Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: sin

  • Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s reading

    My grandmother used to say that, although she liked to read the Bible, she really didn’t like the Old Testament because of all the violence.  And certainly today’s first reading helps me to understand how she felt.  But it’s a reading that I think has very important things to say about the spiritual life.  I’m going to be clear though, as a pastor I approach this with fear and trembling, because I could well be judged in the same was as Eli and his sons.

    So we have been hearing the story of Eli and his sons this past week.  But there are significant parts of the story we haven’t heard, and that’s too bad, because they explain the massacre we get in today’s first reading.  Eli was the high priest at the time that Samuel was conceived, and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas assisted him.  His sons were also terrible human beings.  They would steal the peoples’ sacrifices off the altar while they were still boiling, and were known to be extremely promiscuous.  When Eli, their father, was made aware of this, his response was more or less, “Now boys, you can’t be doing that.”  So they ignored their father and did it all the more. 

    It’s easy to see the sin of Hophni and Phinehas, but Eli was actually more at fault.  In the theology of the Old Testament, the appropriate response from Eli would have been to put them both to death.  I know that sounds harsh, but we need to look at it from the spiritual perspective.  Anything that gets in the way of bringing people to God, anything that gets in the way of right worship, anything that gets in the way of taking care of those in need, has to be radically blotted out.  That’s why all those Egyptians pursuing the Israelites in the desert came to a watery end in the Red Sea.

    And Hophni and Phinehas were only part of the problem.  The problem is that Eli, as high priest, has been ignoring his duties in such a way that he allowed not only the sins of his two sons, but also the sins of the people.  More and more, they were turning away from the Lord.  All of this comes to a tipping point in today’s reading.  When they had been initially defeated by the Philistines, only then did they think to consult the Lord.  So they bring the Ark of the Covenant down like it was some kind of rabbit’s foot instead of the Holy Presence of God.  And so God gave them over to the hands of their enemies and allowed the Ark to fall into the hands of the Philistines.  Their depravity caused not just the fall of the nation, but also the fall of their religion.  The Ark was a sign of God’s presence in the community, a treasured holy vessel crafted by the hands of Moses, and they let it go.  I’ll tell you right now, friends, no one gets to this Tabernacle while I still have a beating heart, and I’m not the high priest.  But that’s how depraved things had become, all because Eli was asleep at the altar.  (Incidentally, he is frequently noted as sleeping in the stories that preceded this one.)

    None of this is ever going to get better for Israel until David is anointed king of Israel, and a type of messiah for the people.  Of course this foreshadows the actual Savior of the World, the Christ and Messiah who would be anointed by the Holy Spirit to break the power of the most insidious enemy and gain us all the salvation we need.

    So the moral of the story, if you want one, is to put to death whatever in us is keeping us from completely, freely, following God.  It’s not easy.  It wouldn’t have been easy for Eli to put his sons to death.  But if he had, he would have saved the lives of thousands of soldiers and prevented the fall of Israel and her religion.  There is too much at stake to let things go; we have to be ready to do whatever it takes to stay in relationship with our God.

  • Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Increase our faith,” indeed! How often have you had that same reaction to the marvels of God happening in your life? I think about the many times I have had the Spirit point out something I should have seen all along because it was right there in front of my face. Increase my faith, I pray.

    Because, as Jesus tells us today, there are many things that cause sin, and they will inevitably happen. But how horrible to be tangled up in them, right? Whether we’ve caused the occasion for sin, or have been the victim of it, what a tangled mess it is for us. Maybe we have made someone so angry that their response was sinful. Or perhaps we have neglected to offer help where it was needed and caused another person to find what they need in sinful ways. Or maybe we’ve said something scandalous or gossiped about another person and those who have overheard it have been brought to a lower place. None of that makes anyone involved happy; everyone ends up deficient in faith, hope and love in some way. The same is true if we were the ones to have fallen into the trap of an occasion of sin. Don’t we just want to kick ourselves then?

    This is what the Psalmist was talking about when he prayed, “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.” Now, if those are the only words you utter in prayer some day, rest assured they are probably well-chosen. Maybe some days that’s all we can manage. I’ll translate it for you in an even shorter way: “HELP!” Because when we are tangled up in sin, or brought low by suffering of some kind, maybe those are the only words we can manage. But God hears those words and answers them, because we can never fall so far that we are out of God’s reach. Listen to some more of the Psalmist’s excellent words today:

    Where can I go from your spirit?
    From your presence where can I flee?
    If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.

