Listen to me

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Every weekend when going to Mass we hear the Word of God. We sit and listen the old and new Testament and then stand to listen to the Gospel. It is something that I have done all my life in the Church. It comes to us like second nature. But, this weekend was different. After a while of praying and reflecting, I was asking myself what was different? I realised that I was actually listening to the word of God. I heard something very different. Now before you all think I have gone mad. Let me explain.

The Gospel was the Woman caught in adultery. It is a Gospel reading that I have heard many times before. But as I listened I heard a most wonderful thing. And it is two lines. " They said to Jesus "Master this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery." and the other being " Where are they? Have no one condemned you?" "No one sir" she replied "Neither do I condemn you," said Jesus "go away, and do not sin anymore"

The first thing that struck me was " the very act" they caught her red handed as it were. Leaving behind the fact that it takes two to tango she had been caught. I began to think how many times have we been caught doing something that we should not be doing. Just think of the times that our parents may have caught us taking a few extra sweets or annoying our brothers and sisters. How we have felt sheepish or we have had the finger pointed at us. What ever it is we know that we are sinners and we feel condemned and ashamed at what we have done.

Now let us skip to the last verse. In John's Gospel Jesus tells us time and time again who he is. It is no secret like the messianic secret we see in the Synoptic Gospels.  So when he says " Neither do I condemn you we know Jesus is also saying that to us. For this woman it was her chance to start again to "Sin no more" Jesus also says that to us. " Go and sin no more."  We have to full on the mercy and love of Jesus. He does not condemn us No he loves us. Our responsibility is to try our best to live a life of holiness (whole-ness) we can only do this with the love and support of God. We can only achieve this by listening to him in the scriptures and in prayer.

Lent is described as a gift to us to get to know ourselves better  and to turn from Sin and turn to the Lord with both ears.

So what have I learnt from this gospel is to listen to him and turn to him and let him with all my imperfections love me. The letter to the Philippians sums this up "I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." We can only do this by listening to him who loves us.

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