Some of the Last Things

In this week’s Gospel from Mark Jesus is real serious about the magnitude of sin.  As Christians we believe that “God is love” (c.f. 1 Jn. 4:8) and that “God is good” (c.f. Ps. 100:5).  We also believe that sin is evil and it must be avoided (c.f. 1 Thess. 5:22), because sin is contrary or better put, opposite of God.

Jesus understands that sin wounds and could lead to death (the possibility of separation from God).  No sin is good for us, though we fool ourselves into thinking so.  For even sin, as St. Augustine says, “seems like a good,” at least for a while anyway, until the Holy Spirit convicts us, which is a good thing.  So today, I thought could be a great teaching moment, on sin, hell, and judgment.  There seems to be so much confusion regarding these theological topics, some go way too far, some don’t go far enough, while some don’t even care.

The Church teaches that there are two types of sin, venial and mortal.  Venial sin is a sin that wounds our relationship with God.  Mortal sin is a sin that breaks our relationship with God.  All sin whether venial or mortal is freely chosen by us.  God never causes us to sin. 

“No one experiencing temptation should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one. Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.” (James 1:13-15, NABRE)

Jesus is very adamant about the seriousness of sin, “if your arm causes you to sin cut it off.”  He is not being literal, since self mutilation would be a grave sin.  Rather, Jesus is trying to make a point that all sin is contrary to God and life.

But let’s get back to mortal sin for a moment.  There seems to be a great misunderstanding regarding mortal sin.  There are some who think many sins are mortal and then there are some who believe that hardly any are.  When we speak of grave sin we are talking about sins such as murder, adultery, apostasy (to renounce or formally abandon one’s faith), blasphemy (refusal of forgiveness or a serious transgression against the work of God), slander, to defame, to perjurer oneself, and there are more.  And yet, for these grave sins to be mortal three conditions must be present.

1)    The person must know the sin is grave

2)    The person has to freely choose it, i.e. a person’s free will is not being effected such as in the case of an addiction

3)    The sin actually is grave matter

If one or more of these conditions are not fully present then the sin is not mortal.  The greater question of curiosity for us is, “have I committed these sins?”  The possibility exists.  However, when a person lives a genuine faith, I say that it is improbable that a person would commit a mortal sin, because in the end when a person commits a mortal sin it is not only the sin they are committing but also openly rejecting God and the life of a being a Christian.  Again, one could do this, commit a sin that is mortal and constitutes a separation from God.  Scripture is clear,

If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:26-27, NABRE) and from St. Paul, “You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4, NABRE)

We can sin deliberately and fall from grace, even those who have faith, but it is not a sin of impulse, rather it is one that is premeditated and done regardless of what God asks of us.  It is also a turning from God himself.  The same decision that goes into following God is the same decision that goes into not following him.

To be clear, there is a mortal sin and we can choose it, it’s just not as easy as many people think, especially for those who have given themselves to God, the ones who live their faith genuinely.  I can’t stand when priests say, “Make sure you get to mass on Holy Days and Sundays otherwise you are in a state of mortal sin.”  How do they know this and who are they saying it to?  No one knows the human heart except for God.  I do not know if you have committed a sin that separates you from God unless you tell me and even then the three conditions must be met.  Also we are preaching to the choir, we are telling the people who do come to mass not to miss!

There is also great confusion with hell.  What is it?  Do people burn there for all eternity?  Is there a hell?  How can God send someone there?  I won’t answer them all, but there is a hell and basically it is eternal separation from God freely chosen by the person, i.e. God gives to us what we chose.  The problem is that some argue, “how can God let us chose hell, isn’t that harsh?”  God respects our free will.  He will do everything in his power to influence us towards the good and towards him, and will even give us the strength to do so, but we still have to say yes.

Hell is described as eternal fire because the torment of knowing we are separated from God for all eternity is hard to describe or even imagine, so, describing it as eternal burning makes the point.

When it comes to being judged by God all of us will face him and face him twice, the first time is the immediate judgment and the second time the final judgment or the judgment of the nations.  When we die we face Christ immediately, “Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment . . .” (Hebrews 9:7).  The second time is the final judgment when Jesus will separate the goats from the sheep, c.f. Matthew 25:31-46.  The most important thing with judgment is that Jesus is the only one who will be doing the judging, not us, never us, and thank God not us!  This does not mean, however, that we cannot judge acts.  We must keep order and justice.  If a person commits a crime they are to be served justice, but we can make no mortal judgment determining who can be forgiven or who cannot.

This week’s homily is a tough one, Jesus delivers a message on the horror of sin, and all sin is horror when you think of it.  We must do everything with the grace God gives us to build up virtue and holiness in our lives, not in order to avoid hell, but to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  St. Paul talks about becoming slaves, the slavery to sin is death and loss of freedom, slavery to righteousness is life and freedom.  Think when you do something good or overcome a temptation, think of how good you feel, how truly free you are, and think now of the opposite, the crummy feeling we have when we do sin, we then feel guilt and shame. 

