Homily for 5 th Sunday of Lent, Year C (John 8:1-11) Louis de Wohl s classic novel, The Spear i, offers a faith filled but fictitious retelling of the events leading up to the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the main characters of this novel is a young Jewish woman named Naomi. Only 16 years of age, Naomi was married to an old man who was on death s doorstep. Innocent, naïve and looking for love, Naomi found herself alone in the presence of a young roman solider named Cassius after they had been forced to take refugee in the basement of Naomi s home during an uprising by religious zealots in Jerusalem. Arrogant, unbelieving and charming, Cassius realized that this occasion would allow him to seduce the unsuspecting Naomi and compel her to spent the night in his embrace. When morning arrived, Naomi was seen to be with Cassius by one of her husband s servants. He saw her adulterous actions to be
an opportunity to punish her infidelity and help the Pharisees challenge the teaching authority of a young rabbi from Nazareth who was creating a commotion on the Temple Mount. Thinking her fate was all but sealed as men gathered around her, with rocks in hand, to stone her to death, she began to hear the rocks fall beside her and all of her accusers walk away. No one remained but the young rabbi, who looked at her with love and uttered one sentence that would change her life forever I do not condemn you, now go, and do not sin again. With that he departed and Naomi sat alone outside the Temple, overwhelmed with having been shown such mercy in not being put to death for her sin and left wondering where her life would go from there. Her husband would not take her back and she was all alone in Jerusalem until she happened to find someone named Mary Magdalene, herself a woman with a sinful past who had been shown mercy by Jesus of Nazareth, and she offered to help Naomi put her life back together. Among the most difficult challenges she faced was
to inform Cassius that she had committed a grave sin of passion with him and that for as long as she was married to her husband, she could never be with him. Cassius dismissed her repentance as blind adherence to her superstitious religion and found himself consumed with rage over all the misfortunes he had faced since arriving in Palestine. It was with cruel satisfaction then that he volunteered to be part of the execution team that would crucify the troublesome rabbi from Nazareth, and where he would be the one to pierce the heart of the King of Jews who hung dead upon the cross While Naomi had welcomed God s forgiveness into her life and vowed to never fall into the sin that had nearly condemned her to death and perdition, Cassius refusal to seek mercy and repent of his sin drove him to a frenzied anger that he took out on this Jesus of Nazareth, who had called Naomi to leave him because the night they shared with each other was considered a sin by her ignorant, God fearing religion.
Naomi was a woman reborn, filled with confidence that Jesus loved her and would not condemn her for what she had done. Set free of her sin, she was even able to return to her husband at the moment of his death to care for him in his final hours and then began a new life accompanying the holy women who cared for Jesus and His Apostles. Naomi is an example of someone who realizes that because they have been shown great mercy and forgiveness, they must respond by seeking to turn away from the sins that lead them to fall from grace. Too often we have a tendency to omit the second part of Jesus command to the woman caught in adultery of go and do not sin again. Some even suggest that Jesus is so loving and forgiving that he will never condemn us and that he is ok with people continuing to live in sinful relationships and circumstances because it would be too difficult for them to stop doing so or that it would actually be lacking in mercy to compel them to stop living in sin.
However, Jesus would never act in this way as that would be the epitome of false mercy, to say you are forgiven but then to permit someone to continue to live in their sin and daily consume the poison that will bring eventual ruin to one s eternal salvation. And then we have Cassius, who refuses to accept forgiveness and begins to hate this Jesus who offered him mercy. The good news is that Our Lord was finally able to soften the heart of this bitter legionary after Cassius was privileged to witness The Resurrection. Cassius then encountered St Peter and the Apostles and through their teaching and guidance was finally able to accept forgiveness into his life. He even was able to meet Naomi once again, but as a man transformed by grace and now able to love Naomi with a chaste and virtuous love. Cassius is an example of how we should never seek to condemn someone when they struggle to heed the Lord s words of go and do not sin again. There is a tendency to want to give up on people who either refuse to accept God s forgiveness or continually
seek to be forgiven, but time and again fall back into their old sinful habits. We can become cold and impatient towards them, thinking they will never be able to let go of their sins. For those who struggle to accept God s mercy or desire it but continue to fall into sin, let us seek to be compassionate in saying we will not abandon anyone who struggles to let go of their sins and will encourage them to return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as many times as necessary, to help draw the poison of sin out of their lives and help them, like the embittered Cassius, to accept forgiveness and seek to sin no more. Though a work of fiction, the characters of Naomi and Cassius allow us to imagine how for one woman, the words I do not condemn you, now go and sin no more caused her to respond to God s mercy by turning away from sin and becoming a faithful companion of Jesus, while for one solider, these words initially caused him to hate Jesus for calling him to renounce his sin, but in time, lead him to love the One whose Sacred Heart he had pierced
i De Wohl, Louis. The Spear. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1955