In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Friday 15 January 2021

First Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today
The Gospel of Mark 2:1-12

The aim

You are forgiven. The original Greek text does not use the verb "to forgive" but "to remit." The Greek verb afìemi is translated in this passage as to remit a debt, to reset to zero, to cancel. It is the same word used in The Our Father. God’s forgiveness is not just an act of compassion, it is an act that restores a person's spirit, mind, and body. God's forgiveness is an act of reinstatement;  it is being taken back to the Source.
The sins. The word amartìa found in the Greek text does not mean "sin" but "mistake," more precisely "an aiming error.”  Amartìa means “aiming error” but not in the sense of missing the center of the target; rather it refers to the fundamental error of choosing the wrong target.  For Jesus, sin is a mistake,  a deep spiritual error in choosing a target towards which one aims one's attention, choosing the wrong target is an intellectual and emotional deviation. A sinner is someone who makes a mistake in choosing the target.
God’s forgiveness can dissolve and cancel any personal or collective debt of love, beauty, grace and harmony, accumulated by actions whose target is  wrong, deadly, erroneous and disharmonic.