What then is the Good News Father?  Well, the Good News is this, God is patient, he is forgiving even when we sin mortally, and most of all he desires that we all make it to be with Him.  That is the Good News, God giving us life, grace, and the ability to be free – to be holy.  Therefore go and sin no more.

FJ

PS  You still have to get to mass every Sunday and Holyday of Obligation :)

Who is the Greatest

           All of us always want to know, “Who is the greatest.”  I think it is safe to say that we not only want to know “Who is the greatest,” but actually “Wanting to become the greatest,” is woven deep in our human nature.

          Think of how we want to know, “Who was the greatest president of all time?”  The answer for the most part falls between two individuals, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We also want to know who is the greatest most successful business man or woman, again usually coming down to people like Bill Gates, the recently deceased Steve Jobs and now Mark Zuckerberg.  I remember arguing with a good friend who was a huge Beatles fan that the Rolling Stones were better than the Beatles.  I also remember arguing over sports teams and athletes.  We all wanted to know who was the best, was Joe Monatana the best quarter back ever or was it Johnny Unitas, or even now, Tom Brady.  That’s why we have championships, grade point averages, beauty contests for Miss America, and on and on.

          It is not only knowing or arguing who may be the best, but the desire in each one of us to be the greatest.  How many times have we laid in bed dreaming that I can be the next Steve Jobs, or Joe Montana or Miss America?  Dreams are good so long as they motivate and not just remain dreams.  I think the question the Apostles ask among themselves is a good one, “Which one of us is the greatest?”  Even St. Paul says, “out do one another in holiness.”  C.f. Rom 12:9. 

          God has given us this drive to be the best that we can, to become the greatest, but He gave us this drive not for self satisfaction but for the betterment of society – for service.

          Society since the time of the Apostles has not changed because man is still weak at times and will look to serve himself.  How can I get the beautiful house, with the beautiful fence, with the large automobile, with the beautiful wife?  I believe we just had a Talking Heads moment!  Anyway, we fall into this trap of “what about me.”  I therefore look to make myself happy, with things, with people, and the way to get more of them is to be successful – to be great.  Jesus warns against this.  He does not warn them “not to be great” but to be humble and to serve.  "If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all." 

          When we think of greatness why do we always fall back to, Miss America, one of the Presidents, or a Football Quarterback.  Should we rather not fall back to people like Mother Teresa or John Paul II.  These folks were greatness personified, because of their selfless acts of genuine kindness and work for others.  Not that Miss America, or the Presidents, or the QB are not good people, they may be more holy than us, but we shift greatness only to visible success and popularity, sometimes to the amount of things we have.  Mother Teresa had nothing and yet she had absolutely everything.  John Paul II may have lived in a palace, but in his mind he was always working in a field, God’s field.

          The twelve apostles truly became great, well renowned even, and still so 2,000 years later.  Somehow I doubt that many of those we deem great now will be remembered that long.  So why the apostles, why has their greatness come down through the generations?  Because they were just like you and me, they were ordinary hard working folks, but what sets them apart is that they served others all the time, even those that hated them and they served them with the greatest gift of all, their very blood – their very life, and no one forgets that greatness!  Let it be a greatness that we also strive for!

FJ

Praised and Humbled

One minute we are on top of the world, the next minute we find ourselves at the bottom of the gutter.  St. Peter found himself in both situations in less than 60 seconds.  When Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter replies, “You are the Christ.”  He was like that student who is eager to raise his hand, get the answer right and then be acknowledged in front of the entire class.   That kind of enthusiasm needs to be encouraged and applauded.   And yet, that kind of enthusiasm also needs humility, unless one’s head blows up.   A lesson Peter learns within the next minute. 

Jesus begins to tell his disciples, “That the Son of Man must suffer greatly . . . and be killed.”  Peter then rebukes Jesus for talking such nonsense and the Good Lord responds to Peter, “Get behind me Satan: You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do.”  One minute Peter is praised for his answer and within that minute he is also humbled for the wrong answer.

Now, we may not have experienced being praised and shot down within a minute and I am sure this scene may have taken longer than 60 seconds, but you get the point.  All of us like or love receiving praise.  It helps us to feel affirmed, wanted, respected, that we belong, that we are doing well, etc.  No one likes to be humbled; it makes us feel small, that we have not done so well, and we question ourselves and our own ability.  We forget, however, that when humbled we learn so much and it helps us to become a man – a woman, grown up, disciplined, strong and of good character, resolve, and teaches perseverance.

