22/01/2024 | Reflection 2012 | Fr Joy Mathew OP | on Mark

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Dear Friends,
In today's Gospel Jesus says: the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven. Now this is a frightening thought. Is it true that God will not forgive certain sins? Normally when speaking of sin, we quickly focus on God's mercy and His abundant desire to forgive. But in this passage, we have something that could, at first, appear quite contrary to the mercy of God.
We can ask, Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable?
Saint Thomas Aquinas replies that it is a question of a sin that is 'unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the essentials through which the forgiveness of sin takes place. According to him, 'blasphemy' does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the deliberate refusal to accept the salvation that God offers to man through the Holy Spirit.
Similarly, St John Paul II says, If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven it is because this 'non-forgiveness' is linked to the radical refusal to repent. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by a person who claims to have a 'right' to persist in evil. It is the situation where someone sins gravely and then either fails to have any sorrow for that sin or simply presumes God’s mercy without repenting. Either way, this lack of sorrow is what closes the door to God’s mercy and a personal experience of his forgiveness.
Certainly, it must also be said that God would never turn away from someone who humbly returns to Him with a contrite heart. What is expected of us to be docile and open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us for repentance and personal conversion, which will work as channels through which the mercy of the Lord flows into us, and ultimately we can experience his unconditional love.
May god bless you all.

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