    Increase our faith, Lord, guide us in the everlasting way.

  • Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s a frightening thing, I think, to hear Jesus say in today’s Gospel reading, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”  It’s frightening because of the havoc a statement like that could cause in our spiritual lives.  There’s an old trite saying that says Jesus didn’t come just to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable.  It may be trite, but there is truth in there.  So we launch into today’s Liturgy of the Word with a word of caution.

    And caution is warranted, because the spiritual life is one of precarious balance.  Things can be going along alright, much like the relationship the Jews had with the Egyptian government while Joseph was alive.  But then something can change in our lives: in the words of our first reading today, a new king, who knows nothing of Joseph, can take over.  In the context of that first reading, the new king taking over didn’t know Joseph and thus have all the good feelings toward the Jews that Joseph inspired.  In the context of our spiritual lives, the new king is whatever new distraction may come our way and, knowing nothing of Joseph, that is, knowing nothing of the harmony that is part of our lives when we walk the path of righteousness, that distraction takes over and tears us away from our God.

    In that light, the first reading today is a discussion of the seductive power of sin.  Just as the new king wanted to stop the increase of the Jews, so sin wants to stop our increase in the spiritual life.  Just as the Egyptians oppressed the Jews with hard labor, so sin oppresses us by affecting our work, our relationships, and our life of faith.  But just as the more the Jews were oppressed, the more they multiplied, so the more that we are oppressed by sin, the more we can multiply grace by turning back to God.

    Sin is a dreadful power in our world.  Sin knows nothing of Joseph, knows nothing of the life of grace and its joy.  But we don’t have to let it oppress us.  We can let Jesus bring the sword to afflict the comfort of our sin and help us to multiply and increase in the life of grace and faith.  As our Psalmist says this morning, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

  • The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

    The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

    Today’s readings

    Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being the Latin word for “rejoice.” On this Sunday, we wear rose-colored vestments, rather than the Lenten violet.  Laetare Sunday reminds us that even in the “heaviness” of Lent, there is reason for rejoicing.  And today’s readings do deal with some heavy topics, but clearly and always through the lens of rejoicing in God’s mercy.  So that’s how I would like to look at today’s Liturgy: what in the world gives us cause to rejoice today, here and now, in our own lives?

    Because, the last year that we have all endured together saw so many terrible things, most especially the pandemic that has affected, one way or another, almost everything in our lives, and still does.  Add to that racial injustice, social unrest, political rancor, and the proliferation of crime and terror and an assault on the sanctity of life.  Injustice and oppression still exist in our own nation and abroad.  The poor still hunger and thirst for the basic necessities of life.  And then we could look at the darkness that seems to reign in our own lives.  Sin that has not been confessed.  Bad habits that have not been broken.  Love and mercy that have been withheld.  All of these darken our own lives in ways that we don’t fully appreciate at the time, but later see with sad clarity.  Our world and our lives can be such dark places in these days. 

    This darkness is exactly the darkness in which the people of Israel found themselves in today’s first reading.  Notice what that reading says about the people – it’s not flattering at all!  It says “in those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.”  Note particularly the use of the word “all” in that first sentence: had just some of the people been unfaithful?  No: all of them had.  Did they practice just some of the abominations of the other nations?  No: they practiced all of them.  But God in his mercy sent them messengers and prophets to warn them away from their sinfulness.  Did they listen to them? No – and not only did they just not listen to them, but they ridiculed and derided those messengers of God, “despised his warnings and scoffed at his prophets.”  Certainly God would have been justified in letting his chosen people go to hell in a hand basket.  But he didn’t.  Though he punished them with exile for a time, he brought them back to their own land to worship their God once again.  God gave them light in their darkness.

    Today’s Gospel reading shows us the source of that light: Jesus Christ who is lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert.  This line refers to a passage from the book of Numbers [Num 21:8-9] in which the people were complaining about the way God was feeding them in the desert.  So he sent seraph serpents among them, and people were being bitten and falling ill and dying from their venom.  As a remedy, God told Moses to mount one of the serpents on a pole, and anyone who had been bitten would get better if they looked at the serpent lifted up on the pole.  John compares this to the remedy that we receive for our many sins when we look upon our Savior, lifted up on the pole of the Cross.  But even better, the lifting up of the Son of Man is the Resurrection: God the Father raising Jesus up from the dead, to destroy the power of sin and death in our world.  Either way you look at it, the joy is irresistible: the darkness of our sin and the finality of our death are destroyed when we look upon Jesus our Savior lifted up for us.

