Fr. John-Mary: Father, in the last conference, you were telling us that Jesus is the light of the world, that he gives us the truth on our own lives. But in this light, we see ourselves as very sinful, we see all our faults, all our miseries, all our poverties. What would your response be to this hindrance that we feel?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: There is a great difference between a psychoanalysis where we see all the weaknesses, the fragilities which exist in us - it is for that reason that it may be very dangerous - and the presence of Jesus, which is a presence of light, but of a light of love, the light of the beloved Son of the Father "born of the light", a light which is not blinding. We know the difference which exists between certain blinding lights - others can see, but we are completely blinded by the light -, and warm lights, lights which just come from the heat. The light of Christ is a light full of mercy. Jesus only enlightens us in our most intimate soul to the very extent that he envelops us with all his love and with his mercy. We must always understand these two aspects: light and love, light or truth, and mercy. Both are united in the mystery of the Cross which is the ultimate revelation for us, which is our wisdom. It is good to try to understand that if Jesus is the light of the world, according to the Gospel of St. John, this is revealed after this very extraordinary episode in chapter 8 where the Jews bring a woman caught in the act of adultery. We must recall the commentary of St. Augustine, which is so great, because this passage had touched the heart of St. Augustine in a very special way. Jesus, after having discussed near the Temple, pulled himself away to pray; during the night, some pharisees and scribes posted themselves in certain street corners of Jerusalem which were badly frequented. They had surprised this woman committing adultery, and they led her to Jesus the next morning. According to the Law, she ought to be stoned. At that time Jesus already had the reputation - and this is interesting to note - to go beyond the Law, to overcome the Law, to appear as the man of mercy. So these Jews wanted to wedge him in a corner; they arrange for witnesses, the pharisees and scribes, who are intelligent people, but are very different from the good people who only ask for one thing: that Jesus be merciful. So the Jews wanted to see what Jesus was going to do in front of this woman caught in adultery. If Jesus exercises his mercy, that is if Jesus keeps showing the attitude that he has had until now, then he ought to forgive her; but then he will go directly against the Law, and he is with the one that they will have to condemn: the stones that were to be used against this woman will be turned towards Jesus. If we look well at chapter 8 - in spite of the fact that some exegetes say that there are bits and pieces in this chapter 8 - the stones that were to be used against this woman are going to be sent towards Jesus. Jesus, in front of this dilemma, doesn't respond. This is very instructive: you don't always have to respond to dilemmas which are not aimed at the search for truth. These pharisees and these scribes do not try to know the truth, they try to put Jesus in opposition to himself, they try to condemn Jesus. That is not the search for truth. Jesus doesn't respond, he writes on the ground; this is the only time when we see Jesus writing; the Gospel does not say what Jesus wrote. We can suppose many things: I don't want to enter into this, because it is not immediately important. What is certain is that Jesus keeps silence and writes on the ground, perhaps the commandments of God, perhaps the sins of each one- this is very possible -; then he gets up and says: "may he who is without sin throw the first stone." It is for that reason that he was perhaps writing the sins of each one, but without giving names: each one knew very well what faults he had made. "May he who is without sin throw the first stone." There is a silence there and a very strange procession is going to start: the oldest ones, those who are most aware of being sinners, leave first. After some time, there are only this poor woman and Jesus left. Jesus rises up and calls her "woman". He doesn't say: "sinner, you who were caught in adultery, where are your accusers?," but "Woman, where are the ones who have accused you? No one accuses you any more?" "No one", she replies, and Jesus tells her: "Neither do I". It is extraordinary to see that forgiveness is something personal. Forgiving sins is the greatest mercy. Jesus couldn't forgive when facing these men who couldn't understand forgiveness. It is important to understand that: there is no collective absolution. Absolution is a personal gesture between Jesus and us, where Jesus asks us to recognize our sins. I believe that this woman had sufficiently admitted her sin, since the Jews had threatened her with being stoned. Deep in her heart, she had asked for forgiveness. St.Augustine, while commenting on this passage, says that it is one of the summits of the Gospel of St.John, because we are there in the presence of what is greatest in the Gospel: the misery of the heart of a woman caught in adultery, facing mercy. Everything else is rejected, is evacuated: only misery and mercy remain. It is very beautiful to see that mercy absorbs misery; it is the mystery of the Cross, the great misery of men condemned to death: we are all condemned to death, because we are all sinners. Men, in their wisdom, judge, make evaluations, but God's evaluation is completely different from ours. The most serious sin is pride, and a collective pride, because there, we rely on our neighbor and we do not want to recognize that we are proud. In order to receive mercy, there must be two people. That is what is marvelous: the mercy realized at the Cross, the one which is realized in front of this adulterous woman, the one which is realized throughout the whole Gospel. The whole Gospel is the book of mercy. Mercy can only be given when facing somebody who recognizes his misery, who recognizes that he or she is a sinner, who recognizes his mistake and asks for forgiveness. We cannot be merciful to someone who is proud, to someone who is a Pharisee, that is who believes that he has everything and is not among all sinners. We all know what Jesus says about the Pharisee's and the Publican's prayer: the Pharisee is happy with himself and if he is happy with himself, he has no need of Jesus; he doesn't ask for forgiveness. Jesus cannot forgive him, and this is one of the deepest sufferings of Jesus' heart: he cannot give his mercy as much as he would like. He died for all men, he carried the sin of all men, but he cannot give this mercy. We have to understand that the greatest mercy is forgiveness.
