It involved the second chance, i.e., a gift of added time and the opportunity for the woman to live her life differently. Jesus, ever the optimist, was more concerned with what a person might become rather than with what the person had been. He affirmed that human beings have a future as well as a past.

It involved pity, or, better yet, compassion. While others condemned and judged, Jesus sought to understand; while others hated and denigrated the weak, Jesus offered his strength and caring to them.

It involved challenge. Far from dismissing the gravity of the woman's sin and its consequences, Jesus called her to become her best self, the self that was a clearer reflection of the God in whose image she had been created.

It involved belief in human nature and in the as yet untapped potential for goodness in the woman. She had sinned, yes, but in responsiveness to Jesus' word and God's grace, she would become a saint.

It involved warning. The story of the unnamed adulteress reminds us that we stand beside her, rightly accused of sin. Whether it be adultery or apathy, pride or prejudice, greed, envy or lust, her story confronts us with a choice. Do we accept the second chance and challenge Jesus offers or do we return to commit the familiar and almost comfortable catalogue of sins that have become so rote in our confessing? DO we dare to come away from our Lenten encounter with Jesus and live differently or not? For now, Jesus tells us, as he did the woman, :Go and sin no more." but one day, Jesus will require an accounting of our responsiveness to his loving mercies. When that time comes, the consequences thereof shall be unequivocal and eternal.

As we go on in life we tend to set a higher value on the virtue of kindness-plain, ordinary, everyday kindness. When we look back on our lives we remember with regret acts of unkindness. But we recall fondly times when we acted kindly. Kindness is essential to true justice. Jesus was especially kind to individuals whom he was called to judge. The classic example is the woman caught in adultery.

The story warns us against being too quick to take the high moral ground. Which of us is without sin? We must learn from the example of Jesus. Jesus condemned the woman's sin, but refused to condemn her. It's not that sin didn't matter to him. It did. But he distinguished between the sin and the sinner. He condemned the sin but pardoned the sinner.

And his over-riding motive in all of this was compassion. It wasn't a question of being liberal (anything goes), but of being compassionate. The holier a person is the less he/she is inclined to judge others. In every human being there is a dimension which escapes the powers of judgment of any other human being.

Jesus refused to condemn her. But he did say to her, 'Go and sin no more.' In other words, he didn't deny her sin. He got her to own it and take responsibility for it. It's much easier to deny it, to excuse it, or blame it on others. When one faces it and deals with it, there is no more blame, or regret, or remorse, or despair.

The compassion and forgiveness of Jesus give life. The woman went away free-free to change her behaviour, and to regain her self-respect. Jesus reminds us that people are capable of changing if given the chance.

The mission of the Church is to be a place of forgiveness so that those who fail (all of us in different ways and degrees) may experience the love and compassion of the One who refused to condemn. The church ought to be a community of grace, a community free from legalism, a community which will not condemn but which will love, a community which is more concerned about mercy than justice.

One day a mother came to plead with Napoleon for her sons' life. The young man had committed a serious offence. The law was clear. Justice demanded his death. The emperor was determined to ensure that justice would be done. But the mother insisted, "your Excellency, I have come to ask for mercy not for justice.'

'But he does not deserve mercy,' Napoleon answered.

'Your Excellency,' said the mother, 'it would not be mercy if he deserved it.'

Mercy, of its nature, is pure gift. It is something we all stand in need of, and hence it is something we must be ready to extend to others. The Lord said "blessed are the merciful, they will obtain mercy.

For Paul Christ Was His Main Thing

Books on leadership often remind leaders of the importance of being clear on the 'main thing' in their business or organization. They stress the importance of articulating clearly for themselves and their people what is the main thing and then making sure that they keep the main thing the main thing. For Paul Jesus and making known his message was the 'main thing'. After his conversion, Paul says that in contrast to knowing Christ, all else was rubbish. Before his conversion, Paul was a "self-made man", someone who saved himself by his observance of the law. After his conversion he knew clearly that his salvation depended on him keeping his eyes on Jesus and following his ways. Commenting on this reading, Patricia Sanchez writes:

In a piece called Simplify! Simplify!, Henry David Thoreau explained his reasons for living near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts from July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847. "I went to the woods," wrote Thoreau, "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life. . . I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life . . . To know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it." What Thoreau sought for and learned on the shore of a pond in 19th-century New England, Paul sought for and found and learned in the person of Jesus Christ.

In Christ and with Christ, Paul learned what it was to live, truly, faithfully and purposefully. In Christ and through Christ, Paul developed a system of values by which he lived and because of which he would eventually die. Because Christ became the supreme value in his life, all else, by comparison was as nothing. This is the conviction Paul shared with his beloved Philippians and which he shares with us today. Paul's sharing prompted his readers of the first Christian century and continues to prompt 21st-century believers to take similar stock of our lives, with similar conviction, to reach the same conclusion.

Ongoing Conversion of Heart

In today's second reading, Paul also reminds us that the Christian life is a call to what is often called 'ongoing conversion'. We just don't 'get saved' one day and that is it. As married couples know all too well, marriage promises have to be renewed and lived daily. They must keep their eye on the main thing-their relationship if their marriage is going to be successful. So it is with us and our relationship with Christ. It calls us, like Paul, to keep our eyes on Jesus, and to keep running the race.