A SERMON FOR THE 9TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We wake up one morning and we have such grand
ideas of what we’re going to do. We
envisage great projects, ways to improve our lives, make ourselves
happier. Sometimes, our intentions are
truly and supernaturally good, as for instance when we leave the confessional,
firmly resolute that we will not commit those same old sins anymore. Or every year, when we begin the season of Lent,
fIlled with holy zeal and ready to perform great deeds of penance and fasting.
But then, along the way, something happens. It’s usually not some startling epiphany that,
darn it, we’ve had enough, and we’re just going to quit. It more like a gradual reduction of our
enthusiasm, an increasing relaxation of the strictness we apply to ourselves. Little by little, our resistance to
temptation wanes, our zeal to please God fades, and before we even realize
what’s happened, we’re back to our old ways, abandoning ourselves once more to
our former way of life, our newly rediscovered quest for sanctity left to
wither away before it ever begins to bear fruit.
The truth of what happened is this: It started by God giving
us a special grace. The grace of a
desire to love and serve God better, to draw closer to him with the yearning to
make ourselves more worthy of the love he has shown us. The second step was when our mind
corresponded with this grace and gave the necessary instructions to our will,
making the appropriate plans, fully intending to follow God’s will by rising to
meet the inspiration he has given. Then,
finally, when things start getting tough, when the battle against our own poor
fallen nature begins to rage like the true war it is, we lose enthusiasm and take
a step back.
Remember the brave firefighters and police officers who
walked into the flames on 9/11 to save lives, only to die themselves. Are we consumed by the same zeal for duty
towards God as they were to their fellow human beings? It’s not so much that we are cowards, fearing
the flames and destruction that face us.
Fear would at least be a better excuse for turning back. But what is there to fear in doing penance
and showing God our respect and love?
No, it’s sadly worse than that.
It’s more like we’re standing at the foot of those burning towers of the
World Trade Center and deciding we just can’t be bothered climbing all those
steps to the top. Sure, we might start,
and go up a couple of floors. But by the
second or third week of Lent, we look up and see how much further we still have
to go, and just give up. Simple
laziness? Lack of will power? Call it what you will, but it’s not enough
and not worthy of our calling.
We see this over and over again in the Old Testament, when
God gave countless graces to his chosen people and they’re good for a
while. Just a short while. Look at all the ways God helped the Hebrew
people escape the slavery of Egypt: the ten plagues, the parting of the Red
Sea, the feeding of the people in the wilderness with manna from heaven… They
were very happy to take God’s gifts, but as soon as they started getting hot or
hungry or frightened or bored, or whenever difficulties arose, they complained,
they misbehaved, they even melted down their earrings and built a golden calf
to worship. St. Paul reminds the Jews of
their feckless behavior in today’s Epistle: “The people sat down to eat and
drink, and rose up to play.” And in the
New Testament, as we see in this morning’s Gospel, the chosen people continued
their wicked ways, turning the temple of Jerusalem from a house of prayer into
a den of thieves.
This kind of behavior displeases God. In human terms, we may say that it provokes him
to sadness and even anger. He is especially
unhappy with us when we actually dare congratulate ourselves for our good
intentions alone, intentions that are never brought to fruition. We’re very proud of ourselves when we come up
with a list of all the things we’ve given up for Lent, but we push it as far
from our conscience as we can when we cheat on ourselves and find an excuse to
sneak a quick break from the penance. These
secret relapses do not go unnoticed by the all-seeing eye of God. And instead of being his beloved subjects, we
are now nothing more than a disappointment to him.
This is why, when our Lord comes near unto Jerusalem in
today’s Gospel, he beholds the city and weeps over it. He weeps because the Jews, his beloved chosen
people, are missing the greatest opportunity of all, the highest grace ever
given man, the realization that they have, dwelling in their midst, the Word
made flesh. With this grace comes their
invitation to accept what he offers them, a New and Everlasting Covenant drawn
up in the Precious Blood of their Messiah.
How many of them saw the miracles, the healings, of our Lord, but failed
to realize what they meant? How many of
them heard his teachings but failed to apply them to their own lives? For many of the Jews, these all-important
truths were hidden from their eyes because of their hardened hearts, because of
the attachment to their sins, their open defiance of the law of charity. But unfortunately, for so many more, the
failure to accept their Messiah was based on the same lack of zeal, the same
laziness of spirit, that affects so many of us today and prevents us from
becoming the saints we belong being.
This kind of lukewarmness saddened the soul of our Lord so
much that he sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane over mankind’s
indifference to his sacrifice. Even his
three most beloved apostles did nothing but fall asleep as he sweat that blood
in his anguish. We are no better.
Let’s look to our own hearts.
We may not be great saints. But
dwelling in that heart of ours, if we are in the state of grace is God
himself. Our heart is the temple of the
Holy Ghost. Just as Christ our Lord
dwelled with his chosen people all those many years ago, he dwells today in the
divine form of the Holy Ghost within us.
And Jesus beholds us, just as he beheld the Holy City of Jerusalem, and
he weeps as he beholds us. For have we
truly known the time of our visitation?
Do we act on the inspirations of that Holy Ghost within our soul? Or have we turned that temple of the Holy
Ghost from a House of Prayer into a Den of Thieves? Have we desecrated our temple by letting in
those thieves, those seven deadly sins, which would steal away our commitment
to holiness by replacing them with an ever-greater attachment to our own
self-interest, our own happiness and smug self-satisfaction?
Let’s not forget that just a few years after the Agony in the
Garden, the Holy City of Jerusalem was utterly destroyed by the Romans. The people of the city were laid even with
the ground, and their children with them.
Not one stone was left upon another.
And why? Because they knew not
the time of their visitation. Let’s not
forget this, that after God is done being “sad”, he will wreak out his wrath
upon us. He will look upon our
desecrated temple that should have been the Temple of the Holy Ghost, and he
will turn the anger of his judgment upon us.
Is this what we have to look forward to when we die, just because we
can’t be bothered to be holy?
Surely, and especially in light of the times we live in, it
is time to do something about it. To
realize once and for all that when God gives us the grace to make us want to
become better men and women, it isn’t a game that has no consequences. We must act on those graces, and continue
acting on them, never failing in our initial enthusiasm but persevering in the
face of all adversity, hardship, lack of fervor, and whatever other temptations
try to lead us off the path. Hopefully, for
us to persevere, it is enough for us to know we wound the Sacred Heart of Jesus
by our spinelessness. But if not, then
surely we will be moved by the fear of his wrath. Our infinitely merciful Saviour is also,
let’s remember, infinitely just. Our
Judge will weep for us, but he will also one day drive us out of the House of
God once and for all unless we keep coming back to him with renewed fervor and
love. “Let him that thinketh he standeth
take hede lest he fall.”
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