Day 28: Be Joyful, Be Free

Speaker 1 Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and this is the Rosary in the Year podcast or through prayer and meditation.

Speaker 1 The Rosary brings us deeper into a relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in the Year is brought to you by Ascension.
This is day 28.

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Speaker 1 The forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body,

Speaker 1 and the life everlasting. Amen.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be a little creative

Speaker 1 in choosing our scripture passage by which we will approach these articles of the Creed. This comes from James chapter 2, verses 18 and some of the following.

Speaker 1 But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I, by my works, will show you my faith.

Speaker 1 And then going down.

Speaker 1 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart

Speaker 1 works is dead. Sometimes I want to look in the mirror and ask myself this question.

Speaker 1 Oh, hey, Father Mark Mary.

Speaker 1 Can I ask you a question? Sure, go for it.

Speaker 1 Do you believe in everything the Catholic Church teaches? Heck yeah, I do. So, you believe everything that's in the Apostles' Creed, for example? Like, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 So, you believe in the forgiveness of sins

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 Then I want to say, Why don't you tell your face? You know, because here's my proposal:

Speaker 1 one, if we say we have faith, we believe in the forgiveness of sins, one of the works proper to our faith is to smile.

Speaker 1 To smile, my brothers and sisters, an authentic sign of our faith, an authentic work of our faith. And the forgiveness of sins is to smile, is to stand upright,

Speaker 1 to be joyful, and to be free.

Speaker 1 And because what we're talking about here is like, so when we have received the forgiveness of sins, I'm talking about sins that have been, where we've been washed clean, either through baptism or through sacramental confession.

Speaker 1 Like, it's no longer about the sin, like, we no longer have to be bent over and sad and beating ourselves up. Like,

Speaker 1 it becomes about God's mercy.

Speaker 1 And the focus is on his mercy. I have been forgiven.
I believe in the forgiveness of sins. And I believe in it so deeply.
I experience it so deeply.

Speaker 1 I can't help but smile.

Speaker 1 I can't help but be joyful.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. There's other works appropriate to our faith and the forgiveness of sins, but this is the one I want to focus on today.

Speaker 1 And to help paint another picture, let's take a look at the parable of the prodigal son.

Speaker 1 So this is Luke chapter 15, right? And so, you know, we all know the youngest son, he asks for his inheritance, he goes and squanders it and lose living. And

Speaker 1 he's reminded, like, I have a father, I have a father back home. And so he's going to go to his father.
I'm going to go back to him. I'm going to say, I no longer

Speaker 1 deserve to be called your son. I'll be your servant.
And the father sees him at a distance and is moved and runs and embraces him, kisses him.

Speaker 1 and has the fatty cast slaughtered. And then it says, and they begin to make merry.
And I kind of have this image of pretend like there's the prodigal son, and he's on his journey back to his father.

Speaker 1 And I'm thinking of like sort of like a picture, maybe you've seen of like a 16th-century Franciscan monk who's like got the old burlap sack and he's going through town, maybe begging bread.

Speaker 1 And so it's like this big bag that he's he's got two hands on it, just kind of over his shoulder next to his ear, and it's this big, heavy bag, and he's bent over.

Speaker 1 And I kind of have the image of the prodigal son being like that. And in the bag are all of his sins.
And so he's coming back to the father.

Speaker 1 And when the father comes and embraces him, and what does the father do?

Speaker 1 He just, he takes it, he takes all the weight, he destroys all of the stones, he forgives all the sin, all of the debt is forgiven. You don't have to carry it anymore.
It's gone.

Speaker 1 And so imagine like the son believing in forgiveness of sins enough, believing in his father's mercy enough.

Speaker 1 Like he comes to the party and he's there and he's in it and they're singing and dancing all around.

Speaker 1 But now imagine I could, I just, I see

Speaker 1 like the son still bent over and still with both of his hands together, kind of over his shoulders,

Speaker 1 carrying this imaginary weight. Like he's just become so accustomed to it and he still sort of feels it in his interior heart.

Speaker 1 So he's just going around this party in his honor, celebrating that the son who was dead is alive, like just bent over. And like he's not, he's not joyful.
He's not taking it in.

Speaker 1 His hands are both carrying this empty weight that's gone, but he's still acting like he's carrying it.

Speaker 1 And the father coming to him, right, and gently lifting his eyes, taking both his hands and saying like, son,

Speaker 1 the burden is gone.

Speaker 1 The burden is gone. It is forgiven.

Speaker 1 Let it go.

Speaker 1 And the son can do this, right? The son can do this. And you and I can do this because

Speaker 1 it's forgiven. The father took care of it.
It's gone. I believe in the forgiveness of sins and part of the work is letting go of the burden.
And my brothers and sisters, I think so many of us,

Speaker 1 the sins are forgiven, but we remember them. We're still bent over, beat up, eyes to the ground, no smile,

Speaker 1 uncomfortable, our hands not free for rejoicing because they're carrying this fake burden.

Speaker 1 Let's let the father come to us again. Say, hey,

Speaker 1 the sins are gone. You are forgiven.

Speaker 1 Stand upright, my son. Stand tall, my daughter.

Speaker 1 Smile. Rejoice.
Be joyful. Be free.

Speaker 1 Eat, drink, and be merry.

Speaker 1 And celebrate with me that we are back together.

Speaker 1 As we pray, let us just be honest with ourselves.

Speaker 1 Firstly, do we have unrepentant sins? Do we have unconfessed sins?

Speaker 1 If we believe in the forgiveness of sins, let's take this to the sacrament. Let's take it and give it to Jesus.

Speaker 1 If we have confessed sins,

Speaker 1 let's let them go. Let it go.
It's gone. It's forgiven.
The burden you're carrying, it is not real.

Speaker 1 Father, come to us.

Speaker 1 Lift our eyes to yours, lift our heads, free our hands from the fake burden, the fake weights.

Speaker 1 Teach us to rejoice.

Speaker 1 Teach us to do the work of smiling

Speaker 1 as we celebrate and live in and swim in the waters of your mercy.

Speaker 1 Let us pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speaker 1 Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Speaker 1 Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Speaker 1 Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Speaker 1 Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Speaker 1 Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.

Speaker 1 Now and at the hour of our death, amen.

Speaker 1 Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Speaker 1 Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.

Speaker 1 Now and at the hour of our death, amen.

Speaker 1 Glory be to the Father and to the Son, to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now,

Speaker 1 and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

Speaker 1 and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
All right. Thanks, everybody.
I enjoyed that one. You believe in the forgiveness of sins? Tell your face.

Speaker 1 Oh, gosh, I got to put it in my mirror. All right.
Anyway, thanks for joining me. Thanks for praying with me today.
Thank you, Jesus, for your goodness and your mercy, Father.

Speaker 1 Look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow, Poco, Poco, friends. Bye now.