Daily Gospel Reflection for March 22, 2021

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Today's Gospel: John 8:1-11

Today they bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. The law of that time said that she should be stoned to death for this sin. The Pharisees wanted to know what Jesus' attitude would be to see if they could accuse him of breaking the law. Jesus then tells them: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then, the people who were anxious to kill that sinner, now accused by their conscience, one by one, left the place.

These words of Jesus must also touch our hearts. We need to avoid any kind of judgment for people. Faced with a situation of error or sin, we must always try to forgive. We don't know if we had had the same education, suffered the same traumas, had the same life story, if we couldn't have done much worse.

Sin leads to the death of the soul. So, out of charity, we need to try to show the error to the other, but always with great patience and love, because Jesus also said to the sinner: “Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.”

In this way, separating sin from the sinner, showing the error, but without judging who made the mistake, forgiving if necessary, we fulfill the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Another teaching that we learn from this passage is the need to form our conscience, that voice that God placed in our souls to show us what is right and what is wrong. If we do not seek to know the truth, the teachings of the Catholic Church, our conscience can become numb and not alert us to the practice of evil. Thus, it is our duty to study the doctrine and ask, in prayer, that we always have an alert conscience.

Ponder:

Do I try not to judge when I see somebody committing a sin?

Pray:

Dear Lord, help me always look at the other with merciful eyes, forgiving with all my heart any fault committed against me. Send me your Holy Spirit so I can help my brothers and sisters to see their errors and purify my own conscience so I can admit and ask forgiveness for my own faults and sins.

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In this way - separating sin from the sinner, showing the error, but without judging who made the mistake, forgiving if necessary - we fulfill the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. #dailygospel

Copyright 2021 Flávia Ghelardi