The Friend of Sinners

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We are told in St. Luke, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).

Also in St. Luke, Our Lord said to Zacchaeus, “Make haste and come down, for I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).

In St. Mark, we're told He went to eat at Matthew's house. There, “many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples” (Mark 2:15).

In another place, we're told Our Lord says, “It is the sick who are in need of healing” (cf. Luke 5:31). Our Lord has come to cure them.

The whole life of Christ testifies to the fact that Jesus was without sin. In St. John, He even challenges His adversaries, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8:46).

St. John Paul comments: “A man ‘without sin’ (John 8:7), Jesus Christ, during his whole life, was engaged in a struggle against sin, and against all that gives rise to sin, beginning with Satan who is the ‘father of lies’ (cf. John 8:44)” (John Paul II, Address, February 10, 1988).

Even though Our Lord is fully engaged in this struggle against sin and its deepest causes, Our Lord does not distance Himself from sinners. On the contrary, He approaches each and every person.

During His earthly life, He was found to be habitually in the company of sinners. “Come down, Zacchaeus, for I must stay at your house today.” There were “many tax collectors and sinners sitting with Jesus and his disciples.”

All the evangelists give frequent testimony of this. It's confirmed by His enemies, who went so far as to label Him as one who was the “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” we're told in St. Matthew (Matt. 11:19).

The life of Christ is a continual reaching out to souls in need. In a similar way, He accepted all kinds of social invitations, so that He might reach out to His lost sheep.

As ordinary people in the middle of the world, this is one piece of example that we could also try to follow. While being good family people and taking care of our home life, our business life, and our professional life, it’s good to have a certain social life, to mix around, be involved in society, to meet people, and to meet new people, and to keep up with old friends—to use social occasions to do apostolate. This is what Our Lord did.

St. Mark recalls the day that Our Lord called Matthew to follow Him. Matthew, having met Our Lord, seems to have wanted to get as many of his friends as possible in contact with Our Lord, so he organized a party. Then we're told that “many tax collectors and sinners came to Matthew's house” (cf. Mark 2:15).

Matthew must have had many very colorful friends. If we were organizing a party and we were to think, ‘Well, now, I want to invite some sinners, who would be top of our list?’—we might have difficulty finding people that we could identify as sinners. Perhaps we are the greatest sinner that we know.

But Matthew doesn't seem to have had any trouble. Our Lord appears most appealing when He sits in the company of sinners and outcasts. He offers His joy and peace to every individual.

He's told us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (cf. Mark 2:17). This was a reply of Our Lord to the Pharisees, who expressed a certain indignation when they saw that Our Lord was mixing with sinners.

The supreme manifestation of Christ's love for mankind is with His sacrifice of Calvary. Yet even in the course of His going up to Jerusalem, Our Lord showed an ongoing interest in the affairs of men.

He gives life and meaning to that moving promise that “the Son of Man has also come not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45), a guiding light for the whole of our life.

Our Lord intends to serve everyone, not only those who follow His call, but even those who seem completely hardened to His divine Word.

We could resolve to increase our confidence in Our Lord. Our confidence should increase with the dimensions of our difficulties. This is especially true if we should happen to get a real sense of our own limitations.

St. Teresa of Ávila has said, “Ah, how hard a thing am I asking of you, my true God! I ask you to love the one who loves you not, to open to one who has not called upon you, to give health to one who prefers to be sick and who even goes about in search of sickness” (St. Teresa, Exclamations of the Soul to God).

God has great joy at the sight of our daily conversions. We can see that Our Lord was always with people, even after day was done; there were many times when they would not let Him rest (cf. Mark 3:20).

His life was totally given over to His brothers and sisters (cf. Gal. 2:20). Crowds went looking for Him. He loved them with the greatest love that the world has ever seen (cf. John 13:1).

St. Paul says, “He was raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25) and ascended into Heaven to prepare a place for us (cf. John 14:2). We’re told He sends us the Holy Spirit to forestall our becoming orphans (cf. John 14:18). The more we have need of Him, the more He has been among us.

This divine mercy exceeds anything the human mind can imagine. This superabundant mercy, St. Thomas says, “is proper to God and is the greatest manifestation of his omnipotence” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part II-II, Question 30).

We are told in the Gospel: “What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one till he found it? And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders, and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep that was lost?’” (Luke 15:3-6).

St. Gregory the Great has commented, “Supreme Mercy will not abandon us even when we abandon him” (Gregory the Great, Homily 36 on the Gospels). The Good Shepherd will never give up on a single one of His sheep.

Our Lord also wants to express heaven's joy at the conversion of a single sinner. “I tell you there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner” (Luke 15:10).

St. Gregory the Great would compare the Lord to a commander engaged in battle. He said the commander values the repentant soldier, who, having once fled from the field of battle, returns to the thick of the fray with renewed determination. This soldier is of more use to his general than his compatriot who never fled but never displayed any valor either.

