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21 Mar 2010 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

I remember in the eighth grade, Sister William sharing with the class the story of the woman caught in adultery. Sister explained that what John the Evangelist excluded when he gave us this gospel was the listing of sins that those who wanted to stone the woman committed. That was what Jesus wrote on the ground. Sister told us that God also knew all of our sins and that, if we were not careful we could lose all the blessings given to us. So we should not be passing judgment on anybody else. But that slipped right past me. It was the fact that Jesus knew everything I had done and he might somehow let my “sinful cats out of the bag” for all to see that frightened me. We obviously do not know what Jesus wrote. But the reality is that each one of us is a sinner. Saint Paul admits in the second reading—and we, too, need to admit—that we have not attained perfect moral maturity. This is why Lent is so important. Freeing ourselves from our sinfulness takes all the energy and strength we have, and more. We cannot dissipate it by being judgmental about anyone else. It’s precisely that self-righteousness that has given religion a bad name. Instead, by admitting our sinfulness, we can experience that absolute forgiveness that Jesus’ dying and rising from the dead bring, and then we must go and sin no more.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

adultery judgment Forgiveness self-righteousness

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Exploring the word

29 Nov 2020 - First Sunday of Advent, Cycle B

Recently I heard a preacher say, “Every gospel story comes down to the same message: We have to change.” I was struck with how truthful a statement this is. One might throw away all homily services, proclaim this one message every Sunday, and be telling it like it is. Of course, there is no guarantee that the assembly will embrace this proclamation. No one likes to change, and no one likes to think he or she is in a position that requires a shift in perspective, attitude, or behavior. Yet here it is and here we are, standing on the brink of a new church year and contemplating change one more time. It doesn’t matter if we sit in the Chair of Peter or in detention at the local jail or anywhere in between. None of us is who we ought to be. Our heads, hearts, and actions need to be brought into closer union with the God who made us from love and for love alone. It takes a lifetime to do this; which means, spiritually speaking, we are all works in progress. This is why the most dangerous error we can make is self-righteousness, the belief that we’ve already arrived at the place of moral well-being and can rest on our laurels. The wisdom of the church has offered us two seasons of the year to combat spiritual complacency: Advent and Lent. We tend to distinguish between the two, marking one with a joyful air and the other with a mournful attitude. But the early centuries of the church observed them with a similar number of days and fasts and spiritual practices. We’ve retained basically the same liturgical color for both in recognition of this seasonal solidarity. Advent and Lent are both invitations to start fresh and make amends. Change is never the same It may be hard to reconcile that Advent and Lent are sister seasons. Advent is so fast, busy, and buoyant, full of people and prone to parties. Lent feels more solemn, advancing with a solitary and contemplative pace, leading us within instead of drawing us outward. Advent ends with the birth of a child, whereas Lent closes on the passion of a man. It takes a moment to recall that our celebration of Advent anticipates death, too, only it’s the dissolution of the world as we know it. And Lent moves relentlessly toward new life, too, in the dawn of Easter morning. In a spiritual sense, Advent is just the inside-out of Lent. Though we may use different imagery—cleaning out our stables for the Christ child rather than repenting in preparation for the coming Kingdom—we are waiting on one and the same hope. Incarnation and Resurrection are two facets of the same mystery: how God can share in our mortal life and how we might share in God’s eternal life. Both of these events in salvation history open doors that have never been opened before and allow passage into realms never before dreamed of. Both of these moments in time burst the limits of what human beings thought possible. Incarnation and Resurrection change what we thought was true of God and what could be true for ourselves. Though we, locked in linear time as we are, experience these events as distinct, they are inseparable and part of a whole truth about our relationship with God and God’s with us. Advent is therefore not simply the extended feast of Christmas, or worse, the shopping season in anticipation of Christmas. Advent serves, as Lent does, as a period of preparation for wonder. We take time to quiet ourselves, to step aside, to purify, to contemplate, and to allow ourselves to be transformed by what we see. The potter and the clay Isaiah offers us a helpful image to advance the mood of this season in the potter and the clay. The metaphor was already in motion in the biblical world at the time of the prophecy. The writer of Genesis employed it in the second story of Creation, as God molds the first person from the dust of the earth. Jeremiah uses the image effectively many times, presenting vessels in the making and sometimes in the smashing. The Lord giveth and taketh away, as Job might say. But the most prominent use of this biblical metaphor is of the pot in process, being spun and smoothed and shaped according to the design of the potter. When a pot goes bad on a particular spin, assuming an undesirable or un-useful shape, it is the prerogative of the potter to remove the clay from play, mash it down, and begin again to achieve the end for which the vessel is intended. It would be inefficient to discard the malformed clay and even more impractical to see it through to completion after a gruesome defect has crept in. The mashing-down process might feel like destruction to the clay, but it is “being cruel to be kind”; or, like those road signs that say, “Temporary inconvenience/Permanent improvement.” The process of repentance may have the same effect on us. Changing our minds, our hearts, our lives is hard work and can feel like a death. It is a form of dying to lay down the old self, and we may well sympathize with our friend Lazarus as we stumble out at the call of the Lord from yesterday’s tomb, still wrapped in the binding shroud of the past. Change is not always elegant, or particularly dignified. We may always bear the scars to remind us of who we once were. Even Jesus came out of his tomb with five visible wounds. Yet the glory to come is so much greater than the death that precedes it. Applying the word A time of wakefulness Advent this year is one more opportunity to put ourselves confidently in the hands of the potter and allow the refashioning to begin. As the gospel reminds us, we do not know the precise hour when the wheel stops spinning and the potter’s work is done. But our ignorance of the hour doesn’t mean we are unaware that the clock is ticking. We know there are almost four weeks until Christmas, and almost five until the end of the secular year—but we do not know how long the world will last, nor how many days or hours are left to each of us. Why not use this season as a grateful chance to start again, while we wait in joyful hope for the world worth waiting for? Related scripture links What are we waiting for: Isa. 65:17, 66:22; Rom. 8:18-25; 2 Pet. 3:8-14; Rev. 21:1-5 The potter of Genesis: Gen. 2:4-7 The potter and the vessel: Jer. 18:1-12, 19:1-15; Isa. 45:9; Job 10:8-12; Wis. 15:7-17; Rom. 9:20; 2 Cor. 4:7 The Lord giveth and taketh: Job 1:21

