Today we continue a reflection on Pope Francis’ 2025 Year of Jubilee, Pilgrims of Hope and the thread that joins the readings to it. Two weeks ago Fr Manoj used his homily to explain and reflect on what a Jubilee Year is and how we are called to take part in its themes. Each Jubilee Year centres on mercy, forgiveness, renewal and reconciliation.
In his letter for the Jubilee Year Pope Francis wrote, “A significant step on this journey (to our 2025 Jubilee) was already taken with the celebration of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which allowed us to appreciate anew all the power and tenderness of the Father’s merciful love, in order to become, in our turn, its witnesses.” He continued. “May it be an intense year of prayer in which hearts are opened to receive the outpouring of God’s grace and to make the “Our Father,” the prayer Jesus taught us, the life programme of each of his disciples.”
The Our Father contains words of mercy: “‘…forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” Forgive our failings as we forgive the failings of others.
Pope Francis’ reference to merciful love is reflected in the Gospel which follows those directly of the past two Sundays. As Christians we are called to lead others but can we do this if we do not know the way? If we are leading someone blind to faith, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation and we too are blind to faith, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation then it’s a journey fraught with danger.
I remember a couple of week-long holidays in Benidorm enjoyed with two neighbours and some ex-pats friends of theirs who spent months at a time there soaking up the sun. One of the group was blind but had an innate sense of awareness and we were amazed how, in company, he instinctively manoeuvred the streets and roads; he knew direction and distance. His lack of sight on his own was, of course, potentially dangerous but supported by his wife or one of us he took our arm. It is this idea of Jesus’ analogy of the sighted and the blind we reflect on today, particularly where the blind lead the partially sighted. As Jesus says, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye’, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?” In other words often we cannot see our own faults, we can be blind to them, but easily pick on the faults of others. Are we aware of direction and distance when we interact with others or do we barge in in words and actions without thought?
If we spend a lot of time with people at work or at home it is easy to judge their failings; they may do the same to us but we may not see our own failings. I worked in the NHS for many years leading different teams. Have you ever been the one person in a team who has made some mistake, some error?
You know how you feel, you fret about it and feel badly enough about it. But when this happened I tried to focus on moving on and what we could do to avoid a similar thing happening. This relieved the sting the person felt and with their support, and that of their colleagues, we worked to a solution. That was not to brag about being a good manager: it was a learnt process. I had seen other managers openly pillory staff for their mistakes and it wasn’t pleasant. This might resonate with you, it certainly does with me.
There is a recurring theme too we can see in all our readings which is directly about us: firstly, the orchard and the quality of the fruit in the book of Sirach; in the second working on harvesting the lord’s work, that is producing good fruit which can never be in vain; and in the Gospel good trees produce good fruit. It is in the heart of the tree and in our hearts which produce the good fruit. What we say and do that is good is what we draw from what is within us, as the good fruit draw from the tree. The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had.
What we say and how we say it reflects who we are. In addition to what we say is what we do. We may judge another by their deeds. As we judge a tree by its fruit so we may judge a person by their actions; in both cases, words and deeds, reveal what is in our hearts, they reveal something about ourselves.
In recognising and acting on our failings we can draw the forgiveness of others, leading to our renewal, that is making a fresh start, and in this coming season of Lent what better time to look at ourselves and reconcile with our brother(s) and sister(s).