    Which brings us to the heart of today’s Gospel reading, maybe even to the heart of the whole Gospel.  That would be the line: “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Many times, when you see a sporting event, in person or on television, you will see the reference to that line: posters that read “John 3:16.”  And clearly, that is the heart of the Gospel for all of us: that God
    so loved the world – not just the good part of the world, the pristine part, the beautiful part – but every part of the world.  He loves the parts of the world that are polluted, or embattled by crime, or rife with injustice and oppression, or debilitated by sickness and disease, or destroyed by war, or mourning death, or lamenting sin.  He loves the world mired in a pandemic.  That is not to say that he loves the pandemic, the pollution, crime, injustice, or any of that.  But he loves the world – the whole world – despite all that darkness.  He loves the world for what he created it to be, he loves us as the people he made his own.  And to that world, that people he loves, he sends his only Son, his beloved, so that we might not perish in our darkness or disease or injustice or sin and death, but might have eternal life – the life he longs for each of us to share with him.

    Lent is certainly a time for us to be mindful of the ways in which we have fallen short of God’s call.  Last week’s look at the ten commandments provided each of us, I think, with plenty of reflection on how we can better live God’s call.  But this week’s Gospel puts all of that in perspective for us: we don’t dwell on our sins and shortcomings just to remind ourselves how miserable we are; we reflect on our sins and shortcomings because we know that God can transform them.  We don’t strive to become better people in order to be worthy of God’s love for us; we strive to become better people because God loves us and that love calls us to a much better way of living.  Today’s Liturgy says to us that yes, we have sinned; yes, we have fallen short; yes, we have been hard-hearted; yes, we have failed to respond to God’s love; yes, in particular we have failed to show that love to others.  And yes, we are deserving of punishment for our sins.  But, our God, who is rich in mercy, forgets the punishment and remembers compassion for the people he created.  He sent his only Son to redeem us and bring us back from our darkness into everlasting light.  Our God even uses the darkness and transforms it to be a source of Resurrection for his people.

    Today, we also celebrate with joy, the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  Just as it is our God’s desire that we be healed from the brokenness of our sins, so he gives us a sacrament of healing which is meant to accompany those of us who are sick on our journey of illness.  Those who are sick with any type of disease of body or mind or spirit are invited to be anointed today, as well as those who are preparing for surgery.  Even those who have been anointed in the past can be anointed today if they continue to struggle with or are still recovering from their illness.  This sacrament gives the sick the peace of God’s abiding presence in their lives, as well as healing in whatever way God judges to be best for them.  Today we celebrate the joy that God reaches out to those who are suffering from illness and offers them comfort.

    On this Laetare Sunday, we remember that even in the darkness of our world as it is, even as we still struggle with recovering from a pandemic, we can remember the joy of the Light that is to come.  We reflect on God’s everlasting mercy, which is stronger than sin and death.  We respond to the compassion that God has shown for us, his chosen people.  We live that mercy and love in our own lives, sharing it with others.  Then as our own darkness is transformed to light, maybe our little corner of the world can know compassion amidst sorrow, comfort amidst mourning, mercy against intolerance, love against hatred, and the peace that passes all of our understanding in every place we walk.  May we, who are loved by God beyond anything we can ever deserve, carry the flame of God’s love into our world to brighten every darkness and bring joy to every sorrow.

  • Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

    That’s advice I wish I’d taken sometimes when I’ve been coming down with something and think, “oh, it’ll pass.”  The sick need a physician!  How often have we had what we thought was a little cold or seasonal illness end up being much worse because we let it go, we didn’t want to go to the doctor?  This past year, that’s been so true with COVID-19.  The symptoms start out as something like a common seasonal illness, and sometimes they stay that way, but plenty have had something much worse develop.

    Anyone who has battled an addiction will tell you how true this is.  Many have thought, “Oh, I can stop any time I want.”  But they really need that intervention, that twelve step meeting or that time with a counsellor to really do what’s needed.  You cannot make any progress in wellness in any aspect of life if you don’t admit you’re sick and accept help.  We all have difficulty doing that sometimes, I think, and much to our demise.

    It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life.  If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, congratulations, you can skip Lent.  In fact you don’t even need a Savior!  I say that in jest, but really it’s true.  Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us.  It’s been said that the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners.  And thank God that’s true, because all of us, me and you, all of us, need the medicine of grace in our spiritual lives time and time again.  And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that.  Be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

    So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and let him heal us.

