Dear
brothers and sisters,
As
we enter today into this season of penitence, we cry out with King David, “Be
merciful, O God, for we have sinned” (Psalm 51:3). Hearing the Apostle’s plea to “be reconciled
to God,” we come with bowed heads and implore the Lord to spare us (II
Corinthians 5:20; cf. Joel 2:17).
We
know that the mercies of the Lord are greater than any of our sins. Why is it, then, that we place such an
emphasis on our sins today and throughout the season of Lent?
Saint
Augustine teaches us that “sin is not a desire for evil, but a forsaking of
good” (On True Religion, 14.27). In forsaking what is good, we forsake the
Good, we forsake God.
Reflecting
on the consequences of sin, Saint Bonaventure teaches us:
Because all sin
implies movement away from the changeless Good and toward a perishable good;
and movement away from the changeless Good means forsaking supreme power,
truth, and goodness; and movement toward a perishable good means loving that
good excessively: therefore, by losing original justice, man incurred weakness,
ignorance, malice, and concupiscence.
Again, by
forsaking the changeless Good in favor of a perishable good, man becomes
unworthy of both. Hence, by losing
original justice, man in his earthly life loses peace of the body, and is made
to suffer in many ways from decay and death; and at the end of his life is
deprived of the vision of eternal light, losing the beatific glory in both his
body and his soul (Breviloquium,
III.5.4-5).
An
example will help to illustrate with the Seraphic Doctor means by this.
One
warm summer day, I was returning home from a visit with a few friends. I stopped at a gas station and, after filling up,
went inside the store to pay. As soon as
I walked through the door, the cashier said to me, “Will you watch the store? I need to use the restroom?” I was a bit surprised, but I agreed.
As
waited for her to return, my eyes caught sight of a Snickers ice cream bar, one
of the greatest delectables known to man. A thought occurred to me: I could take that bar
and nobody would ever know about it. I justified
the thought in three ways: 1). I was doing her a favor and it is good to be rewarded;
2). It was a hot day and the ice cream would cool me down a bit; and, 3). I was
hungry, and we all know that “Snickers really satisfies.”
 |
| If you haven't had one, you should. But not today; it's a day of fast. |
Certainly
it is good to be rewarded for kind acts; it is good to be cooled on a hot day; and
it is good to have our hunger satisfied, but it is never good to obtain these lesser
goods by committing a sin. I was tempted
to obtain three lesser goods by forsaking that which is fully good, the moral law.
For the record, not only did I not take the ice cream bar, but I also did
not buy one as a small penance.)
In
this Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI has called us to “an authentic and
renewed conversion to the Lord” (Porta
Fidei, 6). If we are to return to
the Lord with our whole hearts, it is good for us to remember that we are dust
and that to dust we shall one day return (cf. Joel 2:2).
Because
of our sin we are indeed unworthy of the Lord, but in his great love for us he
does not wish us to remain so. Whoever
comes before the Lord freely confessing his sins with a desire to make amends
for them will be forgiven and, by God’s grace, be made worthy of him.
Let
us, then, seek to examine our consciences honestly and by the light of the Holy
Spirit. We know that, as Saint
Bonaventure says, “sin consists in either omitting what divine law prescribes,
or committing what it forbids” (Breviloquium,
III.8.2). The Lord Jesus has told us
that the heart of the law is love. “This
is my commandment,” he says, “love one another as I love you” (John
15:12). We must ask the Holy Spirit to
help us see the many ways we have failed to love both God and neighbor, the
times we have forsaken that which is truly good.
Let
us ask the Lord to make us worthy of himself by renewing within us a desire for
God. Today, ever more intently, we beg
the Lord: “Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain
in me” (Psalm 51:14). Amen.
