CCC 589 Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God’s own attitude toward them.1 He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet.2 But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”3 By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God’s equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really does make present and reveal God’s name.4
CCC 2100 Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. .. ”5 The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor.6 Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”7 The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father’s love and for our salvation.8 By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
CCC 2787 When we say “our” Father, we recognize first that all his promises of love announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal covenant in his Christ: we have become “his” people and he is henceforth “our” God. This new relationship is the purely gratuitous gift of belonging to each other: we are to respond to “grace and truth” given us in Jesus Christ with love and faithfulness.9
1 Cf. Mt 9:13; Hos 6:6.
2 Cf. Lk 15:1-2, 22-32.
3 Mk 2:7.
4 Cf. Jn 5:18; 10:33; 17:6,26.
5 PS 51:17.
6 Cf. Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20.
7 Mt 9:13; 12:7; Cf. Hos 6:6.
8 Cf. Heb 9:13-14.
9 Jn 1:17; Cf. Hos 2:21-22; 6:1-6.