{"id":5074,"date":"2025-04-05T16:48:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T21:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/?p=5074"},"modified":"2025-04-05T16:49:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T21:49:57","slug":"man-without-sin-may-stone-her-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/man-without-sin-may-stone-her-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Without Sin May Stone Her First"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Liturgy this Lent has shown us the God of the Exodus. He is a mighty and gracious God, Who, out of faithfulness to His covenant, has done \u201cgreat things\u201d for His people, as today\u2019s Psalm puts it. But the \u201cthings of long ago,\u201d Isaiah tells us in today\u2019s First Reading, are nothing compared to the \u201csomething new\u201d that He will do in the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s First Reading and Psalm look back to the marvelous deeds of the Exodus. Both see in the Exodus a pattern and prophecy of the future, when God will restore the fortunes of His people fallen in sin. The readings today look forward to a still greater Exodus, when God will gather in the exiled tribes of Israel that had been scattered to the four winds, the ends of the earth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new Exodus that Israel waited and hoped for has come in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Like the adulterous woman in today\u2019s Gospel, all have been spared by the Lord\u2019s compassion. All have heard His words of forgiveness, His urging to repentance, to be sinners no more. Like Paul in today\u2019s Epistle, Christ has taken possession of every one, claimed each as a child of our heavenly Father. But our God is ever a God of the future, not of the past. We are to live with hopeful hearts, \u201cforgetting what lies behind <\/span>but straining forward to what lies ahead,\u201d as Paul tells us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jewish law treated adultery as a serious crime since it violated God’s ordinance and the stability of marriage and family life. It was one of the three gravest sins punishable by death for the Jews. If Jesus said the woman must be pardoned, he would be accused of breaking the law of Moses. If he said the woman must be stoned, he would lose his reputation for being the merciful friend of sinners.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus then does something quite unexpected\u2014he begins to write in the sand. The word for “writing” which is used here in the Gospel text has a literal meaning “to write down a record against someone.” Perhaps Jesus was writing down a list of the sins of the accusers standing before him. Jesus now turns the challenge towards his accusers. In effect he says: Go ahead and stone her, but <\/i>let the man who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. <\/i>The Lord leaves the matter to their own consciences. When we are ready to be changed and transformed in Christ-like holiness, God never withholds his grace from us. His steadfast love and mercy are new every day. Through the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit we can be changed and made new in Christ. We pray that Jesus can set us free from our unruly desires and passions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We shall prepare well for this coming Holy Week to receive His grace more and more in our daily lives by cleaning our Hearts and souls for him. Receive him with purity of heart so Easter will be a really joyful one for you this year.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Love and prayers,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fr. Charley<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Liturgy this Lent has shown us the God of the Exodus. He is a mighty and gracious God, Who, out of faithfulness to His covenant, has done \u201cgreat things\u201d for His people, as today\u2019s Psalm puts it. But the \u201cthings of long ago,\u201d Isaiah tells us in today\u2019s First Reading, are nothing compared to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-bulletin-homilies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5074"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5076,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074\/revisions\/5076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olqu.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}