"'Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?' (...) Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them,
'Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.' (...) When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, sir.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.'" John 8:1-11
" Who is without sin be the first to throw a stone ". Because we are all sinners in one way or another, our common misery should arouse compassion for one another. Instead, most of the time, it prompts criticism; a scathing and hypercritical criticism, because no one is free of guilt. Jesus advises us not to judge so that we will not be judged; he also warns us that the measure we use with others will be the measure used with us on judgment day; furthermore, about this mania of ours to point finger, he says in a reproving tone, "Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3)
The human eye cannot focus near and far at the same time; for this reason, those who criticize others abundantly, that is, those who focus far and put their attention on the faults of others, are very likely deficient in self-criticism, that is, they do not focus near to see their own defects.
But why do we focus better far than near? And why do we take pleasure in exposing the sins of others in order to humiliate them? Because all humiliation is an indirect and undermined form of self-exaltation; by pointing the finger at someone, I am drawing attention from others to myself, and subliminally saying: "I am not like that" and "I am better"...
Unlike man, God does not want the sinner to die, but to be converted and live (Ezekiel 18:23). God, who forgives and forgets, is more interested in our present and our future than in our past; he believes in our potentials and recognizes our talents better than we do, because he gave them to us and it is on this basis that he forgives and invites us to change; what God did in sinners like Peter, Paul, Augustine and so many others, he can do in us also. They all had a sinful past, but for God it was their future of holiness that counted.
St. Peter, the coward
St. Peter, the one who even said to his friend and teacher, "I would give my life for you" (Luke 22:33), but when confronted by a servant girl as being one of Jesus’ companions, he denied it three times, and went as far as to insist that he did not even know him.
St. Paul, the accomplice in murders
St. Paul is the classic example of conversion, which in Greek is called metanoia and means to change one's mind and way of thinking. Our lives are governed by our thoughts or ideas; many of these are preconceived and irrational, which means that our behaviour is also inappropriate.
Conversion as metanoia involves confronting thoughts in order to change them. There is a theory in psychotherapy that starts from this principle. The Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is based on the concept that emotions and behaviours are the result of cognitive processes; and that it is possible for human beings to modify these processes to achieve different ways of feeling and behaving.
On meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul changed his mind, changed his way of thinking regarding Jesus, and if before he had persecuted Christians, and had even connived in the execution of many (Acts 7:54-60), now with the same conviction and fervour he proclaimed Christ. He ended up being, among the apostles, the one who travelled the most, the one who suffered the most for the gospel and the one who was most intent on educating and guiding the small Christian communities born out of his preaching with letters that contained his meditations and reflections on the mystery of Christ.
St. Augustine, carefree living
The great St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who together with St. Thomas Aquinas are, respectively, the "Plato" and the "Aristotle" of Catholic theology, was not born a saint but a sinner, like the rest of us. At the age of 15 and 16, he led a life of a rogue; at 17, he started an affair with a girl which lasted 14 years; from this union, which never resulted in marriage, a son was born who lived until his teens. The incessant prayers and tears from his mother, St. Monica, led both Augustine and his father to the grace of conversion.
Misery and Mercy
Returning to the sinful woman; after everyone had abandoned their so-called authority to judge, she was left alone with Jesus; as St. Augustine himself said, misery and mercy remained; human misery represented by the sinful woman and the divine mercy represented by Jesus.
God's response to human misery is his divine mercy. There are many people who are trapped in their past who are unaware that there is no sin or human misery greater than divine mercy, and that the holiest of saints were also sinners and if they, despite of their misery, had a future, then so do we, everyone has one. Every saint had a past as a sinner, every sinner can have a future of a saint.
Conclusion – You can only be a saint to others, to yourself and in front of God you are always a sinner. The day you stop being a sinner, you stop being a saint.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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