Tag: <span>sin</span>

September 7, 2020August 25, 2020

Purification: A Means to an End

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Purification from sin is not like purification of water, where the object is a clear, sterile substance free from contamination. The objective of purification from sin is not the purification itself, for the sake of a soul unaffected by external entities.

Rather, the process of purification from sin is like the removal of clutter from a launching pad so that a rocket–which, unlaunched, is just a collection of earthy metal and chemical fuel–can shoot beyond the stratosphere to an entirely new reality.

Far from the sterilization of a substance from all external influences, as with the purification of water, purification from sin is like cleaning up a room for a party. Welcoming the outsider is the whole point of this purification process, for it is the person from the outside–the friend, the family member–who brings joy and makes the whole process worthwhile. Only, in the case of purification from sin, the “outsider” is the divine Guest, God Himself, who transforms our lives and takes them beyond earthly joy to an entirely new stratosphere.

As we see in today’s dramatic first reading and psalm, purification from sin is a truly critical part of welcoming this Guest. St. Paul describes it as handing over the flesh to Satan, so that the spirit may be saved. Pretty intense image. Reminds one of Christ instructing the Pharisees to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Satan can have his sin. What we want is Christ.

Purification from sin is critical, for as today’s psalm says:

For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.

Because of His own veneration of human freedom, and the limits He has put on Himself because of it, God cannot enter in where sin reigns. We must be fully purified of the reign of sin, like a clean room, before God can fully enter in as Guest of honor. Before the countdown sequence can begin to the launch of our souls to the infinite heights of God Himself.

And what is the destiny of this launch? What destiny are we preparing for as we “tidy up the launchpad?” Today’s gospel reveals it to us. It is certainly not sterile, perfect compliance with a dead book of rules that does nothing for anyone. The destiny is the infinitely potent Charity of the Heart of Christ. It is the passion, the thirst, and–importantly–the power, the glorious power to effect the salvation and happiness of our neighbor. It is the same powerful passion for others that leads God made man to cure a withered hand on the Sabbath.

Recently, a priest commented how the Holy Spirit is moving with His gifts in the world today–how we have those gifts at our fingertips, if we just have the faith to reach for them. Specifically, he was commenting how abundantly the Holy Spirit gives the gift of miraculous physical healing power to those who trust Him and reach out for that gift. It is the same gift by which Jesus heals in the gospel today.

But even more importantly, a life purified from sin and given over consciously and daily to God gradually grows in Charity to the point that that daily gift itself, regardless of how it manifests itself in external activity, brings about per se a continuous burst of additional actual grace from God, and many souls are healed, converted, and saved. If we knew the kinetic power of a purified soul, given to God in trust and love, all external endeavors would take on a relative importance to us and become filled with the joy of continuous awareness of our gift–the potency of our lives given freely and trustingly to God.

The destiny of purification is not purification itself, but the fullness of our lives to bursting with the joy of God and with His potent Charity.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to make your daily effort to turn to Him and away from sin not the drudgery of removing the impurities from something for the sake of purification, but the ordering of your soul for its true fulfillment in Him. Ask Him with passion and urgency to help you purify your soul so that He can enter in more fully. Most importantly, tell Him that the goal of your efforts is not your own spiritual “tidiness,” but your love for Him and for the people He loves. Ask Him in as your Guest, to fill your soul and your life completely, to bursting.

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August 17, 2020July 29, 2020

A Binary Choice

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

To truly appreciate, wonder at, and ultimately experience the surpassing joy that is an ongoing relationship with God, it is important to understand how terrible by contrast is the sin in which we habitually live.

When the rich young man approaches Jesus to ask Him what is necessary to gain eternal life, Jesus does not tell him to do his best, that God understands his wounds and psychological limitations–do your best, and God’s mercy will lift you up out of your misery after this life into eternal bliss.

He holds a much simpler line. He says, “Keep the commandments.”

The truly amazing thing about this exchange is that, rather than balking at this hard line, the rich young man realizes that beyond even this challenge, something is still lacking, not just in general, but for attaining his aim–for attaining eternal life.

