Message from Bulletin:

Growing up in an area where houses are open and narrow houses because they have no air conditioning or heat system since it’s a tropical climate, or rather, it’s a poor country and does not have enough land, I have learned a lot. One thing, as a child, I have learned is that whenever a family in my neighborhood verbally fighting or even physically fighting, everyone in that neighborhood knows and comes over to check it out. Sadly, people in the neighborhood often come to see what’s going on and criticize or publicize the matter instead of coming to help.

In today’s Gospel, Saint John beautifully retold a story of a woman caught in adultery. Scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus to test him so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Other people just came along to check it out, or perhaps, to come to criticize or publicize the matter. They all had on their hands a stone ready to throw at the woman to death because of the law when she was caught in adultery. Perhaps, not all cultures that exist on this planet tend to criticize one another rather than help one another. Is it in Asian cultures that we tend to criticize rather than help, or is it that the existence of the devil created doubt in us that we tend to criticize rather than help one another?

What is it about criticizing and judging one another? Listen to what Jesus said to those who brought a woman caught in adultery, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” They went away one by one, beginning with the elders, and left her alone before Jesus. It seemed that she was not the only one who sinned. How come she didn’t run away when everybody left her alone with Jesus? Unlike others who left because they recognized their sins and didn’t bother to reconcile with the Lord in his presence, this woman recognized her sin and waited for the Lord to forgive her. Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin anymore.”

Have you and I ever sinned against the Lord and one another? Have we recognized our sins? Have we had enough courage and strength to pick up our feet to come to the Lord to ask for forgiveness through the hands of a priest in the sacrament of reconciliation? Have we tried to sin no more than the sins that we committed and asked for forgiveness? Lent is time to help us to practice this. The decision is always yours.