Similarly, the farmer prizes the land that produces thorns and wheat far higher than any barren ground (Gregory the Great, Homily 34 on the Gospels).

God is delighted when we begin again after small defeats, when we struggle to correct defects in our character, when we fight to overcome any sense of discouragement. He values the way we pursue our studies, the effort we put into doing our work well, our striving to begin and end on time, our avoiding making unnecessary phone calls.

God sees our generosity in those small habitual mortifications which no one else notices. This daily struggle keeps us close to Our Lord.

Whenever we begin again, each and every day, our heart is filled with joy—and so is Our Lord's. Every time we allow Our Lord to enter into our life, we please God immeasurably.

One writer says the Sacred Heart of Jesus “overflows with joy whenever a lost soul has been recovered. Everyone has to join in the celebration—all the angels and the saints in heaven, as well as the just on earth, for this wonderful development” (Georges Chevrot, The Gospel in the Home).

“Rejoice with me,” Jesus invites us (Luke 15:6). There's also a special joy when we bring a friend or relative back to the sacrament of pardon. Here Our Lord awaits His brothers and sisters with open arms.

The Church sings in an ancient hymn, the Dies irae, “Lord, you have worn yourself out looking for me. O that your labors will not have been in vain!”

Our Lord comes out to look for us. He comes in search of us. He took upon Himself all the evil of the world and yet He seeks us out.

He knows better than anyone the foul nature of sin; nevertheless, as one writer says, “He is not angry. He presents to us the moving image of divine mercy. …

“To the Samaritan woman, the one with six husbands, he says simply: ‘Give me to drink’ (John 3:7). Christ knows what the soul can become—it can be a reflection of God himself. What possibilities there are! God wants only good things for the soul (Federico Sopena, Confession).

Jesus draws near to the sinner with real respect. His words are always an expression of love for the individual.

To the woman caught in adultery, He says, “Go, and do not sin again” (John 8:11).

Then we have the case of the paralytic who was brought to Our Lord by his friends. Our Lord says, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven” (Matt. 9:2).

In His dying hour Our Lord assures the Good Thief, “Truly, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

All these are words of pardon, of joy, of consolation. Our Lord waits for us with great love in each Confession. If only we could realize how much He wants us to return to Him!

The Good Shepherd has such a burning desire to reclaim His lost sheep that He goes out to find it Himself. As soon as He finds His lost sheep, He showers it with affection. He carries it home upon His shoulders.

Having returned safely to the flock, one writer says, “the lost sheep brings a great peace to the fold, even to the watchdog” (Federico Sopena, Confession). The divine attentions lavished upon the repentant sinner are truly overwhelming.

God's pardon does not consist only in forgiveness and in the blotting out and forgetting of our sins. This would certainly be a great deal.

But along with the remission of our sins, God infuses new life into the soul. The Catechism says we become “a new creation” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 280; 2 Cor. 5:17). A beautiful word.

He strengthens it and fortifies it. That which was dead is converted into being itself a source of life. Barren ground is made to bear abundant fruit.

Our Lord teaches us the immense value of a single soul. He's ready to do anything for the sake of one conversion. How happy He is at the sight of a renewed friendship!

We should try and share Our Lord's concern that no one would stray from the flock. If anyone has wandered away from Our Lord's fold, we should pray that he or she will return as soon as possible.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent says, “In making this necessary acknowledgment of our sins, it's not enough to call them to mind lightly; for it is necessary that the recollection of them be bitter, that it touch the heart, pierce the soul, and imprint sorrow.

“So the pastor should treat this point diligently, that his pious hearers may not only recollect their sins, and iniquities, but recollect them with pain and sorrow; so that with true interior contrition they may betake themselves to God their Father, humbly imploring him to pluck from the soul the piercing stings of sin” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, The Lord’s Prayer, Fifth Petition).

Our Lord is ready to forgive everyone. We’re told in St. John, “He who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37).

“It is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Matt. 18:14).

St. Thomas has taught us, “The omnipotence of God is manifested above all in divine pardon and mercy. God shows in this fashion that He has the supreme power to forgive sins” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part I, Question 25).

The Gospels record on many occasions when Jesus demonstrates His mercy for sinners. He receives them. He attends to them. He beckons them. He understands them. He pardons them.

Proper pardon for an offense can only be given by the one who is offended. Only God can forgive sins. Our Lord is told by the Pharisees, “Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Luke 5:21).

Our Lord brings these words to fulfillment before their eyes. After the Resurrection He confers upon His Church and her ministers the power to forgive sins. He tells the Apostles: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).

