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The Purification Required for Holiness
Homily
Today the second Sunday of Advent, we will discuss the purification required to attain holiness. Before doing this, however, it must be noted, that there are some people who have given up completely on the pursuit of holiness. It seems like something too lofty, too exalted for them to achieve. The paradox is, that they are right: it is impossible for any of us to attain holiness. Yet it is our duty on earth. It is God who can do all things; as the Angel said to Mary, “For God, none of what he says is impossible.” I therefore encourage all to not give up the effort, for the stream is against us and if we don’t resist it, and we don’t fight upstream, what hope can we have? So whatever you do, don’t give up, and don’t loose heart in your fight to become like Christ. The scriptures today point out to us what we are to do regarding the three enemies of our soul, namely, pride, sensuality and greed. A small plant in a forest could be killed by various things, perhaps by sickness from within, deformity in its growth, or being trampled or devoured by other things in the forest. Sickness, deformity and being devoured compare to sensuality, pride and greed. First, to remedy our wayward hearts which chase after greed, after money and power, John the Baptist cries out, “Make straight the path.” For straight is the road to the kingdom of heaven, and it is narrow. Wander but a bit, and we won’t achieve our end. Second, to remedy our base inclinations to sensuality, St. John the Baptist tells us to fill in the valleys. For by our sensuality, we not only turn to the earth, but we move towards becoming less than the earth, going deep below even it. The comfort of the body, the pleasures of carnal intimacies, the laziness in how we use our time and leisure and work, all these things debase us. It is hard to live in the world and enjoy the things of the world in a way that is pleasing to God. Even today, there are many who say that anything goes, that there was a time when the Church saw the world and the flesh as evil, but now we are more enlightened, and we know the Church was wrong. Well, the Church has never held that the world and the flesh are evil; God created and designed these things, and all he does is in the beginning good. Yet for fallen man, these things are continual sources of temptations, and we have to be vigilant less we fall. We are vigilant by a life of austerity, with much fasting and little television, with good use of our time in constructive forms of work and leisure, of prayer and service to our neighbor. Third, to remedy our pride, he tells us to level the mountains. The mountain represents our pride, by which we exalt ourselves over other men, we think too highly of our own judgment, we admire ourselves and think we are far more good and holy than we really are. We need to mercilessly level this mountain. But St. John the Baptist then adds more: he says, make the winding path straight, and the rough path smooth. It is as if after much work in our spiritual lives, the work we have done has not made a perfect road. This is a call to all who work deeply on their spiritual lives, to never think it is over. There is always much, much room for improvement. Then comes another important teaching for us to begin working on our holiness this Advent in a more serious way. You will notice that the one who comes down this road is the Lord. Sometimes we think that progressing in holiness is all up to us. This is a heresy [discuss Pelagius]. We fall easy into this heresy, because it seems to contain some grain of truth: we can’t become holy, unless we muster up a lot of courage and work very hard. But we do these things only to collaborate with God. The one who travels the road of holiness is God, and we only prepare his way. My prayer for all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, with whom I am a Catholic, and for whom I am a priest, is the same as St. Paul’s in the reading today from Philippians: “May the one who began a good work in you continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus,” until his second coming. For him to complete it, you only need to persevere [all to win/ all to loose]. [Invoke Mary, Joseph.] |