If Sin is the Smell, Prayer is Fresh Air

From wanton sin especially, restrain your servant; let it not rule over me. Then shall I become blameless and innocent of serious sin.  

That’s Psalm 19:14, and it brings out a couple of topics we would all really rather not talk about: temptation and sin.  Even though we don’t like talking about temptation and sin, it is eternally important that we do so.  We have to be honest with ourselves, because in life we all face this every day. There’s no doubt that we all fall to temptation and commit sins, I’m sorry to say, regularly.  We are weak, there’s no way around that.  Jesus knows this as well, and out of his great love for us, stands as our defense against sin taking over and dominating our lives.

For our part, we have to continually grow closer to Jesus, fully aware that there will be strong opposition to this and that building and strengthening our relationship with Jesus is something we must make a priority in our life, not just an afterthought.  We must recognize that the devil, the world, and possibly even some of our own misguided family and friends may lead us away from the Lord, often doing so unknowingly by their example or opinions.  We don’t have to look very hard or very far to find temptation; it’s everywhere. 

There is, of course, no sin in the temptation or the attraction to sin, but sin comes into our life when we fall to temptation and make the personal decision to choose evil over good, wrong over right, the desires of our flesh over God’s spirit of peace and love.  Sin comes from our actions, not our attractions.  

In our second reading, St. James condemns the actions of those rich who are living in luxury and pleasure while at the same time have withheld the wages of their workers who are suffering and crying out to God for help.  St. James gives a great description of their sin in a metaphor saying, “Your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire.”  St. James is talking about the testimony that will be given to God about each one of us when we die and face him for judgement.  In addition, he speaks of the place that will devour flesh like a fire (which is hell).  The place reserved for those who have lived a life of sin, focused on Me, Myself, and I, instead of God and neighbor.  This is what happens to those who reject the Lord, knowingly commit serious sins, and die with unrepentant mortal sin on their soul.  

Now for the good news: it doesn’t have to be that way.  God doesn’t want it to be that way, and he gives each one of us the free will to choose to live according to his will or not.  He is calling us to repentance, he is calling us to holiness, he is calling us to actively share in his divine life, and freely offers these gifts to us every day, just as he freely died for us on the cross.  

So what’s wrong with us? Why do we so often actually choose to reject God’s love and embrace evil and sin?  Of course, we all suffer from concupiscence, which is the tendency to sin that we inherited as a result of the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve.  But if we know this, if we know we are easily tempted, why don’t we do something about it?  Why don’t we cry out to the Lord for his guidance, mercy, strength, and support?  

From personal experience, as a sinner myself, it’s clear that much of the time, the reason we willingly choose sin over righteousness is because the righteousness of God, the teachings of Jesus and his Church, and the Will of God sometimes conflict with our will or what we want to do, what is right in our opinion.  Other times, we fall to sin because the sin we commit brings us some sort of pleasure or instant gratification. In other words, we kind of like it, even if it’s bad for us.  We may feel terrible after committing the sin, but are not willing to humble ourselves, surrender to the Lord, and come to him and ask his forgiveness.  Once we become regularly involved in any sort of sinful activity, with the subtle encouragement of the enemy, we can become desensitized to our sins.  We’ve been doing it for so long that we don’t even recognize it as a sin anymore.  We downplay it and can even convince ourselves that it isn’t a sin at all.  Sometimes we blame it on others, our circumstances, or even God, reasoning that God’s standards are just too difficult or unrealistic for us.  

A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, I was heading home after serving at the Spanish Mass and I turned on RED-C Catholic Radio.  The best of Mother Angelica was playing, and she was talking about the topic of how we can become desensitized to our sin.  She told a story about going to visit her old friend Martha, who she hadn’t seen in years.  Mother Angelica arrived at Martha’s house and knocked on the door.  As soon as Martha opened the door this powerful stench just slapped her in the face, and she said, “Martha what’s that terrible smell?”  Matha said, “What smell? I don’t smell anything, come on in.”  Mother Angelica stepped into the house and noticed that there were cats everywhere.  They were coming out of the woodwork.  She said, “Martha, that’s the smell, it’s those cats, how many cats do you have in this house?”  Matha said, “Mother don’t be silly. My cats don’t smell and my house smells fine.”  Mother Angelica went on to explain that her friend had been so immersed in that overpowering cat smell for so long that she couldn’t smell it at all.  As far as she was concerned it didn’t even exist.  Mother Angelica said, “That’s exactly how sin works in our life.”  When we’re involved in it all the time, eventually it becomes so normal to us that we can’t smell it anymore!  That’s why we need to clean our house regularly through the Sacrament of Confession.

