Homily For The 5th Sunday of Lent, April 6, 2025
God does not forgive evil but the individual. He teaches us to distinguish the evil act, which as such must be condemned, from the person who has committed it, to whom he offers the possibility of changing them.” – John Paul II
Sunday Readings
My Dearest Friends in Christ,
We have gathered here on this fifth Sunday of Lent to experience the Mercy and Compassion of God and to acknowledge our sins by forgiving and showing mercy to others who have offended us or have gone astray.
Today’s readings challenge us to be merciful to those who have offended us or are guilty of any crime, as God extends His Mercy to us all. We are warned to avoid self-righteous attitudes that lead us to condemn others when God is tenderly calling them to conversion.
The first reading reminds us not to remember things that are past because God is about to do something new in our lives and has already begun it. Your past sins no longer define you because He has paid the supreme price for your sins. When we are repentant, God offers this newness of life to every sinner.
In the second reading, Paul presents himself as a forgiven sinner who has been completely transformed by his Faith in Christ Jesus. His life is an example of the Gospel exhortation, “Sin no more.” Paul loves Christ so much he wants to share in His sufferings and even in His death so that he may share in Christ’s Resurrection. He counts everything as a loss for the infinite treasure of coming to know Christ.
The sinful woman’s story of sin committed and sin forgiven in today’s Gospel shows the inexhaustible mercy and compassion Jesus gives to repentant sinners. In addition, by making sinlessness the condition for throwing the first stone, Jesus forces the accusers to assess their own souls, and He grants justice to the accusers and mercy to the sinful woman.
This story is so dramatic because those men ask Jesus to judge the sinful woman in order “to test Him” and try to make Him take a false step. By the prescriptions of the Book of Leviticus (cf. 20: 10), the woman caught in adultery was to be condemned by stoning. If Jesus absolves the woman, it will be said that he has transgressed the precepts of Moses; if Jesus condemns her, it will be said that He is inconsistent with His message of mercy towards sinners. Jesus was silent for a while to invite the accusers to self-reflection before He asked the question that made their trap fail. “Jesus, in His response, neither failed to respect the law nor departed from His meekness” – St. Augustine
In our lives, we bear witness to the Justice of God by confessing our sinfulness and resolving to avoid sin, and we bear witness to God’s Mercy by accepting the forgiveness of our sins and promising to forgive those who have offended us.
Are we still throwing stones?
But why did they not throw stones at her? Perhaps each examined himself and realized he had been a victim of such a sin or was still active in it. Isn’t it easy to throw stones at the accused when the accuser himself should first stone himself? “Stones” here are all the spicy gossips, condemnations, jungle justice and killings, and all unkind attitudes we met out to those who are victims of one sinful act or another. Do we not remember that a sinner deserves some fraternal love, correction, and mercy? Why do we derive joy, for instance, from sharing pictures or videos of those who were caught in sinful acts on social media? Why do we even expose the sins of others on social media to bring public shame and disgrace upon them? This is the wickedness of this age of social media. If God should expose each of us, who could even raise his head high? That you have not been caught and exposed does not make you a saint. All lizards are lying on their stomach. No one knows who has a stomach ache, says an Igbo adage. We gain nothing by putting others to disrepute because we all are guilty. Like the Pharisees who surrounded the woman, we often derive joy in condemning or exposing the sins of others or have stoned or exposed many already. In as much as we should condemn sin, we should also love the sinner as Christ does.
Ask yourself, “Am I also a sinner?
Do you still remember you are a sinner and that no amount of self-righteous attitude will exonerate you from being one? So, why do you condemn others as though you were a saint? Do you know how much effort that sinner is making to come to conversion in Christ? Can we help lift those struggling with sinful habits rather than condemn and take them down? You would have been an unforgiven sinner if not for the Mercy of God. So, please treat fellow sinners with love and compassion.
Christ came to reconcile us.
When a sinner repents and sins no more, the family of God is healed from the wounds caused by the sin of that sinner. When we repent from our sins, we are reconciled with God and reintegrated into the community of the faithful from which our sins severed us. Sin weakens our bonds within the Christian community, but repentance and reconciliation heal and strengthen that bond. Christ came to heal the wounds of our brokenness. We should also strive to heal each other with our compassionate and merciful hearts. Each person is of great value to society and the Christian family. No one should be written off, condemned, ostracized, or neglected. When we value each other, we show mercy and love. When we show mercy and love, we heal our brokenness. The Church is an agent of healing in the world. The sacrament of Penance heals and restores. Be an agent of healing and not of condemnation. This is what our Christian calling requires.
Sin no more. This is what God desires from us.
It is not impossible. A sinner can become a saint. St. Paul used to be a persecutor of Christians, but the grace of God transformed him. Are you still living in self-deception and cannot drop that sinful habit or immoral lifestyle? Jesus intervened and saved the life of that poor woman who would have been stoned to death. That is the same way He intervened and saved us with His Body on the Cross. The Grace of repentance has been lavished on us, such that where sin abounds, Grace abounds much more. Shall we continue to sin when Grace abounds? ( cf. Rom 6:1) This is the time to look inward and stone our sinful emotions, condemn our sinful habits, and ask for God’s Mercy.
Jesus did not condemn her, so don’t condemn others.
In whatever condition we find ourselves, we can always open ourselves to conversion and receive forgiveness for our sins. “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again “ (Jn 8: 11)
God is certainly doing something new in our lives, as we heard in the first reading. Let us leave behind the former life of sinfulness: abortion, drug addiction, calumny, gossip, envy, pride, injustice, drunkenness, prodigality, prostitution, sexual sins, and all other sins. Give God a chance! Like St. Paul’s let’s count everything as a loss and embrace the love and knowledge of God who saves.
May God fill us more with the Grace of sincere repentance and mercy toward others.
I keep you and your family always in my prayers. ©Clem C. Aladi (2025)
