In everything we read today, we should see a pattern – human desires and agendas at odds with God’s teachings and law. The disparity between the physical and temporal versus that of the Spirit and the Holy. It doesn’t get much clearer cut than this – we are, and always have been at odds with Who and what we know to be right, and we spend our lives making excuses and trying to find loopholes to justify our doings.
The very first thing we hear in our first reading, is that the wicked (that’s us) find the Just One to be obnoxious to us, because He does not agree with what we want. How much plainer could this possibly be – we know that He is the Just One, and that his judgements are correct, but we come right out and admit that we find this obnoxious because it goes against our own desires. Yet rather than change our behaviors to what we know to be right, we decide to test the patience of the Just One, to harm Him, and to kill Him. It was all pre-meditated, we had no excuse then, and we have none now. We continue to lay the groundwork for His suffering and the death He endured with every disobedient act we plan, with every sin we commit, and with every rejection of His will that we conjure up to satisfy our own desires. We have not changed at all, we are as unruly now as we were then, and we still have the arrogance to want to put our Lord to the test at every opportunity.
How long will we persist with this? How much longer will we continue to try our own ways instead of listening to what He has taught us, and what we in fact know to be correct even though it goes against our inner desires? Our nature is an undisciplined and unaltered state despite our Lords instruction to us, it is one of envy, jealousy, anger, fear, hatred, and deceit. We simply have not listened. We’ve been trying to make things work using these characteristics almost since time began, and where has it gotten us? We see the fruits of this right now in a world that seems to have gone crazy with its resentments, its violence, its sickness, and its evil that besets all of humanity, but in particular the most vulnerable. This is our creation, and we should not take much pride in it. The very definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result, yet this is our way. We have a world that is rooted in exactly this. It never seems to occur to us to try something that we innately know to be correct, mostly because we find it to be difficult, it requires actual effort on a very fundamental level, and it cannot be avoided – everyone must participate. It means giving up the self, in favor of the good of others. It means taking that first step toward what God teaches us to be – generous, patient, just, kind, loving, and humble. It means admitting we can’t do it our way and expect good results, and so instead bow before God and acknowledge His power and righteousness, and instead of plotting ways to get around it, embrace it fully even when it is uncomfortable because we know that His way is always right.
We cannot possibly do this on our own, part of the humility which we need to embrace means acknowledging our weakness and asking for help. We do this through prayer, we do this through childlike trust and submission to His commands, we do this by seeking and receiving His strength through the sacraments, in particular the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The first to cleanse us and leave us in a state worthy to receive the gift of His body and blood to strengthen us and place actual life within us. There is no other way. No self-help book, no change in perspective or politics, no personal efforts are going to accomplish any of this. It is only through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is no other salvation, there is no other hope, and none is needed because He gave all, He is all, and He is the perfection we claim to seek in times of greater clarity and purity in each of our souls.
Podcast Link
The Deacons Bench 