In the Gospel today we read.. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

This is a image of confession.. The Priest needs to apply different remedies to different people. To those who are trying to repent but fall again and again.. The priest needs to apply the remedies of consolation and mercy.  Jesus look at the woman with love and knew her heart. She was looking for love. She was an easy escape goat for the crowd. Not looking at their own sin but at her sin. John Paul II said that when we act on lust the object – person of our lust in the end became a person of disgust. But in truth it is our own unrepentant sin that disgust us, but it is easier  to blame the other. 

Cardinal Reniero Cantalamessa wrote ‘ Her terror now behind her, the woman experiences Jesus gaze of mercy as balm that flows into her heart. No man has ever looked at her that way! What new confidence Jesus ‘ Go must have instilled in the woman! At that moment it meant ‘Go back to living, to hoping; go back home; return to your dignity as a woman; announce to the men, just through your presence among them, that there is not only the law, there is also grace; there is not only justice, there is mercy.’ 

The woman is an image of each one of us. We should leave the confessional the tribunal of God Mercy full of hope. The question we might ask how comes this doesn’t always happen. 

For one, while the priest words of absolution always work. Does the priest ask the Holy Spirit to come before he hears confession. Remember Jesus said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.. Those sin you forgive are forgiven.’ If the priest feels the freedom of sins forgiven and knows the depths of God Mercy he can communicate it to the penitent. Also when we go to confession are we looking for God Mercy, do we admit that we radically are sinners in need God Mercy. Jesus said to St Faustina ‘The greater the sinner the greater the right they have to My Mercy.’