The Courage to Confess and the Grace to Listen

Bar 1:15-22, Psalm: 78, Lk 10:13-16

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

The Word of God today presents us with two profound postures of the human soul before its Creator: one of humble, collective confession, and the other of tragic, stubborn refusal. Through the prayer of the exiles in Baruch and the stern warning of Christ, the Holy Spirit calls us to a deep examination of conscience and offers us the path to true freedom and peace.

The book of Baruch places on our lips a powerful prayer of national repentance. The people in exile acknowledge a difficult truth: their plight is not an arbitrary punishment from a vengeful God, but the direct consequence of their collective infidelity. “We have sinned in the Lord’s sight,” they confess, “and disobeyed him.” They do not make excuses. They do not blame others. They take full responsibility, recognizing that their sin has created a chasm between them and God, resulting in the disaster that has befallen them. This is not a prayer of despair, but one of incredible hope. It is the first, essential step toward healing and restoration. By naming their sin, they open the door to God’s mercy. As St. John Paul II often taught, “The confession of sins is the first step in returning to God.”

This heartfelt confession stands in stark contrast to the scene in the Gospel. Jesus pronounces a “woe” upon the flourishing cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum—cities that had been privileged to witness His mighty deeds and hear His words firsthand. Their sin is not one of violent rebellion, but of something more insidious: spiritual indifference. They saw, they heard, but they did not convert. They remained unmoved. Jesus declares that even Tyre and Sidon, pagan cities known for their wickedness, would have repented if they had seen such miracles. The gravity of the sin, then, is proportional to the grace received. To be given the gift of God’s presence in the person of Jesus and to reject it through apathy is a sin of immense proportions. “Whoever rejects me,” Jesus says, “rejects the one who sent me.”

So, what is the message for us today? We are the new Israel, the people who have received an even greater grace than the inhabitants of Capernaum. We have not only the words of Jesus but His very Real Presence in the Eucharist. We have the fullness of truth in the Church. The call to repentance is thus even more urgent.

First, we are invited to pray with the words of Baruch. We are called to a holy honesty, to examine our lives—both personally and collectively—and acknowledge where we have disobeyed the Lord. This is not meant to lead us to shame, but to liberation. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is God’s gift where we can speak this truth and hear the words of absolution that heal our souls.

Second, we must guard against the subtle sin of Chorazin: spiritual complacency. It is the temptation to take our faith for granted, to attend Mass out of habit without allowing the Word and the Eucharist to truly convert our hearts. It is the danger of hearing the Gospel so often that we become numb to its radical demands for love, forgiveness, and justice. Mother Teresa famously warned, “The greatest danger in the modern world is not the rejection of God, but the acceptance of God without His demands.”

The comfort in this challenging world is that God would not call us to repentance if He did not ardently desire to forgive us. His warnings are a sign of His love, a desperate attempt to shake us from our slumber before it is too late. He does not want a single one of us to be lost.

Let us ask for the grace today to have the courage of the exiles in Baruch—to honestly confess our sins. And let us beg for the alertness of heart to heed the voice of Christ speaking to us in the Scriptures, in the Church, and in the depths of our conscience, so that we may never be counted among those who saw the works of God but refused to change their hearts.

Amen.