Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The first reading says that God’s might is the basis for divine justice. We might take this to mean that God uses mighty power to punish sinners, in the legal sense of justice. But God is too powerful to be injured by our sins. God can afford to wait for us to repent. That is the point of the parable of the wheat and the weeds. We are used to expecting swift justice.

We like TV shows in which the bad guy is caught and convicted in an hour. The idea of God giving s inners until the end of time to repent is almost un-American at least, until we realize that we are sinners, too. Yet God is still willing to wait for all of us to repent.

That is the wonder of God’s love, that God’s Son came to die for sinners, even before we sinned. Of course, that means that we also share forgiveness with others. But the more often we go to confession, the more we are reminded of God’s love and forgiveness. Those reminders can help us to be more willing to show mercy ourselves. Let us ask God for the courage to seek forgiveness and the strength to forgive.