In the Gospels, Jesus talks a lot about sins, sinning, and what we should do about sin in our lives.  By the way Jesus is talking, it seems as though he is being really hard on us, but that’s not it at all.  Jesus loves us more than we can imagine, and he wants us to clearly understand that our personal choices have consequences.  He makes some bold statements, which can be quite confusing like, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.  And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”  

But does Jesus literally want us to pluck out our eye or cut off our hand or foot if it causes us to sin?  Of course not, Jesus doesn’t want us to mutilate ourselves.
What he is trying to say in all these statements is that nothing is worth going to hell over.  That we should come to him, trust in him, abide in him, and live a life according to his will, not our will or the ways of the world. In doing so, we will find happiness, holiness, and ultimately heaven.  Not as a reward for being good enough or trying hard enough, but by humbling ourselves and surrendering to God’s love, allowing him to lead us along his narrow way. It is not easy, because his way is now (and was in his time) counter to the culture.  I mean look what happened to Jesus and his Apostles for speaking the truth.

Concerning speaking the truth, Jesus addresses this in the Gospels as well.  He said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  But in the eyes of God, who are “these little ones” Jesus is speaking of?  From a human sense, we might think that these “little ones” would only be young innocent children, but in God’s eyes, we are all his young innocent children.  So it doesn’t matter if a person we encounter is 10 years old or 100 years old, leading them to sin is dangerous to our soul.  Leading or encouraging someone to sin could be done by our actions, by our example, or even our inaction by ignoring a sinful direction we observe someone headed and not trying to help them.  Make no mistake, as Christians, our words and actions have a greater influence on others than we will ever know.  Think about this: if Jesus is that upset and the consequences so great if we cause others to sin, can you imagine how joyful he is when we lead someone away from sin and directly to his loving heart?  

Brothers and sisters, in some ways, living the Christian life, as God is calling us to live, could be compared to striving to be a great athlete, a successful student, or an example of excellence at any profession or hobby.  To be our best, it takes hard work, study, and sacrifice.  But the Christian life is more important than any worldly ambition or success, because it determines where we will spend eternity.  If we fail at it, our life here on earth will not be the beautiful life God wants us to have, and even worse, we risk losing eternal life with him in heaven.  

While living as God calls us to does require hard work, study, commitment, and consistency, for our life in Christ to grow and flourish, these are by no means the most important things required in the Christian life. What’s essential to growing in our relationship with the Lord are things like humility, surrender, repentance, prayer, self-denial, and works of mercy.  We must give ourselves to the Lord, body, mind, and soul daily and receive his grace through the sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Confession often.  This is how an unwavering faith in Jesus grows and flourishes in us even in the difficulties, messiness, trials, tribulations, and temptations of life.  This is the way because Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  

My friends, if we consistently spend time with the Lord, enveloping ourselves in the love of Christ, little by little, by his grace, he will change our hearts, and the influence of the enemy over us, while not completely eliminated, will be greatly reduced.  Prayer gives us the spiritual strength and courage needed to choose life over death, good over evil, and eternal happiness with God in heaven over eternal pain and sorrow with Satan in hell.  

Every day of our life, God gives us the freedom to choose to live according to his will or not.  Because of the eternally positive consequences of choosing God and the eternally negative consequences of not choosing God, it seems that the choice would be easy.  However, in a fallen world filled with fallen people like us, it may be simple, but it’s never easy.  We must recognize that the spiritual battles we face when we make Jesus the most important person in our life are real and are strong.  But focusing our life on Jesus is the only way to reach what our ultimate goal in life should be, to become a saint.  Just in case you haven’t heard it put that way before, becoming a saint means to go to heaven, because everyone in heaven has been perfectly purified and is a saint.

Pope St. John Paul II once said, “Freedom is not the ability to do anything we want, whenever we want.  Rather, FREEDOM is the ability to live responsibly the truth of our relationship with God and with one another.”  Living in this freedom is how we become saints; it’s how we get to heaven.  Unrepentant sin can steal that freedom from us.  That doesn’t mean we’re going to be perfect, we’re not capable of doing that anyway.  It means that by living in God’s freedom, daily, we can reach a place in our relationship with Jesus where when we sin, we recognize it, feel sorrow for it, seek forgiveness from God, do penance, and then change our ways or repent, going forward in life striving to do better. We choose to grow closer to Jesus every day, even when it’s hard, stressful, painful, or embarrassing for us to do so.  Remember, we should never be ashamed to live the Gospel. Holiness is not a spectator sport.  We can’t stand on the sideline lukewarm. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ: let’s get holy…. or die trying! I don’t know about you, but I’m good with that.    

Amen