Guilt and shame for our sins is the work of the evil one to keep us away from the love and mercy of God. So what do we do? We shy away and hide our sins from Him who loves us dearly. We might even say it never happened, justify or rationalise it away!
An old saying “Tell the truth and shame the devil” rings true today as it did in the past. For evil has no hold over a repentant sinner. Our merciful loving Lord will indeed restore us and make us whole. Today’s responsorial psalm reminds us of this…
But now I have acknowledged my sins;
my guilt I did not hide.
I said: ‘I will confess
my offence to the Lord.’
And you, Lord, have forgiven
the guilt of my sin.
And our joyful response is…”Happy the man whose offence is forgiven”
We see how intimately our Lord reaches out to touch and restore us in today’s Gospel. He opens Heaven for us, so that we can once again hear His word and Will for us. We shall then praise Him all the days of our lives! Amen
Saint Scholastica pray for us…
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First reading
Genesis 3:1-8 ·
The fall of man
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
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Gospel
Mark 7:31-37
‘He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak’
Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’
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