There will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents
8 NOVEMBER(Lk 15,1-10)
The Lord had always taught his love for the conversion of the sinner. All prophets are a unanimous chorus, a heavenly voice that invite man to return to fidelity to the covenant concluded. God labours, works, combats and fights for this: so that the sinner turns away from evil and returns to do good, leaves the way of injustice, falsehood, lie, deception, fraud, murder, and lives of Commandments.
Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah! What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me. New moon and Sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool. If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land; But if you refuse and resist, the sword shall consume you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken!” (Cf. Is, 1,1-31).
If the whole message of the prophets is a call to conversion, why is there this total deformation of religion in the time of Jesus? Why are the Pharisees like an anti – God, who with obstinacy, stubbornness, total narrow-mindedness, darkening of the heart and soul; fight, and combat Jesus Christ who welcomed sinners and gave them the sweet hope of forgiveness, after their repentance and their return to God? What makes the true faith be destroyed in a heart, a mind, and a soul?
The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to him, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them he addressed this parable. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. “Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Destroyer of the truth is sin, that as a deadly virus, eliminates from our bodies all the signs of the truth of God. Then, if sin becomes the structure of our being, subsequently God is totally eliminated in his truth. Satan with his falsehood govern us, enslaves us, reduces us to his instruments for the destruction of God in the heart of every brother that somehow enters into a relationship with us. Our every word, decision, thought, action, have a single purpose: destroying God in his truth, goodness, mercy, piety, compassion and forgiveness. He is destroyed in his envoys. He is destroyed in the recipients of the message of peace through an incessant slander, false witness, threat to the messengers of God. However, these are full of the Holy Spirit, full of love and mercy toward man, and they continue their mission, knowing the end that awaits them: the spiritual elimination and often also the physical one. God and Satan are in a perpetual war. Sent of God and slaves of Satan live a struggle that will know no end, if not when the new heaven and the new earth will come. Who is not ready to give his life for the Gospel, never might be said he is a true sent of God.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true heralds of the Gospel.