Sunday 15 September 2019
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Morning Masses 8.30 & 10.15am Evening 6pm
St Peter's Catholic Church SS9 4BX
Eastwood Parish Leigh on Sea
Next Ordinariate Use Mass
Low Mass Tuesday 17th September 7.30pm
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Seeking the Lost: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Golden Calf, Laurent d’Orleans, c. 1325-1350
Readings:
Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 17, 19
1 Timothy 1:12–17
Luke 15:1–10
The episode in today’s First Reading has been called “Israel’s
original sin.” Freed from bondage, born as a people of God in the
covenant at Sinai, Israel turned aside from His ways and fell to
worshipping a golden calf.
Moses implores God’s mercy, just as Jesus will later intercede for
the whole human race. Just as He still pleads for sinners at God’s right
hand and through the ministry of the Church.
Israel’s sin is the sin of the world. It is your sin and mine.
Ransomed from death and made His children in Baptism, we fall prey to
the idols of this world. We remain a “stiff-necked people,” resisting
His will for us like an ox refuses the plowman’s yoke (see Jeremiah 7:26).
Like Israel, in our sin we push God away and reject our divine sonship. Once He called us “my people” (see Exodus 3:10; 6:7). But our sin makes us “no people,” people He should, in justice, disown (see Deuteronomy 32:21; 1 Peter 2:10).
Yet in His mercy, He is faithful to the covenant He swore by His own
self in Jesus. In Jesus, God comes to Israel and to each of us—as a
shepherd to seek the lost (see Ezekiel 34:11–16), to carry us back to the heavenly feast, the perpetual heritage promised long ago to Abraham’s children.
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” Paul cries in
today’s Epistle. These are the happiest words the world has ever known.
Because of Jesus, as Paul himself can testify, even the blasphemer and
persecutor can seek His mercy.
As the sinners do in today’s Gospel, we draw near to listen to Him.
In this Eucharist, we bring Him the acceptable sacrifice we sing of in
today’s Psalm—our hearts, humbled and contrite.
In the company of His angels and saints, we rejoice that He has wiped
out our offense. We celebrate with Him that we have turned from the
evil way that we might live (see Ezekiel 18:23).
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