  • Friday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time: Anniversary of 9-11

    Friday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time: Anniversary of 9-11

    Today’s readings

    When I hear today’s Gospel reading, I think about my dad. When he was alive, he was a guy who seemed to know everyone.  Anywhere we went, he’d find someone he knew, even if we were away on vacation!  But Dad wouldn’t just know their names, he’d also know something about them.  He would know their talents, stuff they were good at; he’d also sometimes know if they were going through some kind of difficulty or hard time.  But most often, he always was able to see what was good in them.

    That’s the kind of thing I think Jesus wants us to do in our Gospel reading.  He wants us to know each other as brothers and sisters, instead of seeing everyone’s faults and sins and downfalls.  Because we all have faults and sins and downfalls!  And if we focus on those things, we’ll never be the children of God we were created to be, and we will never have peace.  Jesus uses the hyperbole of seeing a splinter in the other person’s eye but missing the wooden beam in our own.  We all have sins and downfalls, but we all have grace and blessing.  We’ve got to look for the grace and blessing, look for the best in people, because that’s what makes us children of God; that’s what unites us as sisters and brothers.

    Nineteen years ago today, right around this time in the morning, I was in my room in seminary.  That was the day I witnessed, on television, the horrible events that we now call the 9-11 tragedy.  I will never forget that horrible moment.  Over the course of the following days, we came to know that over three thousand people died that day, including many police and fire fighters.  And our world has changed a lot ever since: there is more security when you get on an airplane, more security everywhere, it seems.  And if we would listen to what Jesus is telling us today, maybe things like this wouldn’t have to happen.

    Sadly, the root of all of the tragedies like this, is that we don’t see each other as brothers and sisters.  Because if we did, we wouldn’t have terrorism, or racism, or crime in our streets, or any of the many sad things we hear about in the news each day.  We have to learn to take the wooden beams out of our eyes so that we can see each other as brothers and sisters.  Only then will we become everything that God intends for us.

    Today on this nineteenth anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy, we should do a lot of things.  We should study what happened that day so that we understand the issues and continue to work to change our world for the better.  We should remember those who gave their lives that day, especially those who tried to help the victims, and we should pray for ourselves and all people that we can become peaceful people who love the Lord and see each other as brothers and sisters, without all those splinters or beams in our eyes.

  • Saturday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In today’s Gospel, we have the continued Epiphany of Jesus manifested as one who identifies with sinners. That is not, of course, to say that he was a sinner; quite the contrary, because we know that Jesus was like us in all things but sin. In this Gospel passage, though, we see that he is certainly concerned with calling sinners to the Kingdom, and concerned enough that he will be known to be in their company. He eats with them, talks with them, walks with them.

    This of course, riles the Pharisees.  And, to be fair, for good reason; Jewish law taught that sinners were to be shunned; they were cast out of the community.  But Jesus distancing himself from sinners would only reinforce the barrier that sin puts between us and God.  Not eating with sinners means there is no redemption.  So nothing that we have done can put us so far away from God that we are beyond God’s reach.  And God does reach out to us, in tangible ways, in sacramental ways, in the person of Jesus and through the ministry of the Church.

    Sin is a terrible thing.  It’s often cyclical.  Because not only does the judgment of the Pharisees – and others – make sinners feel unworthy; but also does the guilt that comes from inside the sinner.   The more one sins, the less worthy one often feels of God’s love, and so the more does that person turn away from God, and then they sin more, feel less worthy, turn away again, and so on, and so on, and so on.

    But Jesus won’t have any of that – he has come to put an end to that cycle once and for all.  Jesus is the One who walks into the midst of sinners, sits down with them and has a meal.  He is the divine physician healing our souls, and those who do not sin do not need his ministry.  But we sinners do, so thanks be to God for the manifestation of Jesus as one who came to dine with sinners.

  • The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    This weekend we continue our preaching series at Saint Mary Immaculate called “A Crash Course in Catholicism.”  Please continue to pray for the success of this preaching series, and for the openness for all to receive the grace God is pouring out on us in these days.   So far we have spoken about the fundamental Good News of our faith that we are saved by Jesus Christ.  God did not abandon us in our sinfulness, but in love sent us His Son, Jesus, to free us from sin and death by His own life, death and resurrection. God desires our salvation and healing.