Fr. John-Mary: That would seem to tie in with what our Pope says: in today's world, we often no longer have the sense of sin. Is this something good or bad?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: I feel that it is due to a certain exaggeration of psychology. A book was published in France: "Moral without sin": an ethics without sin follows exactly a psychological point of view, a psychoanalytic point of view. We then say: you are excused, because you have weaknesses; you have a weakness, so you are not guilty. What is your guilt when you are taken by passion? It is due to your psychological weakness, your concupiscible passion. Someone who is an alcoholic cannot do anything against a bottle which is in front of him; in the same way, someone who is very "irascibly" developed cannot put up with anything. So, instead of seeing what sin is, we no longer see what psychological conditioning is, and we forget to see that there is always a moment, even if his will is very weak, when the sinner would have been able to call attention to the grace of God, so that this grace would have helped him. Just before doing evil there must have been a voluntary act, and sin is in this voluntary act. Jesus' mercy is given to save sinners. Jesus came for that, and when he is facing a world which saves itself, that is the most terrible thing. A proud man excuses himself, and while excusing himself, he wants to absolve himself and doesn't receive the forgiveness of God. The forgiveness of God is a forgiveness which comes from the heart of Jesus. It is very beautiful to see that the whole Gospel tells us about the mercy of Jesus' heart. One should look here at all the gestures of mercy which Christ shows. Let us look at the Gospel of St. John, because it is the one which I love most. First mercy: Cana, a temporal mercy; in a wedding meal, in a country of wine, there must be wine, joy, since wine pleases the heart of man. In an act of mercy, Jesus transforms the water into wine; he didn't transform the stones into bread, while he was in the desert, because it would have been for his own usage, while he does it there, for these young married people, for all who are invited, including himself. He transforms water into wine, and into a wine better than the first one. Then, a second gesture of mercy: Jesus chases away the temple money-changers; it is a fraternal correction of a religious disorder. Jesus does not like confusions made between what is profane and what is sacred; he does not want the profane - which deals with money - to get mixed up with the demands of adoration; it is for that reason that he becomes angry. This gesture of anger is a gesture of mercy, of fraternal charity. Afterwards there is the teaching to Nicodemus which is still a gesture of mercy. To teach one's brothers is a gesture of mercy. We see afterwards Jesus facing the Samaritan woman. He teaches her in a practical way the demand of adoration: this is one more gesture of mercy. With the little soldier of Capernaum who has just begged him to heal his son, Jesus gives life. Jesus heals the sick man of Bethesda, on the Sabbath day, to make it well understood that the mercy that he has just taught is a mercy which ought to envelop each man, up to his adoration. It is very curious to see this crescendo in the Gospel of St. John, with respect to all the gestures of mercy. One should study them and analyze them. We would then understand how much the heart of Jesus is where the mercy of the Father dwells. All his gestures are gestures of mercy, all his words are words of mercy. But the peak of all these gestures of mercy is forgiveness. Only Jesus, as beloved Son of the Father, can truly forgive, he uses the wound that he has received to love more; he is God, he is wounded by our sin, since sin is to forget that God is God; sin is to go directly against the sovereign majesty of God; sin is to go against the Law and against love, and it wounds God; Jesus alone can use the wound of his heart to give further his love. It is there where even for us mercy can reach its full dimension: we forgive the sinner his sin so that he becomes a son of God.

