriah to have relations with her just so he could take credit for the baby. When this doesn’t work, David arranges for Uriah to be killed. Just beyond where today’s reading ends, David takes Bathsheba as his wife, thus compounding his sin. With each event, David gets further and further into the darkness of sin. He went from lust to murder. David will eventually seek the forgiveness of God once he is made to see the sinfulness of what he has done.

 All of us, like David, have sinned in same way, shape or form. We may not have sinned to the extent that David did by committing adultery and by committing murder, but we all have done things that we may be ashamed of that we are trying to hide from God and from one another. We may have an old resentment towards a family member or friends that we may hesitate to forgive. Or we may have hurt someone in our family, and we hesitate in seeking forgiveness for the offense we have committed.

In whatever way we have sinned we need to be able to turn to God and to seek His forgiveness and healing. God is always there to forgive us. We can do this through the Sacrament of Confession where we can start our healing with God, and eventually with those in our lives that we may need to forgive or to seek their forgiveness.

“Holy Spirit give me a repentant heart. Help me to confess my sin and seek reconciliation and healing.”

No comments:

Post a Comment