Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent ‘a’

Jn 8:31-42

“Jesus answered them, Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” Think about that. Nobody wants to be a slave; slavery has always been associated with something wrong, with abuse, with punishment, with loss of freedom. Freedom is one of the most important values in this world. However, Jesus tells us today that if we commit a sin, then we become a slave of that sin. Someone came to confession, and he said that he committed a terrible sin over 30 years ago and had no courage to come and confess that sin for all those years. So, he said to me exactly what Jesus said: Father, I felt like I was a slave of that sin. For 30 years it haunted me. But now I decided to ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness. I need to be freed from that sin, forgiven, and I need to be freed from my guilt, to be able to live freely again. We don’t think about that often, but that is what sin does to us, to you and me -- it makes us slaves of evil and the only way to be freed is to ask for God’s pardon and mercy.