Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

     What did He write?  In today’s Gospel, we hear about the woman caught in a compromising situation.  Her destiny seems bleak and her life soon to be cut short by the self-righteous mob.  She becomes a pawn in order to trap the Son of God.  But the self-righteous  don’t know Who they are up against.  The plot does not go their way.  As they believe they are going to expose an adulterous woman  and a “charlatan preacher”  from Nazareth the tables are soon turned and it all starts with a few words in the dust.

     Frequently there are mysterious gaps in our Sacred Scripture accounts and these, I believe, are purposely done in order to engage our imagination.  Being human means we can employ our intellect, given by God, to supply our own filling-in as long as it is consistent with the Church’s magisterial teaching.  The “fathers of the Church”, i.e., St Augustine, St. Cyril and others did just that and we can ponder and proscribe meanings that enhance our meditations on the living Word of God.

   So what do you think our Lord wrote in the sand? The sins of the accusers?; the sins of the woman?; an exoneration?; our own?  Jesus, from the beginning of His public ministry,  preached repentance, conversion and reliance upon the mercy of God.  As we enter into these penultimate days of Lent let us avail ourselves of that mercy so readily available to us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  When we do the burden of shame, regret and loneliness will be lifted from us just as it was for the woman who received the pardon of our Lord.

With Blessings,

Father Langan