Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)

June 12, 2016 9:00 am · Father Dan Vanyo

So which comes first, the love or the forgiveness? Because it can get a little confusing. Now the interior life, there's a lot a movement, so it can get complicated and confusing and not be clear, but we'll just focus on was it the love that came first or the forgiveness. Love is an effect of the forgiveness, it's not the cause of the forgiveness. Let me just read a little bit from the Catechism 2712. Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more.

The love comes from God, that's very important to really be clear on. So, we don't initiate the love. Any love that comes from us back to God or to our neighbor, originally it comes from Him. We don't make that, we don't generate that, but we have to be able to receive it. The Holy Spirit inspires you, anyone who has made a confession knows, that guilt works. Right? The Holy Spirit inspires you to repent, and when you hear the words, "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit", and you hear that God just forgave you, and you are really aware of it. We're supposed to return that love he is always trying to send our way, to realize it and to send it back. In other words we love Him with His love. But we have to receive it to return it.