Homily for Lent 4
March 10, 2024
God So Loved The World
In 2008,
a Catholic father of seven from Virginia named Thomas VanderWoude was working
out in his yard, when he noticed he hadn’t seen his youngest son Joseph in some
time. Joseph had Downs’ Syndrome, so it was always frightening when he couldn’t
be found. Quickly running through the yard, Thomas discovered that the ground
on top of his septic tank had collapsed, and his son had fallen through.
Without
a second thought, Thomas jumped in and held his disabled son’s head above the
sewage for over fifteen minutes, calling for help all the while. They were both
eventually rescued, with Joseph having survived – but Thomas had lost his life,
drowning to save his son.
What
heroism! What love-in-action! And what a perfect representation of the Gospel!
For when
we were drowning in the sewage and filth of our sins, our good Father looked
down and did not merely extend a hand. No, He was willing to jump into the
sewage and lift us up to the life of grace, dying for us that we might live.
For God so loved the world that He did not stay aloof, but “took on” the penalty
of sin, although sinless Himself.
But some
of us prefer swimming in sewage. As the Gospel testifies, “Men preferred the
darkness to the light.” Why is that?
For
some, it’s all they’ve ever known. Until you have tasted the sweetness of a
clean conscience and peace with God, we have no concept of how good it is to
seek holiness. A man once made a very difficult Confession of some very serious
sins to a priest, and afterward he was filled with such joy that he wept, and
he said to the priest, “For ten years I assure you I have lived in Hell, but
now I feel such joy that I do not think I can feel more joy in Heaven.”
For
some, they stay in sin because they are afraid to give up their idols, as they
think they need it to be happy. One day Blessed Giles, one of the early
followers of St. Francis, was speaking with a renowned and wealthy judge. The
future saint said, “Do you believe that the gifts of God are great?” The judge
said, “Yes, I have great faith in the goodness of God.” Blessed Giles replied,
“No, you do not believe that, and I can prove it. How much are you worth?” The
judge was curious and thought for a moment, saying, “My property is worth a
thousand gold pieces.” The monk replied, “Would you be willing to give up all
your property in exchange for a hundred thousand gold pieces?” “Of course, that
would be a profitable exchange,” said the judge. The holy man replied, “But
surely you would agree that the things of Heaven that Christ promised us are
far greater than the things on earth. So why would you set your heart on the
things of this earth, instead of exchanging them for the far greater things of
Heaven?”
Those
“greater things” – possessing Christ – comes through belief in Him…and all that
it means to believe in Him. Recently I was questioning a mother about why she
insisted her son should come to religious education when they never went to
Mass, and she said something revealing: “Oh, I just want my son to have his
faith in case he needs to rely upon it.” Huh, interesting – so Jesus is just in
our back pockets in case something bad happens? That’s not the saving faith
that Christ speaks of. Because if we have faith in Christ, and He says that He
is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then He is king of our whole life, not just
the God in our back pocket when things go wrong. A lot of people like the Jesus
Who is conveniently close to them when bad stuff happens, or when they need
some sentimentality on Christmas and Easter, but not too many of them love the
Jesus Who demands that they abandon their sin and conform their lives to Him in
holiness.
But the
good news is that if we truly abandon our sin, His mercy can make us genuinely
new. Martin Luther used the horrible example of a heap of manure covered in
snow. He said that Jesus leaves us like manure but covers us in His
righteousness so that the Father doesn’t see our sin, He only sees Jesus’
mercy. But we as Catholics don’t believe that at all – our sin is not just
“covered over” but completely gone, completely wiped away! We’re not just
rescued from drowning in the sewage, we are cleaned off, given new clothes, and
allowed to dwell in the mansions of Heaven! I can testify that this new life in
Christ overflows in freedom and joy.
Once a
young man made a difficult Confession to St. Francis de Sales. Afterward, the
saint encouraged the young man, saying how proud he was of him. But the young
man replied, “You’re just saying that, because you know what a miserable wretch
I am.” St. Francis de Sales responded, “You were a miserable wretch, but
now you are a man of holiness!” That is how completely transformed we can be –
truly sons and daughters of God.
So what
must we do? Our Gospel gives us two things. First, we must confess our sins and
be willing to truly turn from them. Don’t wait – come to Confession! Make a new
start! It is the way that Jesus Himself established to pour out His boundless
mercy on us. Jesus once spoke to St. Faustina and said, “Tell souls where they
are to look for solace, that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy [the Sacrament of
Reconciliation]. There the greatest miracles take place [and] are incessantly
repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a
great pilgrimage, or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come
with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to Him one's misery,
and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were souls like a
decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint there would be no [hope of]
restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The
miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full.”
Second,
we must acknowledge Jesus as Lord and begin to live accordingly. Not a Divine
Butler Jesus Who stays out of the way until you need Him, but the One Who has a
right to rule over every aspect of your life: your work, your school, your
friends, your conversations, the media you consume, your relationship with your
spouse, even your thoughts and affections. They are His – are you living like
they are His?
God so
loved the world that, instead of abandoning us to the filth of sin, chose to
enter our filthy world to lift us up to the new life of the children of God. He
offers us a better way to live, in the light and not the darkness. Abandon the
darkness; confess your sins; believe that He is King of all.
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