STANDING AT THE CROSSROADS

A SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

On the first Sunday of Lent we accompanied Our Lord up the mountain of temptation.  Last week we went with him up Mount Thabor and witnessed his glorious Transfiguration.  And now, finally, we obey the rule of nature that what goes up must come down.  Our Lord reminds us today that if you try to climb too high, if you puff yourself up with high and mighty self-importance and presumption, you will only embarrass yourself and be humiliated.  He that exalteth himself, he says, shall be humbled.  Pride cometh before a fall.  And so this week we are going to climb back down those mountains.  Because what concerns us today are not the dizzying heights of temptation, where the devil lays out before us all the pleasures and enticements of the world, nor about the lofty peak where our Lord was transfigured before his Apostles, strengthening them to resist in the time of temptation.  This week, we don’t so much descend from these mountain tops.  Rather, we come clattering down from them with a loud thud into the valley beneath.

That thud is the sound of a soul falling from grace.  It is the thunderclap heard in heaven when a Christian soul deliberately turns his back on God and walks, quite knowingly and defiantly, into the valley of the shadow of death.  It is the sound of the wailing of the angels as they bemoan the blackening of a soul, their cries of warning unheeded.  It is, in short, the sound of Sin.

We are all familiar with sin.  Familiar in every sense of the term.  We know, for example, that we can sin by thought, word, and deed.  We know that our sins may be mortal or venial, according to the gravity of the offence against God.  We know that the consequence of sin is death—the death of the soul and its eternal damnation.  When we look around us we are quite familiar with the sins of others, and could happily rattle off a list of all the faults of our neighbour if called upon to do so.  And if we do what we’re supposed to do and spend a few precious moments of self-examination before we go to bed every night, we would be able to list our own sins too.  We’d be able to see for ourselves just how familiar with sin we all are.  Unfortunately, it’s a familiarity born from experience.

We really should make this daily self-examination, the examination of our conscience.  The idea of looking into ourselves to see what evil lurks not in the hearts of other men, but in our own hearts.  And we should contemplate now and again what we are truly capable of, if we were ever to let ourselves go.  There’s a very slippery path waiting for us, and we should realize just how easy it is, once we step on it, to slide right down it until we can no longer stop ourselves from rushing over the precipice into the great abyss of the inferno beneath. 

There is great benefit to be derived from such an examination of our conscience.  It can help us, firstly, to develop a sense of just how dangerous even the “little” sins are, how they lead us inexorably into bigger, more serious sins.  Examination of conscience also alerts us to our own true worth, which we very quickly realize is not very much.  It can help us develop a hatred for our sins, not only because they merit the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but moreover, because they have offended God, who is infinitely good, and deserving of all our love.  But notice, I say they can help us do these things, but only if we respond in the proper way.  We have to not only realize the evil we have done, but repent that evil. We have to truly detest our sins, and for the right reasons, we must learn to have perfect contrition, if possible, for these thoughts, words and deeds committed against our loving God.  And even this repentance is not enough.  We also have to resolve never to commit those sins again.

But in the midst of our self-examination, danger lurks to entrap us and lead us into other sins.  These are snares put in our way by our adversary the Devil.  He does not want us to make any progress along the way of holiness, and he will do all he can to trip us up and lead us astray from that path.

The two traps are the two sins against the virtue of hope—presumption and despair.  Sometimes they enter our minds in very obvious ways as we examine our conscience.  Despair for example raises its ugly head as we examine our conscience and come to realize the state of our soul, transfigured with the ugliness and stench of sin and imperfection.  We get a glimpse of how far short we fall of the holiness to which we are all called.  When we consider the and infinite goodness of God, and then compare our own sinful ways, we are tempted to fall into discouragement—not to give up.  St. Peter denied our Lord, but he repented and wept bitterly, going on to become the head of the apostles and a great saint. Judas Iscariot also denied our Lord, but he took a different path, despairing of his terrible sin and committing suicide. We must be careful which of these two apostles we choose to follow.  Despite the foul stench of our sins, despite the feeling of worthlessness it gives us, we have to remind ourselves that our Lord chose to be scourged, crowned with thorns and nailed to a cross for our sake.  To God, we must surely be worth something if he was prepared to suffer so much for us.

