Weekly Repentance

The Church has been the object of criticism since the Apostles first threw open the doors the morning the Holy Spirit descended upon them and the commission to preach the Good News went into action. Even one of the greatest Apostles, come-lately to the crew as he did, was one of its greatest persecutors. Today, the media is having the proverbial field day with everything the Church says of does, and even within its walls, polarization and prejudice ferment. Would that the Church might be "without stain", but such cannot be the case as long as it is made up of people like you and me. Martin Luther criticized the great thinker and writer, Erasmus for remaining us such a corrupt Church, when he obviously saw its flaws and had suggested ways of its reform. Erasmus retorted, "I put up with this Church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is constrained to put up with me in the hope that one day I will become better."
"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first the throw a stone at her" (Jn 8: 7), Jesus said to the elders surrounding the woman caught in adultery. True, as long as we are sinful, the Church will be. Each week, each day really, we should be asking forgiveness and striving to repent in our own lives. St. Faustina urged us to pray for divine mercy: "have mercy on us and on the whole world." This is sundance season in Pine Ridge, and singers around the reservation plead in a haunting melody that comes from deep within the soul, "Great Spirit, have mercy on us and grant us your forgiveness." Let us take time to reflect on our own shorcomings, faults and sins, and "cast the beam from our own eyes, before we talk about the speck in our neighbor's." (cf. Matt 7:5).
Bro. Rene