    In following God’s plan, we connect our lives to His through prayer, which we spoke of at length last week.  Hopefully over the past week you’ve had a chance to reflect on the way you pray, why you pray, and perhaps even tried some new way of prayer.

    So this week, we are reflecting on our call to discipleship, our living of the Good News of Jesus Christ in such a way that it is infectious to others.  This call to discipleship isn’t just for Sundays, or even primarily for Sundays, but an everyday decision to follow Christ and walk in the way he has marked out for us.

    Looking at the parable in today’s Gospel reading, I’m going to be very bold and say, you know, the Pharisee was quite right. His righteousness was beyond reproach. He has been innocent of greed, dishonesty and adultery. He has been more pious than even the law requires. Fasting was only required once a year, on the Day of Atonement, but he fasts twice a week. Tithes were only required to be paid on one’s earnings, but he pays them not only on his earnings, but also on all of his possessions, basically, he paid the tithe on his total net worth. He was probably quite right about his own righteousness, and he may well have been right about the failures of righteousness in the tax collector as well.

    And, in those days, tax collectors were despicable human beings. There was no taxation with representation, so the tax collectors worked for the Romans and were in league with the foreign occupation. They were told what they had to collect, and whatever the collected over and above that was theirs to keep. Now certainly, they were entitled to some income, so a modest markup would have been understandable – that was how they were paid. But mostly the modest markup was far from modest, and often bordered on extortion. The tax collector in our parable today does not deny that he has participated in those activities. He does not even pray about anything he has done except for one thing: he has sinned. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says.

    Both of these men were right in what they said about themselves. From an objective point of view, they have presented themselves honestly before God and everyone. So what’s the problem? Where has the Pharisee gone wrong and how did the tax collector, of all people, end up justified?

    It’s pretty easy to see what went wrong when we step back and look at the nature of their prayers. The Pharisee uses the word “I” four times. It’s all about him. The tax collector does not use the word “I” at all; he uses the word “me.” What’s the difference? Think back to your grammar lessons: “I” is the subject, “me” is the object. So, for the Pharisee, it was all about what he had done through his own righteousness, and not about what God had done or could do. The text even says that the prayer he prayed, he said to himself.  Did you catch that?  Not to God, but to himself!  For the tax collector, it wasn’t about him at all. He acknowledges his sinfulness and asked God to have mercy. And that’s the second difference. The tax collector asks for something, namely mercy, and receives it: he goes home justified. The Pharisee asks for nothing, and that’s just what he gets: nothing.

    So I think today’s Liturgy of the Word is asking us a very important question: have you been aware of your need for a Savior? Because sin is exhausting. Anyone who has struggled with sin, or a pattern of sin, in their lives can tell you that. Those who have been dragged down by any kind of addiction or who have tried to work on a character flaw or striven to expel any kind of vice from their lives often relate how exhausting the sin can be. Sin saps our spiritual energy, weakens our resolve to do good, and causes us to turn away in shame not only from God, but also from family, friends, and all those whose spiritual companionship we need in order to grow as Christians. That’s just the way sin works.

    But today’s Liturgy gives us very good news. Sirach says in today’s first reading that “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right, and the Lord will not delay.” We see that very clearly in the parable in today’s Gospel. The lowly tax collector cannot even bring himself to raise his eyes to heaven. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says. It is the perfect Act of Contrition. He acknowledges his sin, he prays for God’s mercy. And God responds. He can go home justified.

    So who here was the disciple?  It would seem like it would have been the praying, fasting Pharisee.  But is it?  Discipleship involves discipline – they have the same root word – a discipline that binds oneself to God and is committed to real change.  The Pharisee was self-righteous: he prayed to himself, did what made himself look good, it was all about him.  The tax-collector, on the other hand, had a righteousness that came from the mercy of God.  Because he depended on God, he was able to find forgiveness, bind himself to mercy, and go home justified.  Disciples don’t follow themselves, they follow Jesus.  They don’t pray to themselves, they follow Jesus.  They aren’t righteous in themselves, they are righteous in Jesus.

    Disciples aren’t perfect – certainly the tax-collector was not – but disciples are open to conversion, open to a true change in their lives that allows the mercy of God to make them a new creation.  Disciples think of everything in terms of their walk with Christ and living the Gospel.  They do it every day, not just Sunday.  When a decision needs to be made at work, they think about Jesus’ example and how the decision might affect others.  When deciding where to spend their family’s resources, they think about the good they are called to do.  When working through a relationship issue, they think about where God is in that relationship and direct their energies in that way.  Disciples see themselves first and foremost as sons and daughters of God, and everything else in their lives falls in line with that identification.  They may not be perfect, but they are open to being perfected.

