Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.

So today’s Gospel comes in the same chapter after Jesus was casting an evil spirit out of someone and the man was healed physically, but some of the people who saw it were saying that Jesus was doing these healings by the power of the devil.

For these people that thought this, no sign would have been good enough for them, Jesus had been doing all sorts of amazing signs, but they refused to believe that He was God, they refused to follow Him.

For these people, Jesus called them evil because they refused to believe when the evidence was right in front of them, they wanted to go on living like they had been, living lives of sin, or finding loopholes in the Law, they didn’t want to repent and really turn their heart to God like Jesus was asking them to do.  

For some people, it is too difficult to ask for forgiveness, or to receive forgiveness.  For example, a couple of weeks ago we had a healing mission at my parish.  I saw many people healed physically with my own eyes:

• A man with a herniated disc in his back and lots of pain was healed and now he can sleep through the night
• A man with bad knees was healed and now he can run up stairs where he used to barely be able to go up stairs
• A lady who was in a car accident three years ago and her shoulder was dislocated no longer has any pain in the shoulder, despite many surgeries she was healed by the power of God

Then a man told me that he was completely healed of his back pain, and someone close to him was healed as well. And this man told me, “you know, I bring my kids to church thinking that it is my responsibility to help get them to Heaven, but I thought for me, I was too far gone, that there was no hope for me.  But now after being healed, i realize God still loves me, and I need to change my ways.”

This was heartbreaking to hear, that this man thought he was too far gone, who thought he had committed too much sin to be forgiven and go to Heaven himself.

But it is simply not true, God loves all of us, Jesus suffered and died and rose from the dead for the forgiveness of all of our sins, not just a chosen few.

In fact, that was part of the problem with the people who were doubting Jesus and His message of repentance in today’s Gospel, see the Jewish people thought that they were God’s only chosen people, that they were the only ones going to heaven.

But Jesus came to earth in part to break that myth and let everyone know that God loves them.  See, when Jonah went to Nineveh, Nineveh was in Syria, it wasn’t a Jewish town, not Jewish people, but God still loved them and sent a Jewish prophet to preach repentance.  Jesus also mentioned the Queen of the South seeking wisdom from Solomon, she wasn’t Jewish either, God still loved her.

God loves all of us, unconditionally, and we are never too far gone.  Jesus can forgive us of any sin, if we repent, if we turn back to Him, He never forces us to love Him.

In Lent we focus on repentance, on turning away from our sins and following God with our whole hearts, but we don’t do it out of a place of fear.  Yes, there is a heaven, and there is a hell, and that is why Jesus talked about Jonah and the Queen of the South condemning that evil generation, but we shouldn’t repent just because we are afraid of hell.

We should repent because we love God.  We should turn our hearts to Him more fully because He loves us, unconditionally, and is always waiting and ready to forgive us when we ask for it.