Jesus does not gainsay his further prodding. He asserts what Catholic salvation theology will later reaffirm and explain: That to enter heaven, complete detachment from created reality and exclusive attachment to God is not optional, but necessary. Indeed, it may be posited that people go to Hell, not so much because they reject God as because they reject the painful and necessary process of their own transformation through detachment.

All sin stems in some way from from attachment to self and created things. And the first reading spells out with horrible clarity what this attachment leads to: Ultimately, a despoiling of all happiness. We may see an allegory of this in the cocaine addict. It is said that the first cocaine hit is the best; the addict thereafter chases that first high but never fully finds it again, as each succeeding high is less gratifying than the last, and the addict descends into complete, inescapable misery. So it is with the soul attached to self and creative things, in habitual sin. Life in sin is so miserable, that drastic, painful wake-up calls, like that portrayed in the first reading, come to resemble more an intervention for a drug addict than a punishment.

Still, as miserable as the life of sin is, many more times exalted is life with God, here on earth, but especially in eternity. “…and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Ultimately, the choice for God or for sin is drastic and binary: “He who does not gather with me, scatters.” Nor is it a choice between two paths at a fork in the road, but rather, a choice to paddle upstream, or to drift. Those who make the choice to drift will not enjoy friendship with God on earth or, more importantly, enter eternal life.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Affirm categorically that your life choice is for Him, that you are willing to undergo whatever sacrifice and accept whatever suffering is necessary in the process of choosing Him over sin. Look at a crucifix and thank Him for opening the door to this choice, which was tragically closed to us by our first parents, through His act of salvation.

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August 13, 2020July 22, 2020

Debts Big and Little

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Jesus makes His point very well in today’s Gospel. The servant who refuses to be patient with payback of a tiny loan from his fellow servant, immediately after receiving complete forgiveness for a massive loan by his own master, seems to us absurd, repugnant, beyond unreasonable–and so it must have seemed to Jesus’ listeners.

So, why is it so hard for us to forgive those who offend us? When we become enraged or resentful, why don’t we see ourselves in the same absurd light as we see this servant? It is simple: Either we don’t appreciate the enormity of the debt we ourselves have been forgiven, or we don’t trust that in fact it has been forgiven.

We are so accustomed, albeit unconsciously, to seeing God in a relative manner, as one more element of our lives, as one more duty to be dispensed. But God doesn’t see things that way. From His point of view, He is our all in all; He is our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End; He envisions us wrapped up in the vary same fibers of union with Him that unite the Trinity.

Thus, the original sin of Adam, which we all inherited at birth, and our individual sins are not just little tantrums to be waved off with a laugh, if we are to believe Jesus’s message in today’s Gospel. The enormity of their import comes from their threefold offense against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When we sin, we reject God our Father, our Creator, the very source of our being. Thus we reject our own essence and being at its very roots. When we sin, we reject God the Son, who dragged a bloody cross up Calvary hill, falling with it three times but persevering, ultimately pouring out His blood and accepting death on the cross to give us back that being, to give us back our fulfillment. And when we sin, we reject God the Holy Spirit, who Himself constitutes the union of the Blessed Trinity–we violate that vision of our incorporation into that union that is God’s vision for us. We violate the most sacred intimacy that is God Himself.

When we meditate on our sin, we should not so much meditate on the despicable acts or omissions in our lives themselves, merely to contemplate their innate ugliness–we should meditate on the beauty, the glory, the grandeur, the love, the intimacy of the One we have offended and of His dreams for our destiny incorporated into the heart of Himself. And the price He paid to get rid of that enormous debt for us.

And then drink deeply of the certainty that because of that price He paid, through the sacraments of baptism and confession, that debt is well and truly gone. Completely gone.

And then contemplate our petty grievances with our neighbor. They are as comparatively unimportant as we are small compared to God. We feel them deeply and mightily. But compared to our grievances against God, they are absurdly tiny.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Hold a crucifix, or look at one on a wall, and consider that the one crucified, paying the price for you, is the absolute Master of the Universe, voluntarily made vulnerable. Consider the enormity of even small careless rejections of this great Master. Then, consider that this crucifix has wiped that debt away. Finally, look directly at the offenses that habitually make you most resentful against your neighbor. And likewise wipe them away; give them in complete freedom to this great God on the cross, even if it seems to mean that you feel them all the more bitterly.

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