The other danger lurking in our examination of conscience is more subtle than despair.  But we can fall, so easily, into the opposite extreme of presumption if we don’t take seriously our transgressions against the Ten Commandments.  If we hurry through the commandments we can easily become complacent. “Let me see… ‘Thou shalt not kill,’—nope, I didn’t kill anyone today.  No, I haven’t committed adultery this week.  I haven’t robbed anyone, or dishonored my parents.  I went to Mass on Sunday.  In fact I’ve been pretty good.  Yes, I think I’m a pretty good person.”  This is nothing more than pride and leads to the presumption that we’re doing okay, that we’re not really all that bad, that we don’t have to try much harder, if at all, to grow closer to God.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and this kind of presumption and complacency is one of the most perilous snares our souls can straying into.

However, if we’re aware of the danger, we can quickly recognize it for the temptation that it is.  We can’t just stop at the exact letter of the law, but have to explore a little further into its spirit – instead of just seeing “Thou shalt not kill,” we have to go a little deeper, digging up any hatred in our hearts, our anger, hatred, impatience, intolerance of the faults of others.  The sixth commandment doesn’t just forbid adultery, but includes impure thoughts, immodesty, our willingness to watch unsuitable movies or TV, letting our eyes stray as we surf the internet.  There is a whole bunch of divisions and subdivisions in those Ten Commandments, and it requires a fair bit of digging to uncover them all.  And yet how often do we complacently examine our consciences without spotting all the very real sins of thought, word and deed?  We need to look harder, not just for mortal sins but the venial ones too.  And if we can’t even remember any venial sins, I’m sure we can always find some imperfections.  We don’t deserve to give ourselves a pat on the back because we didn’t commit a mortal sin this week.  Instead let’s turn our attention to those other, less serious sins, because they still offend, or at least disappoint God. 

Nor should we forget those sins of omission!  That although we may not have actually committed this or that sin, it’s inevitable that we will have wasted a whole list of opportunities to do better than we did.  All those missed opportunities throughout the day, all those actual graces from God, little nudges from our guardian angel, where we could have said something to bring our neighbor closer to God, or to bring ourselves closer to God…  but we didn’t.  We chose instead to follow our own will, preferring our own little pleasures and vanities instead of rising to the higher calling. 

Are these sins?  Usually not.  It’s like hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock.  Not a sin, no.  But couldn’t we get up a few minutes earlier and spend them with our mouths open to God in prayer, instead of just open?  Our conscience must decide these things.  Is it a sin to watch a game of golf on TV?  No.  Seriously boring though it may be, some people, I am told, find it relaxing.  And we do need to relax now and again. However, couldn’t we be doing something better?  Reading about our faith, or the life of a saint perhaps?  We don’t need to get paranoid and feel guilty when we take legitimate rest and relaxation.  But we should try and be aware of those little prods from God, gently reminding us that he’s still there, waiting for us.

I sometimes wonder how bitterly we will regret, in the fires of purgatory, the number of times we failed to answer those little prods.  Meanwhile, let’s not fall into that trap of presumption that makes us content with our current state of “holiness.”  We can never reach perfection, so we must never think we already have.  To do so is to fall into the very sin of pride that actually proves we are not holy!  We think we’ve reached the top of the mountain, where in fact we’re already sliding down that slippery path over the cliff.  

We can't climb the heights of perfection alone.  Someone has to take us up that mountain; either Christ or the devil.    The devil wants to take us up the Mount of Temptation, leading us to either the slippery slope of pride and presumption, or into the quicksand of hopelessness, depression and despair.  But if we follow our Lord we will ascend by the narrow path of suffering to the summit of Calvary.  Only by taking up our cross and denying ourselves can we ever reach that lofty peak, where God will exalt the humble and meek.  Together we stand this week at the crossroads.  Let it be our prayer that we will resolve together to choose the right path, or go our separate ways.