Homily for Thursday, 7 November 2013– Ferial

Thursday of the 31st week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Romans 14:7-12; Psalm 27:1bcde, 4, 13-14; Luke 15:1-10

If I were to ask any one of you to describe yourself in a few words at most, how would you respond?

“I do x for a living. I am retired. I am a faithful Catholic; perhaps a daily communicant. I am married, or single, or a deacon, or a priest. I am a good citizen who serves my country generously…”

These kinds of responses would describe many of us gathered here today, and yet they would leave out an important aspect of who we are.

A few weeks ago, Pope Francis gave his much-talked-about interview that was then published in America Magazine. The Italian Jesuit Antonio Spadaro asked Pope Francis this question to open the interview: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The pope replied, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

Precisely… we are members of a Church led on earth by a sinner, and we are all sinners whom the Lord has looked upon with mercy.

We may wish to describe ourselves more flatteringly than as sinners, but as Pope Francis continued in his interview, that he, and we, are sinners is the “most true” description of who we are. We do not say this, and we do not begin our Mass, as we have today, with the confession to God, “I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,” in order to condemn ourselves. We acknowledge that we are sinners because we know the magnitude of God’s mercy.

As St. Paul writes to the Romans, “each of us” will “give an account of” ourselves “to God”; God the judge, yes, but God who judges with mercy especially toward those who acknowledge: “I am a sinner.”

Jesus takes this point even further in today’s Gospel. Both parables he tells‒ that of the lost sheep and that of the lost coin‒ affirm God’s greater joy “over one sinner who repents” than over several “who have no need for repentance.” God’s love is to the point of foolishness. Who would sweep her house for one insignificant lost coin when she has nine other coins, perhaps of greater value than the lost coin? Who would risk the safety of ninety-nine sheep wandering in the pasture in order to bring home one who was lost?

And yet this is the love and mercy to the point of folly with which our God loves each one of us.

When we will need to give an account of ourselves before God, then, how will we identify ourselves? Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis? Who is Father N. or Deacon Warren Schmidt? Who is each one of us?

I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon with mercy.