Fr. John-Mary: Do you mean that God can even use sins?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: He uses the consequences of sin, since, for somebody to be forgiven it is necessary that he recognize his mistake. At the very moment when we betray, when we sin, we do not want to recognize it. So, in the strict sense, Jesus doesn't use sin. Otherwise we would say: "Let's sin a lot so that we will be forgiven a lot!" No, God does not use sin, but the consequences of sin. And the consequence of sin is to recognize our weakness, is to recognize that we were fragile, that we were stupid. Every sin is foolish, if we understand it well: only love is great. Sin is pride; pride is a fault of intelligence, but an intelligence which cannot in fact go to the very end of the demands of the intelligence. So, there is always a certain foolishness in sin. God uses the consequences of sin, to go further in love. I believe that it is necessary, in today's world which cares very much for psychology, to make a clear distinction between forgiveness and forgetfulness. I believe that this is essential. Forgetfulness is a psychological attitude: there were myths of forgetfulness, in antiquity, because we would always like to forget all the foolishness that we have done in our life. The more advanced we are in age, the more we would like to forget all the foolishness that we have been able to do in our lives, the foolishness of our youth - we didn't know - this foolishness of someone who wants to show that he is an adult, that he has some autonomy, this foolishness of someone who is powerful and wants to show his power, this vain foolishness of the little cock. Forgetfulness is at the psychological level, but forgiveness is divine. Jesus doesn't forget anything, but he forgives everything, and that is marvelous. Let us take examples in our life: there are a number of things that we forget, when we find someone whom we do not like very much and who, in fact does not get along with us, or even steps on our feet, psychologically speaking; but a friend who does not respond to our offers of friendship, a friend who wounds us because, facing others, he wants to show that he has something else to do rather than to think of us, then we do not forget the wound made by this friend. It is the most difficult thing to forget. That is why betrayal exists - a friend who is a traitor and who communicates the secrets that we have communicated to him, who communicates them to the enemy -, that is never forgotten. We cannot forget, forget the betrayal of a friend who turns his back on us and who has communicated to the enemy all that we have communicated to him. Forgiveness is of a divine order; forgiveness comes from an overabundance of love, it is mercy at its peak; I was going to say: "its most divine level." We are capable of opening our arms to forgive the one who has wounded us, who was our friend, who betrayed us. It is very difficult because we have not forgotten his betrayal, and it makes us understand the word of Jesus who says that forgiveness does not mean forgetting. It is for that reason that one must forgive indefinitely, because, when we have been very wounded, as soon as we find ourselves in similar circumstances, there is instinctively a movement of our irascible passion: eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We are all a little like that, and we would like to show the friend who has wounded us that he has indeed deeply wounded us, and to treat him then with force so that he understands that the wound is still existing in us. We would like to give him this lesson, and each time that we find ourselves in similar circumstances, immediately our wounded heart psychologically reacts with violence. At that time we must receive a divine grace so that we go beyond that reaction and forgive. We then understand that we must forgive really more than seven times, that one must forgive 70 times seven times, that one must forgive indefinitely, and that the forgiveness of Christ is infinite; if we are truly his children, his forgiveness goes to the very end. I am keeping for the end this passage that we all have in mind when we think of forgiveness, when we want to understand the forgiveness of the Father: this marvelous passage of the prodigal son, in St. Luke, in chapter 16, when the eldest son does not understand, while only the father understands him. We see there how forgiveness is a personal link between the father and the prodigal son; we are all prodigal sons, we are all sheep led astray and Jesus, for us, has the gesture of the Father, at the Cross. It is for that reason that he has his feet and his hands wounded, it is for that reason that he suffered so much, to make us understand that his wounded heart is capable of receiving all the wounds which are in our heart, to receive us in spite of our mistakes, and that his mercy is an infinite abyss: it is the infinite mercy of the Father. Saint Thomas, as a theologian, has this very beautiful affirmation: "What is proper to God is mercy". It is the attribute "par excellence" of God, it is what best characterizes God.

There is a prayer in our liturgy which says: "God, He who can forgive all time, and who forgives all time". Man cannot forgive all the time; as a Christian he forgives; but if he is obliged to exercise it - like a policeman for example -, he ought to exercise justice!; a policeman who would say: "I forgive all the time," wouldn't do his job, he wouldn't do his state duty. We are sometimes obliged to exercise justice; it is very hard, because we would like to be able to forgive all the time. We forgive Christians or human persons all the time. But we are obliged to recognize that there are unjust acts which demand justice. One must make this distinction which is capital: we forgive the person, the beloved sons of the Father, those who have received the blood of Jesus, and all men who are children of God; but we are obliged, because we live in a human community, to exercise justice with respect to what the human community represents.