St. Mary's Church, Roslyn: Pastor's Page

Dear Friends:

Today’s Gospel relates the wonderful story of Jesus forgiving the sinful woman. In our present cultural milieu, however, it is likely that people may “find fault” with the story itself: Why was only the woman brought to Jesus? Does not the punishment seem disproportionate to the crime? Why does the law intrude into people’s personal lives? All legitimate concerns, to be sure. Sad to say: they miss the point.

Let us begin with the fact that the woman—and no one else—is on trial. How, then, do we reconcile the legal ramifications of the woman’s sin, which are dire, with the notion of a good and compassionate God? As many of the saints have observed, in God, justice and mercy are two sides of the same coin. Only limited, imperfect human beings understand them as fundamentally opposed.

On the one hand, one may argue that the woman is indisputably guilty of a crime. And so, what we call “distributive justice” (justice on the merits of one’s actions) demands punishment, surely. At the same time, it is also true that God’s law is “above” human law. That is, it is directed toward our salvation and, unlike human law, does not carry a threat—at least, not a worldly threat – with it.

Here is where we discover the link between God’s justice and mercy. Divine justice aims at forgiving what was sinful, restoring what was broken, and saving what was lost. Notice that the woman does not dispute her own guilt; neither does Jesus rationalize what she has done. Still, Our Lord’s very person—compassionate, loving, merciful—awakens within her the yearning for a life of goodness, truth, and beauty: a life that seems wildly beyond whatever she could have hoped for or imagined. “Neither do I condemn you; now go, and from now on avoid this sin…” A human being, created in the image and likeness of God, has a new lease on life. After the angry mob dissipates, having been indicted by Goodness Itself, the story resolves:

Then Jesus spoke with the one who remained at His side.
To whom justice and mercy were almost denied:
“Has no one condemned you then?”
“Not one,” the woman replied.
“Then avoid this sin, a new life begin; in peace you may go and abide.”

And then Jesus bent down and knelt in the sand
And started to trace the ground with his hand,
Searching the human heart to see
What was wounded in you and me.

Friends, as Lent draws to a close, let us spend some time with Christ, and “read” what he writes in the sand concerning what lies in our hearts.

Faithfully,

Fr. Valentine

From the Desk of Father Valentine

Dear Friends:

It’s great to be back home at St. Mary’s after traveling last week. What a “productive” time it was, too. Grading papers, fixing things, visiting friends, Mass: in the same moment I felt both far away and close enough to taste the Irish bread.

One of the great joys of my trip was to see a former professor—a retired priest from Rockville Centre—who taught us theology in the college seminary. He’s a wonderful man: priest, teacher, spiritual director and, now, mystic. Because of health reasons, he is unable to assume regular duties in a parish but, 30 years after we last saw each other, he lives a life of quiet contemplation in a home that is steps from the local parish. In the Middle Ages, one would have called such an individual an anchorite, i.e., one who is “anchored” or attached to the church.

I mention this because the lessons he taught my classmates—simplicity, joy, and compassion, all rooted in a profound, personal experience of the Triune God—are the very lessons he embodies. In many ways, the intimate love and generosity of his parents served as a foretaste—a springboard, if you will—to the touch of divine love that was his “daily bread,” from boyhood through his priestly life. No avarice, resentment, or anger for him. The only thing that really “matters” is to stand in awesome wonder at the unutterable goodness of God. How edifying to witness divine grace coming to fruition in the heart of a believer.

Coming back to the workaday world of mortgages and tuition, boiler rooms and parking lots, traffic on the LIE and dental appointments, one wonders: can I find what Jesus calls the “peace the world cannot give” (John 14:27)? Can I live free from worry over material things, bitterness over past wounds, and vengeance toward those who are responsible?The short answer, of course, is yes. God is constantly flooding our lives with his presence if we but turn the eyes of our soul to him. And as you will hear me say over and over again: every time we gather for Mass, we Catholic Christians are privileged to spend that precious time—30 minutes during the week, an hour on Sunday—in eternity itself with God.

The longer answer, however, is that for most of us, a life free of hustle and bustle is simply not possible; Love itself demands that we dive into the myriad tasks that make our world go ’round, our children grow, our faith deepen. To use a sports metaphor, we must “stay in the game,” the struggle, the agonia of life: because, for most of us, that is precisely where God is to be found.

Faithfully,

Fr. Valentine