Good News

By Fr Michael Casey

In the older rite for Ash Wednesday, men and women alike were set on the path of their Lenten journey with the words, "Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust thou shalt return". A grim thought to ensure that ashes were cast over the mind as well as on the forehead. The newer alternative formula is more positive but just as challenging: "Turn away from sin and believe the Good News".

What is the Good News that we are admonished to believe? Today’s Gospel tells us. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son". The second reading confirms this: "God loved us so much that he was generous with his mercy" This is the message that is at the heart of Christian faith – the belief that God’s unconditional love is more than able to neutralise the poison of our sins. "Even though our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all" (1 John 3:20). Because our knowledge is partial concerning our own guilt, we often get the picture wrong. God knows the whole story and is far more indulgent towards us than we are to ourselves. God’s work is to mend what is broken, to repair what is dysfunctional. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19). Its effect is dramatic. "Though your sins are as scarlet they shall become as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18). God’s goodness is such that it swamps evil; in the presence of God our resistance melts away.

Undoubtedly, this is the best of all news – that my sins no longer have power over me. No longer do I have to drag the ball and chain of past guilt throughout my life. That God can negate the self-destructive choices I have made is a great mystery, since my sins belong to myself alone. I may attempt to blame others but my resistance to grace and to God is entirely a matter of my own will turned in on itself instead of outwards to other people and to God. God forgives sin by giving a change of heart, a conversion, the grace of repentance, so that my will is no longer fixed on self but is directed towards the Good.

The difficulty is that if God’s love is unconditional it follows that it covers not only my sins but all sins. This means that my receiving of God’s forgiving love depends on my capacity to forgive those who have trespassed against me. The New Testament is unanimous in insisting on this linkage. My relationship with God is shaped by my relationship with my neighbour: the first commandment to love God is complemented by the precept of loving others. The forgiveness of my sins and my admittance into God’s presence are conditional on my proactive love and concern for all those around me.

God's all-healing love can never be an excuse for slackness or for loose morals. "Shall we go on sinning because we are not under the Law but under grace? Let it not happen!" (Romans 6:15). The Epistle of James is much concerned that our confidence in God’s mercy does not provide us with an incentive for wrongdoing but is, rather, a stimulus to every kind of virtuous action: "Faith on its own, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17). It is the boldness that comes from being totally loved by God that empowers me and you to do things which otherwise we may have left undone. In this way, we also become God’s agents of healing, spreading the Good News by manifesting in our own way the radical love we have experienced from God.