The Lord teaches us these lessons so that we can become mature – to learn, and to become “good.”  Society, however, shies away from this kind of learning, “becoming humble or to be humbled.”  Culture has changed, in the past people had toughness about them and they taught this toughness to their children by helping them to become humble, but something has shifted in our culture.  For example, twenty years ago if a young boy or girl got in trouble in school, they were also in trouble at home, the teacher was right 99.5% of the time.  Somewhere that shifted.  If that same student today got in trouble in school or was humbled by a teacher, coach, or mentor, they would not be in trouble at home, for the most part, and often times the parent\s will come to the school to plead the child’s case, i.e. the teacher is too rough, too hard on my child.

The problem here is that we don’t let kids grow up no more.  Maybe it was a little extreme in my day, I had tough teachers and coaches (all of whom were excellent), but the pendulum has definitely swung to other extreme – that now a child is protected from all constructive criticism and a child is not allowed to hear that he or she needs to work harder or that it was his or her fault, that they failed the test, or their team lost the game – which was not their fault but their coach’s fault.  We don’t let them grow up.  It’s not just the kids; we don’t want to grow up either.  I do not like to receive constructive criticism or to be humbled.  I can only imagine what Peter felt like to be lifted up one moment in front of the others and then to be shot down the very next in front of the others.  The good honest question here is, did that lesson help him or hurt him?  I think we can all agree that it helped him, especially since it was the Lord who was the teacher.  So, the question can go further, do lessons like that help us or do they hurt us?  I think, again, we can all agree that they help.  If so, then they can help our children as well.  Let them be humbled, whether it is in the classroom, on the field, with their friends, from the neighbors, don’t worry, they are made of tough stuff, they’ll get over it, we did.

I’ll share with you a scene from the movie “Gettysburg” which was taken from Michael Shaara’s “Killer Angels.”  The scene involved General Robert E. Lee reprimanding his Calvary Commander General Jeb Stuart.  Stuart was to have been relaying troop movements back to Lee prior to entering Gettysburg, this he did not do for whatever reasons, it left the Southern army blind.  When Lee finally met with Stuart he told him, “It is the opinion of some very fine officers that you have let us all down, you were to be our eyes, but you left us blind.  It was only by God’s grace that we survived.”  This was a terrible blow to Stuart, especially since he was considered a great Calvary Commander, and to have Lee lose faith in him was more than he could handle.  Stuart is shook up, he begins to relinquish his sword and rank, when Lee slams his fist on the table saying, “There is no time for that, there is no time, a mistake has been made, it will not be made again, you are one of the finest officers in this army, I know your quality, you must take what you have learned here and learn from it like a man learns.”  This is a powerful scene to see on film as well as to read that of Stuart coming home full of glory and soon afterward humbled.  I pray that I too can continue to learn like a man does, because the lessons of dealing with praise of others are good, but learning humility is better.

If you’d like to see the scene check it out on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtX7veX5Lko

FJ

Lord Heal Me, Heal Me Now

In this Sunday’s Gospel from St. Mark we see that Jesus opened that which was closed, “. . . he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Be opened.’”  Jesus heals the deaf man and opens his ears and also opens and loosens his tongue from his speech impediment.  This is a wonderful miracle.  Imagine for a moment, whether deaf from birth or turning deaf sometime in your life and then to have your hearing either restored or given to you, wow!

All of us crave for this kind of healing, all of us want to be made whole, and all of us regardless of age suffer at least some small impediment or large one.  Human beings  struggle right from birth, some have severe allergies, prone to many colds, some are born or acquire terrible diseases from youth, others grow sick with age.  On and on we can go with our problems and sufferings.  Therefore, all of us crave a little healing.

Healing, however, comes in many ways, but usually centers on body, mind, and spirit.  Jesus wants to heal us completely, not just from physical imperfections, but even imperfections in our faith lives which touches the spirit and mind.  Yet, we are not always ready for healing.  There are things that hold us back.

St. Augustine is well known for saying, “God heal me, but not yet.”  How true that saying is.  All of us struggle with being closed, just like the deaf person, however, being deaf or becoming deaf is not a choice, for the most part, but being closed to God’s healing of spirit is a choice.

Sin is to be closed.  I close myself off from Truth.  There are truths about me that I am not willing to accept, because I have chosen to live the way I do and it seems good to me or justified, however, it is my own justification.  This state of being is one that is closed and for Jesus to open what is closed will take plenty of grace and finally my acceptance of Truth and opening myself.

Opening oneself is scary, because it forces me to humble myself, to become vulnerable, and to give ultimate trust to someone besides myself, in this case, Jesus.  But why not trust him, Mark himself writes, “He has done all things well.  He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  If Jesus can control nature itself, can he not help me spiritually?  That is unless I believe I need no help.  Yet, we do need help.  So instead of, “Lord heal me, but not yet,” why not and simply, “Lord, heal me, heal me now.”

FJ