Homily for the
24th Sunday of Ordinary
Time
Sept. 11, 2022
1 Tim 1: 12-17
Christian Brothers,
Iona Univ., New Rochelle
Bridgettines, Darien,
Conn.
“This saying is trustworthy and
deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1: 15).
There you have the heart of the Gospel. St. John puts it slightly differently, in a verse we’ve all heard many times: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Do you believe it? Do you believe God loves you so very much
that he gave you his only Son? Do you
believe that Christ Jesus came into the world in the very same human flesh and
blood as yours to save sinners—to save even you and me?
Today’s Scriptures are all about God’s
merciful love. St. Paul experienced that
love firsthand, however unworthy of it he was:
“I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant” (1 Tim 1:13). “I am the foremost” of sinners (1:15). We probably don’t say such things about
ourselves. But we may think or feel such
things, knowing our sins. If you’re like
most of us, you fall into the same sins over and over, which only heightens our
sense of unworthiness of God, perhaps even some fear of God.
But despite our weaknesses and
failures, God doesn’t stop loving us, or forgiving us, or picking us up and
helping us along, like the shepherd who hunted for the wandering sheep and
carried it home (Luke 15:4-6).
In our 1st reading, God’s furious with
the Hebrews on account of their worship of the golden calf they’ve made, and
he’s ready to annihilate them and start over again with Moses, as he’d once
started anew with Noah. Instead, he
listens to Moses’ plea for mercy: “The
Lord relented in the punishment he’d threatened to inflict on his people” (Ex
32:14).
It’s Jesus, now, who intercedes for us,
as Moses once did; Jesus who pleads with his Father to forgive us sinners and
give us all a fresh start in grace.
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). Now he does more than eat with sinners; he
himself is our food, our sacred banquet—the very same human flesh and blood
that he took of the Virgin Mary and in which he carried out his merciful
ministry among sinners. Now he delights
to welcome us, to forgive us, to nourish us so that we might “feel the working
of [divine] mercy” (Collect). He came
into the world to save sinners—those he touched and healed and dined with in
1st-century Palestine, and you and me.
Like Paul, we also are “mercifully treated” (1 Tim 1:13), so that we might
attain eternal life with our Lord Jesus Christ.
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