A Light for Those Who Attack the Church and Her sinners

TODAY’S GOSPEL REFLECTION for Wednesday the 3rd week of Advent

Genesis 49:2,8-10

Before opening your Bible to today’s Gospel, one truth must be faced.

Today’s Gospel includes all sins.
Not only the sins committed,
but the sins remembered, rehearsed, and held against others.

And one of the most destructive sins a soul can commit is this:

To hold another person’s past sins against them.

This is the sin of the Accuser.
This is the sin that refuses mercy.
This is the sin that reveals one does not yet know Jesus.

Because Christ does not deny sin.
He forgives it

The List God Refused to Edit

Matthew opens the New Testament with genealogy.

Not a sanitized one.
Not a heroic one.
A true one.

A list containing:

Adulterers

Murderers

Foreigners

Prostitutes

Failed kings

Broken families

Generations marked by exile and humiliation

And God leaves every name in.

No revisions.
No moral posturing.
No pretending.

This is not a Church hiding sin.

This is a God exposing the lie that sin has the final word.

The Unedited List

An elderly man once kept a family record — names, dates, places, failures.
Nothing crossed out.

When asked why he didn’t remove the shameful parts, he answered quietly:

“If I clean it up, it won’t be true — to them or to myself.
And if it isn’t true, it won’t explain how we survived.”

That is today’s Gospel.

Not a celebration of sin,
but a proclamation that grace is greater than memory, shame, and accusation.

Now the Table Turns

Those who attack the Catholic Church often say:

“Look at your sinners.”
“Look at your scandals.”
“Look at your history.”

And the Church does not argue.

She opens the Gospel and says:

Yes. Look.
Look carefully.
We have always looked.

Look at the Crucifix above our altars.
In our homes.
Around our necks.

We are Christians — sinful and loved.

The Church does not canonize sin.
She proclaims repentance.

She does not deny wounds.
She brings them to the Cross.

She does not cling to past sins,
because Christ does not.

Those who weaponize the past against the Church
are unknowingly committing the very sin today’s Gospel condemns:

Refusing to let mercy have the final word.

Face to Face with Christ

Every attack on the Church eventually becomes an attack on Christ Himself.

On His Mother.
On His sacrifice.
On His Saints.
On His Holy Mass.

And Christ does not defend Himself with arguments.

He stands there —
wounds still visible —
and asks only one question:

“Do you want truth,
or do you want to keep accusing?”

A Word for Them — and for us

This is not written from above.

I am on that list too.
So are you.

That is the point.

The Catholic faith is not the story of perfect people pretending to be holy.
It is the story of a holy God refusing to abandon sinners,
and refusing to let sinners define one another by the worst moment of their lives.

Christ did not come to preserve accusations.
He came to forgive sins.

And once you see that,
you cannot unsee it.