"The Waiting Room:" A Lenten Penance Service Homily

[Forgive me for not posting a homily in this blog last week. I was out of town for a family celebration and, well, time got short. My apologies. In the future, if I'm not able to post a homily, I'll try and let you know ahead of time.

This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday and, since a homily following the reading of the Passion is not required, I'll not be posting a Palm Sunday homily this week.

Next week you can expect a homily for the Mass of the Lord's Supper and a homily for the Easter Vigil.

I hope your Lent has gone well and that the upcoming Holy Week is a time of spiritual enrichment for you. JMS]

A Lenten Penance Service Homily: The Waiting Room

"Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but the sick do.
I’m not here for the upright, I’m here for the sinner."

There is not a person in this church this evening
who doesn’t take comfort in those words of Christ:

"I’m not here for the upright, I here for the sinner."

Yet, despite the comfort of these words,
why is it that waiting to go to confession
is about as enjoyable as reading an outdated magazine
in a doctor’s office?

You know, I read this same gospel passage
to the school children this afternoon.
I brought a bottle of aspirin to the children’s penance service.
and we talked about how medication can relieve
the ache in a torn muscle.
And then we talked about how forgiveness
can ease the pain as well.
Not the pain of a sprained ankle, but the ache of a strained friendship;
not the pain of a broken arm, but the hurt of a broken heart.

I reminded them that,
if we elbow our opponent on the basketball court, it’s called a foul.
Likewise, when we inflict damage with the words we use
or the attitudes we adopt, it’s called a sin.
And the damage is double…it’s an elbow in the gut of two souls…
theirs and yours.

Aspirin won’t help.
Confession does.

Unfortunately, for us adults,
sin gets more complicated than a fight on the playground
or getting a technical called on the court.

By the time we reach adulthood,
we begin to suspect that the condition we suffer from is terminal.

Why? Because the pain caused by our sins
never seems to go away completely.
Like nerve damage, it shoots a sharp sensation
through our soul at unexpected times.

The numbness and tingling of nerve damage
might settle down for awhile, but then the pain reoccurs.

So it is with sin.
Something about it tells us the damage is permanent
and normal feeling in that part of the soul
just ain’t never coming back.

Since most of us don’t like going to the doctor,
we learn to live with it.
Even tonight, as we sit here waiting to see Dr. Jesus,
we might not have much hope
that the pain is really going to subside.

Oh, sure, we’ll tell the Lord what our symptoms are:
A brother we can’t talk to
A boss we can’t stomach
A co-worker we gossip about.

We might bring up the fact that we suffer from
a chronic disorder of the affections called lust.
We might even mention that we’re lethargic when it comes to prayer
and that we seem to have no energy whatsoever
when it comes to responding to the suffering of others.

Of course, if truth be told,
these sins that we carry with us to the doctor’s office tonight
are nothing new;
they’ as worn and faded as back issues of Newsweek
stuffed in the magazine rack.

I wish I could tell you what I told the kids at their penance service
this afternoon.
I wish I could say that one trip to the doctor
would do the trick and that you’d be back on your feet in no time.

But it seems to me that, the older we get,
the more we need a doctor who does more than prescribe pills.
We need more than advice on what we should eat
or how much we should exercise.

As necessary as healthy habits like fasting and a regimen of prayer
are to the life of the soul,
we need more than that.

We need a doctor who cares about us;
a doctor who will accompany us through the therapy
all the way to the day when we are released,
not released from his care,
but released from the pain brought on by that infection called sin.

The pain, you see, that’s the issue.

And that means that none of us are sitting in this room tonight
just waiting for the opportunity to discuss our current symptoms.
Rather, we’re here to be healed,
we here to ask the Lord
to relieve the pain, that deep pain that keeps us up at night;
that dull pain lodge deep in our souls.

We want to be rid of it.
We want it to end.

And tonight he tells us
that it’s his job to heal the soul and remove the pain.

“Healthy people don’t need a doctor, the sick do,” says the Lord.
I’ve not come for the upright.
So, entrust your soul to me.
I’m here for you,” he says. “I’m here for you.”