A STRONG MAN ARMED

 A SERMON FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY IN LENT

“When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace.”

This quotation from the words of our Lord in today’s Gospel forces us to ask ourselves the question, “Am I a strong man armed?  Are my goods in peace?”  What are these goods of which our Lord speaks?  They are sanctifying grace, the presence of the Holy Ghost dwelling within us—in short, our very soul.  For our soul to be in peace, we must be in the state of sanctifying grace.  If we are in that state of grace, we can be at peace because we are strong.  Peace through strength.  We’re armed with all the protective armor of God.  No one can overcome us, because no one is stronger than God, not even the devil himself.  No matter what they do to our mortal bodies, they can never succeed in destroying our souls if they are in the state of grace.

When we slip out of that state of grace by committing a mortal sin, it’s a whole different story.  The Holy Ghost no longer dwells within us.  We are no longer protected from the forces of evil who, perceiving our weakness, proceeds to launch a full attack on us to take us further down the path to destruction.  Our Lord warns us of this: “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace.  But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.”

When we fall into mortal sin, we are deliberately casting out the Holy Ghost from us.  We are telling God we don’t want him, that we prefer our own little pleasures and riches and material benefits.  We are rejecting God’s protection against the evil one, trusting instead in our own ability to take care of our souls.  Manifestly, this isn’t going to work.  In fact, it’s prideful and downright stupid, and totally underestimates the power of the devil.  Satan might not be stronger than we are, providing we have God by our side.  But without God, we become nothing more than insects for him to step on.

Why is it that we human beings don’t seem to be aware of this inconvenient truth?  Because this is the truth—we need God.  The supreme agenda of the world today is to prove that we don’t need God, that God, if he even exists, is not concerned with our protection or even our happiness.  He is the Great Spoiler, the one who lectures us that “thou shalt not” do this or that—all the pleasurable things of life that satisfy our whims and animal appetites, all the things we don’t like being told we mustn’t do.  The world blasphemes in this way, and will go on blaspheming.  Why?  Because it works.  Because the devil knows we want what we want, and he really doesn’t have to work very hard to persuade us to do whatever we want.  He knows full well that simply by giving in to our own inordinate desires to have what we want, we will damn our own souls.  And that, my friends, is his ultimate aim. 

We are in the midst of our Lenten penances, and never before have we needed to be more aware of the value of these penances.  We must joyfully, yes, joyfully offer up these penances to Almighty God, always considering their value in strengthening us as we deprive ourselves of the things we “want.”  Even giving up innocent pleasures, like sugar in our coffee, is meritorious when we discipline our will in this way and subject it to something higher.  Today is a good time to remind ourselves why…

Like all virtues, temperance is something which must be practiced constantly for a length of time before it becomes a virtue we can claim as our own, before we become “virtuous.”  Hopefully, forty days and forty nights will be enough.  If not, though, be careful!  The eventual coming of Eastertide and the joys of the Resurrection should not be our excuse to resume our self-indulgence.  The arduous struggle of Lent is something we shall always have to endure—the devil doesn’t stop tempting us on Easter Sunday, after all.  The season of Lent is our training ground in which we prepare ourselves for the ongoing struggles against the devil, the world, and our fallen human nature.  By denying ourselves the little things, we are meant to adapt the habit of questioning our every action.  Does what I’m about to do satisfy the litmus test of pleasing God?  Or does it perhaps offend God in some way?  Am I doing what God wants me to do, or am I just doing what I want?  Practice makes perfect.

And just in case we happen to think that such self-denial should be confined to the Lenten season, listen to what our Lord says next.  What happens if we make the best Lent ever, but then let our guard down?  If we make our solemn Easter duty and go to confession and Holy Communion, (as the Church demands we must, at least once a year at this time) and then sit back and relax because Lent is over?  Well, our Lord tells us exactly what happens…  “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.”  In other words, the devil has left the soul, recently cleansed in the Sacrament of Penance, renewed in strength by presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.  But the devil isn’t happy.  He liked where he was, thank you very much.  He was content with the idea that you were his, that your soul was heading down to the eternal fire the moment you died.  The devil doesn’t like failure, and your new-found sanctifying grace is like poison to him.  So what does he do?  He comes back to your nice clean soul, “and findeth it swept and garnished.  Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there.”  In other words, he sends for reinforcements and comes back to his old stomping ground in your soul.  And if we aren’t sufficiently practiced in the virtues of abstinence from sin, fortitude in temptation, temperance and moderation in all things, then we are canon fodder on the battlefield.  “And the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

Lent prepares us for this potential catastrophe.  It prepares us by making us constantly aware that there is a higher value to doing God’s will rather than our own, by giving us the opportunity to make our moral choices based on God and not our own base whims and desires.  So let’s continue to make a good Lent.  Let’s redouble our efforts to practice focusing on God, to submit our will to his, and to become utterly solid in our determination never more to fall into temptation.  Only the presence of God in our souls will protect us in this quest.  We must be resolved never to lose him again.