Our Lord is always willing to grant pardon through the sacrament of Penance. The Council of Trent says, “Wherefore we ought to be firmly convinced, that since he commands us in this petition to implore his paternal mercy, he will not fail to bestow it on us. For this petition assuredly implies that God is so disposed towards us, as willingly to pardon those who are truly penitent. God it is against whom, having cast off obedience, we sin.…

“But it is also God, our most beneficent Father, who, having it in his willingness to do so, has also obliged men to ask him for pardon, and has taught them the words in which to ask. To no one, therefore, can it be a matter of doubt that under his guidance it is in our power to be reconciled with God” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, The Lord’s Prayer, Fifth Petition).

In the Our Father we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matt. 6:12). We may pray those words many times each day.

Our Lord asks us to imitate God's paternal mercy. “Be merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

Our Lord does not tire of repeating that advice: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven. … For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Luke 6:37-38).

God has forgiven us for many offenses. We have no right to harbor resentment against anyone. We have to learn to forgive with all our heart. Our pardon should be sincere, profound, and prompt.

Sometimes we may feel hurt for no objective reason, but only because our self-love has been bruised. If perhaps we have indeed been seriously offended, we must necessarily remember our own serious transgressions against Our Lord.

St. Cyprian says Christ “does not accept the offering of those who foster division. He sends them away from the altar to make peace and achieve reconciliation. God wants to be given prayers of peace. His greatest objective is our peace, social harmony, and the unity of the faithful in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (St. Cyprian, Treatise on the ‘Our Father’).

We could examine our reaction to people who ‘rub us the wrong way.’ To follow Christ in ordinary life is to find in this very area a royal road to serenity. We should take care to avoid even the most minute fault against charity.

The small contradictions of social life should not detract from our happiness. If there comes a time when we have to forgive someone as a result of a serious offense, it is then that we will do well to recall the behavior of Our Lord, who asked pardon for those who crucified Him (Luke 23:34).

We will in this way truly savor the true love of God. Our heart will be enriched and expanded in its capacity to love.

We can't forget that “nothing makes us more like unto God than to be ever ready to pardon others,” says St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on St. Matthew’s Gospel). Our generosity towards others can win for us the divine pardon.

In the Book of Daniel, we are told that King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which filled him with foreboding, yet he seemed unable to remember its content. The prophet Daniel describes the dream and then interprets its meaning.

He says, “You saw, O King, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

“As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it smote the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.”

Everything came crashing down at once: the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, and the clay “were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found” (Dan. 2:31-35).

Daniel shows that the dream represents the destruction of one kingdom after another. The chain of destruction was begun by Nebuchadnezzar himself and would be climaxed by the arrival of a kingdom of the “God of Heaven...which shall never be destroyed” (Dan 2:44). God's kingdom would overcome all other kingdoms and last to the end of time.

This image can also be seen to represent every Christian: an intelligence of gold so as to know God, a heart of silver with a great capacity for love, an immense strength based on the practice of the virtues. … All of which rest upon “feet of clay” (Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Points 5, 181).

The reality of our human nature is that we are inevitably weak. We are liable to fall. This realization should lead us to be prudent and humble. The Christian has to be aware of his weakness and trust in the help of the Lord.

This should be our constant prayer, and explains our practice of mortification and our dependence on spiritual direction.

In this way our very weakness can become our pillar of strength, since we have all experienced the truth within this prayer of St. Augustine: “Who is the man who will reflect on his weakness, and yet dare to credit his chastity and innocence to his own powers, so that he loves you the less, as if he had little need for that mercy by which you forgive all sins to those who turn to you” (St. Augustine, Confessions 2, 7).

It's the experience of our own lived sinfulness which convinces us of our frailty. We are told by Origen: “Those who seek to follow God taste many temptations and falls” (Origen, Homily about the Exodus).

God's grace and our good desires do not eliminate our proneness to sin. Our consciousness of this truth can make a big difference in our life. We have to depend on the strength of God rather than on our own unreliable resources.

We can also learn from St. Augustine's reflections on the pathways of God: “Amid the lower parts he has built for himself out of our clay a lowly dwelling, in which he would protect from themselves those ready to become submissive to him, and bring them to him.

“He heals their injuries, and nourishes their love, so that they may not proceed further in self-confidence, but rather become weak” (St. Augustine, Confessions 7,18).

“This is the way we Christians must travel,” said St. Josemaría. “We have to cry out ceaselessly with a strong and humble faith, ‘Lord, put not your trust in me. But I put my trust in you.’ Then, as we sense in our hearts the love, the compassion, the tenderness of Christ’s gaze upon us, for he never abandons us, we shall come to understand the full meaning of those words of St. Paul, ‘Virtue is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12:9).

“If we have faith in Our Lord, in spite of our failings…, we shall be faithful to Our Father, God; his divine power will shine forth in us, sustaining us in our weakness” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 194).

The Gospels relate an incident that happened as Our Lord was going up to Jerusalem. “As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging” (Luke 18:35-43).

