"Protecting Human Dignity"

Sunday Mass Readings

Today’s gospel reading is a great lesson on the God given dignity of the human person. The book of Genesis tells us that the source of the dignity of every human person comes from the fact that God has imprinted God’s own image and likeness on man and woman (Gen 1:26). Because of this every human person has a certain privilege and merits a certain kind of treatment. The Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life – from conception until natural death – stems from this belief in the sacredness of every person. We see the dignity of the human person violated in multiple ways in the gospel reading today. First of all, the adulterous woman had violated her own sacred dignity. Second, the Pharisees violated her dignity. They dragged her before Jesus and put her on death row, although both Leviticus 20:10 and Deut 22:22 prescribed that both the man and the woman should be put to death. Third, she was dragged before Jesus so that they could test him. These men had constructed an ingenuous case to get Jesus into trouble with the Law. Fourth, that these men would make a spectacle of a vulnerable human person to test another was a gross violate the dignity of both these human beings. And in succumbing to such low tactics, they violate their own dignity.

In the first reading from the book of Isaiah, we hear about God’s promise to restore an entire people to their dignity as God’s chosen people. While in exile in Babylon, the people had found themselves without a God, without a temple, without priests for sacrifice, without a homeland – indeed without any dignity. To this people God would give his healing. This healing continues in the Sacrament of reconciliation. In fact, Jesus interaction with the adulterous woman is exactly what the Sacrament of reconciliation is all about. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Before Easter comes, please make it to the sacrament of Reconciliation and let us allow God to restore us to his own image and likeness. And having been healed let us ourselves step out to reconcile ourselves with others, especially those who human dignity we may have violated.