unforgivable sins

Homily
Monday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
24 January 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
Daily Readings

Most of us have encountered this biblical passage before about the unforgivable sin, but it appears so rarely in the Gospels that there can be large gaps between our meditation on what it really is. Over and over and over, we hear of Jesus forgiving sins, of his desiring that not one person be lost. This makes his words about the unforgivable sin all the more shocking to us. We are almost never ready to hear them. We might even say that they don't sound right coming from Jesus, almost as if he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Of course, we ascribe no such thing to Jesus nor to the Gospel authors. Jesus means what He says. Sins against the Holy Spirit truly are unforgivable.
The Catechism helps us to understand what Jesus must mean then. He doesn't mean just any blasphemy, but specifically a refusal to believe that the Holy Spirit can forgive sins. This makes sense in the context of today's Gospel. Even for Jesus, whose mission is to love sinners and to forgive every sin, there must be a sin, if our freedom is real and God respects our choices, that is unforgiveable. That sin against the Holy Spirit is a refusal to believe that forgiveness of sins is possible. This is a denial of the action of the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel, it is attributing the casting out of demons, and the forgiveness of sins, to the work of the devil, not the work of the Holy Spirit.
The unforgivable sin does not limit God's power nor His desire to forgive every sin. It preserves a correct anthropology of human freedom, and a correct understanding of salvation as something offered but something capable of being rejected by men who are made in God's image and likeness. Hell is a possibility not because God desires it, but because man can possibly desire it.
St. Frances de Sales is honored today for his zeal in defending the true faith agains the errors of the reformation. Along with great figures like St. Vincent de Paul and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, his special love for the poor, his expert defense of the true Church, and His zeal in teaching people how to live a devout life, saved the Church from losing many more souls, and helped Her to preserve the deposit of faith against all attackers. His example gives hope to all those who lament the endless splintering of Christianity, and who long to see the unity of Christ's Church which is a gift of the Holy Spirit working within Her.