Several of the Fathers of the Church have held this blind man to be a symbol of “those who do not have a clear vision of eternal light” (Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, I,2,2).

There are times when the soul can experience obscurity and even blindness. The path that once seemed so clearly defined can become difficult to make out. What was light and joy can turn to shadows. Sadness can then overtake the soul.

This situation may often be the consequence of personal sins or a failure to correspond to grace: “Perhaps the dust we stir up”, says St. Josemaría, “as we walk—our miseries—forms an opaque cloud that cuts off the light from above” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 34).

Another explanation is that the Lord may permit the onset of a period of obscurity as a means of purifying the soul, of increasing our humility and trust in Him.

When we experience this kind of trial, everything demands more effort. That's only logical. There are times when the devil tries to plunge us more deeply into sadness and undermine our dedication.

No matter what its origin, what is a person to do in this quandary? The blind man of Jericho—"Bartimaeus, the ‘son of Timaeus’” (Mark 10:46-52)—gives us a wonderful lesson: we should go to the Lord all the more earnestly.

He's always near. He hears our prayer. He will respond in His infinite mercy. Even though it may seem as if He would pass us by, He is wholly conscious of our situation.

Our prayers may be impeded by all kinds of difficulties. That's what happened to Bartimaeus: “Those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent.” The blind man found his path to Jesus strewn with obstacles.

We may experience the same phenomenon “when we want to return to God. Our past faults and failures seem to besiege our heart and becloud our understanding. Our spirits are thrown into confusion. It is as if our past sins wanted to silence our prayers” (Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels). We feel the weight of our weakness and sins.

We can take a lesson from the blind beggar: “But he cried out all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ The man whom the crowd wanted to silence,” says [St. Gregory the Great], “raises his voice more and more. This is a model for us...the greater our interior confusion, the more our difficulties on the way, so much stronger should our prayers become” (ibid).

It appeared as if Jesus would continue on His way to Jerusalem without halting. When He called the blind man to Himself, Bartimaeus drew near and Jesus asked him, “‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me recover my sight.’

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God.”

At times it's very hard to figure out the causes of for such trials. We may not know the reason, but we can be sure of the remedy. It is persevering prayer.

“When darkness surrounds us,” said St. Josemaría in the Furrow, Point 862, “and our soul is blind and restless, we have to go to the Light, like Bartimaeus. Repeat, shout, cry out ever more strongly, ‘Lord, that I may see!’ And daylight will dawn upon you, and you will be able to enjoy the brightness he grants you.”

Our Lord is able to cure any malady He wants. He worked out miracles with a word, a gesture, sometimes from a distance. He also cured people in stages, as He did with the blind man (cf. John 9:1-41).

In our day, Our Lord often gives light to souls by means of His Church.

When the Magi lost track of their star, they acted with common sense and asked the inhabitants of Jerusalem for help, eventually working their way up to Herod.

“But we Christians,” we're told by St. Josemaría in Christ Is Passing By (Point 34), “have no need to go to Herod nor to the wise men of this world. Christ has given his Church sureness in doctrine and a flow of grace in the sacraments. He has arranged things so that there will always be people to guide and lead us, to remind us constantly of our way. …

“That is why, if the Lord allows us to be left in the dark even in little things, if we feel that our path is not firm, we should go to the good shepherd. … He gives His life for others and wants to be in word and behavior a soul in love. He may be a sinner too, but he trusts always in Christ's forgiveness and mercy.”

No one can be their own spiritual director without an extraordinary grace from God. We know how little objectivity we may have in looking at ourselves. The passions make it difficult, even impossible, for us to discern the right path we should be on.

That's why Our Holy Mother the Church always recommended that her children receive personal spiritual direction. If we don't take advantage of the means for guidance that the Lord puts within our reach, how can we be so bold as to expect other extraordinary personal illuminations from heaven?

Jesus is ready to work miracles for souls, but He first wants to see sincerity and docility. He will always give us His grace if we ask for it in humble petition.

St. Teresa of Ávila has said, “Our prayer must therefore be very earnest for those who give us light. What should we be without them in the midst of these violent storms which now disturb the Church?” (St. Teresa, Life).

St. John of the Cross said something similar, “He that desires to be alone, without the support of a master and guide, will be like the tree that is alone in the field and has no owner. However much fruit it bears, passers-by will pluck it all, and it will not mature.

“The tree that is cultivated and kept with the favor of its owner gives in due season the fruit that is expected of it. The soul that is alone and without a master, and has virtue, is like the burning coal that is alone. It will grow colder rather than hotter” (John of the Cross, Complete Works).

We can always have recourse to Our Lady, especially when the going gets rough, learning from Our Lord how to be a friend of sinners, how to apply in our own personal spiritual life all the things that Our Lord has taught us. And in that way, her Son will be able to work miracles in us and through us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MML