    Disciples find themselves in the Church, receiving the Sacraments the Church offers them in order to perfect their lives of faith.  They receive the mercy of God in sacramental confession, and they live on the strength of God by receiving God’s Word and the Body and Blood of our Lord at Mass.

    Just like the Pharisee and the tax collector, we have come to this holy place to pray today. What is our prayer like? Are there sins that have become a pattern for us? Do we have addictions that need to be worked out? Have we failed in some way in our daily life? What dark corners of our lives desperately need God’s light and God’s mercy? In what ways do we need a Savior? Have we asked for God’s mercy, or have we been like the Pharisee, asking for nothing and receiving exactly that?

    I want to give you the opportunity to pray with this today…

    Pray the tax collector’s prayer after me: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

  • Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Sin is exhausting.  Just like the barren tree was exhausting the soil.  Anyone who has struggled with sin, or a pattern of sin, in his or her life can tell you that.  Those who have been dragged down by any kind of addiction or who have tried to work on a character flaw or striven to expel any kind of vice from their lives often relate how exhausting the sin can be. Sin saps our spiritual energy, weakens our resolve to do good, and causes us to turn away in shame from family, friends, and all those whose spiritual companionship we need in order to grow as Christian men and women and flourish in the world.  That goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, who suddenly became aware of and ashamed of their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, and to Saint Paul who prayed over and over to get rid of his “thorn in the flesh. ” So when we are exhausted by sin, we should not be surprised.  That’s just the way sin works.

    But we don’t have to be content with that either.  Our God continues to cultivate our soil and fertilize our lives with the Sacraments.  And, as Saint Paul tells us in the first reading today from his letter to the Romans, sin doesn’t get the last word.  Those who did not know Christ had to live according to the law, with all of its precepts and principles and technicalities.  But the law doesn’t sanctify a person, it only makes them more aware of their guilt and unworthiness.  That’s why God sent his only Son into our world.  It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can ever be cleansed, only through his sacrifice on the Cross, that we can ever be reunited with our God.

    As the Psalmist says today, we are the people who long to see God’s face.  Because nothing else will heal us.  Even if our sin makes us want to turn away and hide, we cannot hide from our God – indeed we dare not hide from our God if we ever want to be unburdened of the exhausting weight of our sinfulness.  At this Eucharist, we celebrate our Lord who cares enough about us to bring us back unstained to the banquet of the Kingdom.  We open ourselves to his mercy, revealing our brokenness, our sinfulness, our shame and our unworthiness.  He opens himself to us in love, binding up that brokenness, erasing the sinfulness, healing our shame and lifting up whatever in us is unworthy.  Jesus Christ is our salvation and our redemption.  Our sins do not define who we are before our God, and we who receive him in the Eucharist today do not ever have to settle for being exhausted by our sins.

  • Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think we get a more vivid picture of today’s Gospel if we’ve ever had the task of weeding a good-sized garden. I’ve done it plenty of times.  It’s not a task I really enjoy, but it is kind of good in that when you finish a job like that, you can look at it and see something good happened. There’s a sense of accomplishment. But discerning what is a weed and what is a plant is sometimes a difficult task.

    That’s the kind of question the disciples had for Jesus today.  Jesus had just told them several parables about the kingdom of God, and this one was all the way back on Saturday of last week in the liturgy.  To refresh our memories, the story basically went that the landowner sowed good seed in the field, but when it started to grow, weeds came up too.  His laborers asked him about it and he said, “An enemy has done this.” So they wanted to pull up the weeds, but the master said to let them grow together until harvest time, lest in pulling them up they also accidentally pull up the good plants. They could then be pulled up and burnt at harvest time.

    Now I think a good gardener might quibble with the analogy.  But that’s not the point.  The point is good news, and the good news is this: however much we may resemble the weeds from day to day, Jesus gives us the time to grow into much lovelier plants during our lives.  He doesn’t blot us out of the book of life for one transgression.  But the warning is that we only have so much time until the harvest.  If we are going to turn to the God who sowed us and provide good fruit, we need to do it now.  If we wait until the harvest, it may well be too late.  Our God gives us the freedom to choose to be the good seeds in the field of the world, blessed are we who choose to grow that way.