Homily
for November 8, 2020
Thirty-Second
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Good to the Last Drop
It’s funny how your life can change
in an instant with something that seems so small, so insignificant. In 1906, a 12-year-old
Polish boy named Raymond was goofing off at home, playing pranks and just
generally being a nuisance. His mother, exasperated, finally exclaimed, “Raymond!
What is going to become of you?”
For some reason, those words struck
him to the heart. That night as he said his nightly prayers, he asked Our Lady,
“Mary, what is going to become of me?” A moment later, he had a vision
of Mary holding out two crowns: one white, the other red. She asked if he would
accept one – white would mean that he preserved his purity for his entire life,
and red meant that he would die a martyr. Boldly, young Raymond responded, “I
will accept them both.”
A few years later, Raymond joined
the Franciscans and changed his name to Maximilian – and is now known as St.
Maximilian Kolbe, one of the greatest saints of the twentieth century who died
as a martyr for the Faith in Auschwitz.
It was that small comment from his
mother, likely said in frustration and anger, which ended up being a turning point
in his life. His mother probably thought it was a throwaway line – but God used
it to change the entire direction of the boy’s eternity.
Small things can have tremendous
impact. Those virgins who forgot their oil probably thought, “Oh, it’s no big
deal. I’m not going to need much oil anyway.” A small detail. Insignificant,
really. But because of that small decision, they ran out of oil, and
consequently missed the entire celebration.
The oil can be seen as a symbol of grace
and virtue – when we have developed a personal friendship with Christ and are
living for Him and in union with Him, we shine His light as an oil lamp, filled
with oil, shines out. We must make sure our “lamps” (our lives) are filled with
the anointed oil of His grace and our virtue! But that lamp is filled up
drop-by-drop with more oil – every drop matters.
In the same way, in the spiritual
life, there is nothing that is small or insignificant. Every choice we make is
either a choice to draw closer to God or a choice to flee from Him. There aren’t
too many truly neutral choices we make in our daily life. Rather, most choices
move us in a direction – to become more holy or less holy, to become more like
Christ or less like Him. This is obvious for things like sin, which takes us
away from God, or acts of charity which make us closer to Him. But what about
seemingly small daily choices? They matter too!
Let’s take two everyday examples.
First, let’s say you walk past the break room at work, and there’s a box of
donuts just sitting out there. You are torn – you want to keep walking by
because there’s really no reason for you to eat one. You’re not hungry – but
they look tempting. This choice is actually deeper than a donut. It’s a choice
about what will have mastery over you – will you be overcome by your desire for
physical pleasure? Or will you make the difficult but freeing choice to say, “Oh,
I can go without it” and walk past. Now, I’m not saying that it’s a sin to have
a break-room donut – but does it make you a better, stronger, more free, more
virtuous individual if you just give in and indulge? No, of course not – it reinforces
our lower nature and we miss out on a chance to practice the virtue of
temperance.
Here’s another example. We are ready
to relax after dinner and want to watch some TV but we also know we should
spend at least fifteen minutes a day in prayer. We are faced with the choice:
do we put it off and pray later, knowing that we might be too tired by the end
of the day to really give our love and attention to God? Or do we make the
difficult but rewarding choice to give God the prime-time hour and pray before
we relax with TV or Youtube? One choice puts God first and fills us to overflowing
with His divine friendship; the other choice says, “God, I’ll just give You the
leftovers of my day” and we remain pretty empty.
Our Catholic Faith makes a
distinction between a sin and an imperfection. We all know we
need to avoid sins. But to have a real spiritual life, we must also seek to
avoid imperfections. It’s not a sin to eat a donut in the break room; it’s
not a sin to be too tired to pray. But these are imperfections because
they are choosing the less perfect option. These are the small, seemingly-insignificant
choices that are the difference between a saint and an ordinary Christian. The
saint seeks to always choose that which is most perfect, because they know that
God desires that we become fully alive in Him!
One may say, “Oh, but those things
aren’t a big deal!” But they are! To fill up an oil lamp, you have to pour the
oil slowly, carefully, bit by bit. To become a saint, it happens slowly, with small
choices, bit by bit – always seeking to choose the most loving, most sacrificial,
most virtuous option, and always seeking every last drop of God’s grace.
A reporter once asked Mother Teresa,
“How do you do it? How can you pick up tens of thousands of filthy, dying
people from the streets?” She replied, “If I had never picked up the first one,
I would never have picked up the ten thousandth.” In other words, Mother Teresa
became who she was with the small, daily choices to follow Christ. The choices
didn’t look particularly significant or heroic at the time. But gradually, day
by day, she advanced in His grace until she was ready to meet Christ with her
oil lamp overflowing with grace and virtue.
How’s your lamp? Is it filled, or
empty? Have you neglected it, thinking that it’s okay just to avoid “big sins”
while overlooking small imperfections? It’s not too late to fill it up – drop by
drop, choice by choice, until we become ready to meet Christ when He comes for
us.
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