Homily – August 31, 2010 – Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time - Tuesday

+ What made Jesus a great prophet is that he spoke with a different kind of authority – a quiet authority, a genuine authority, an authentic authority – obviously based on something very valid, very true, and very reliable. And that, of course, was the will and words of God his Father. He was those will and words, so he, therefore, was very "believable." Jesus' power over unclean spirits was almost an afterthought – of course, the Spirit of the Living God would have power over any lesser spirits – especially, destructive ones.

But Jesus was not just a great prophet, who also did marvelous things: he was also Son of God whose act of self-sacrifice to the point of death on a Cross brought about the greatest miracle of them all: the true, authentic and genuine forgiveness of sin. For us, who have accessibility to the Sacrament of Penance, we sometimes take for granted the fact that our sins – that which really and truly chokes and even kills the Divine Life within us - can truly be forgiven by God. All God requires is that we be truly sorry for them, that we confess them to a priest of his Church, and do penance for them as assigned by him. But we ought never to take so great a blessing for granted. Without Jesus' sacrifice there would be no forgiveness, and we would have been enemies of God – forever – never having the possibility of living forever with him after our deaths.

The first reading today tells that it is the Spirit of God who not only takes our sins away in the confessional, but also gives us the very power to believe that it can be done in the first place. Our natural minds can only take us so far. They can never bring about the required forgiveness of the great Sin against God, and other lesser sins. But the supernatural power of God's own Holy Spirit can do all things related to our reconciliation both with God, with the Church and with ourselves.

May we rejoice today in the fact that the great prophet, risen in our midst, is also the great Savior and Reconciler of our souls with God.

Blessed be God forever. Amen.