Authors Alice Camille

Change self-righteousness the potter and the clay

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Homily stories

06 Apr 2025 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

I remember in the eighth grade Sister William sharing with the class the story of the woman caught in adultery. Sister explained that what John the Evangelist excluded when he gave us this gospel was the listing of sins that those who wanted to stone the woman committed. That was what Jesus wrote on the ground. Sister told us that God also knew all of our sins and that, if we were not careful we could lose all the blessings given to us. So we should not be passing judgment on anybody else. But that slipped right past me. It was the fact that Jesus knew everything I had done and he might somehow let my “sinful cats out of the bag” for all to see that frightened me. We obviously do not know what Jesus wrote. But the reality is that each one of us is a sinner. Saint Paul admits in the second reading—and we, too, need to admit—that we have not attained perfect moral maturity. This is why Lent is so important. Freeing ourselves from our sinfulness takes all the energy and strength we have, and more. We cannot dissipate it by being judgmental about anyone else. It’s precisely that self-righteousness that has given religion a bad name. Instead, by admitting our sinfulness, we can experience that absolute forgiveness that Jesus’ dying and rising from the dead bring, and then we must go and sin no more.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

judgment self-righteousness Forgiveness

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Featured Exploring the Word

31 Aug 2025 - Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

"Unless you begin at the rock-solid, painful truth," spiritual writer William O'Malley maintains in his gloriously simple book Holiness, "you're pumping your legs like Elmer Fudd long beyond the cliff's edge." Getting familiar with and embracing the rock-solid truth about ourselves is what humility is all about. It's the essential virtue, the one without which all the others just can't attach to us. Humility allows us to self-empty and make room for theological virtues like faith, hope, and love as well as spiritual fruits like peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, and the rest. If you want "in" on the ground floor of the spiritual life, you can't bypass the prerequisite of humility. The greater you are, the more humility you need, says Ben Sira, an esteemed wise man doubtless acquainted with the need for a daily slice of humble pie. Jesus reminds us that exaltation is quickly followed by humiliation—so it’s best to humble ourselves before others get a crack at us. In the pursuit of holiness, the more successful we seem to be the more we need to keep in mind O'Malley's assertion that "every rock, rutabaga, and rabbit fulfills God's intentions" quite perfectly, too. It's no great shakes to do what's right. Jesus confirms that in another parable when describing dutiful servants as those who complete their tasks only to claim: "We have done what we were obliged to do" (Luke 17:10). The poet James Russell Lowell pinpoints the attitude of humility when he speaks of an encounter with the Sacred Presence he once had. "I could not any more have doubted that He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two." Maybe that is what Saint Paul was driving at when he said, "It is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me." Might you and I ever be less central to our own identity than God-in-us? If we will not be emptied of ourselves, we can't become full of grace. If we insist on our preeminence, our own righteousness, well, there's a word for that: self-righteous. In Holiness O'Malley notes that self-righteousness leads to arrogance, the sort of arrogance that allowed Pontius Pilate to coolly ask, "What is truth?"—and then promptly send Truth out to be executed. O'Malley has formulated a law to cover such occasions: "The Less You Know, the More Certain You Can Be." How can we know more? We must "be" less. Wisdom comes to the humble, the same way it came to Ben Sira and to our meek Lord, the Lamb of God, who because he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped would one day be the name above every other name. Aim high? Start low. Related scripture links Jesus’ example of humility: Matt. 11:29, 12:15-21; Luke 2:7, 22:42 Teachings on humility: Matt. 5:3-1, 18:1-5, 21:20-28; Luke 6:20-26, 9:46-48, 17:7-10, 18:9-17 Bring no agenda before Jesus: Matt. 8:18-22; Luke 9:57-62 Catechism links Humility: CCC 525-526; 559; 724; 2540; 2559; 2628; 2631; 2706; 2713 Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

self truth Humility self-righteousness arrogance being humble

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The inner word

21 Dec 2025 - Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A

Righteousness or self-righteousness? That is the question! Lots of us are tempted to believe in our own moral goodness more than the promises of God. Do you think of yourself as living a virtuous life? Do others perceive you as righteous? What makes the difference between the righteous and self-righteous person? Like Ahaz, do you ever hide behind religious motivations in order to escape morally challenging situations? Paul of Tarsus was called and sent to announce the gospel. So are you. Compare your "apostleship" to his and note similarities and differences. Joseph is a man who pays attention to his dreams. Do you listen to your dreams, by day or by night, or do you ignore what does not seem "real" or "practical"?

righteousness self-righteousness

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