Daily Retreat 03/26/06

2006 Mar 26 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT.

2 Chr 36: 14-16. 19-23/ Ps 136(137): 1-2. 3. 4-5. 6 (6ab)/ Eph 2: 4-10/ Jn 3: 14-21

From today’s readings: "Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send His messengers to them, for He had compassion on His people and His dwelling place.... Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you.... God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ.... For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. "

Be Cleansed of Sin!

The error of painting God as a cruel, tyrannical, vindictive ruler of the universe certainly is not supported by scripture - it is, in fact, a ploy of the Devil to cast God in such a bad light, so that no one would even want to avail himself of the light of divine illumination.

God is good and loving - the whole of revelation insists on that. But precisely because God is all-good and all-loving, He cannot tolerate sin and evil. Not even "just a little bit!" His readiness to forgive is guaranteed in Scripture, but the divine pardon is not imposed without a person’s firm sense of contrition.

This is an essential distinction, and can be illustrated with an example: if a foolish and disobedient child chases after a skunk, and then is consequently sprayed by the skunk, his loving parents wouldn’t disown him just for that - they would, rather, help him to get cleaned up thoroughly. However, if the child refused to be washed of the stench, the parents would certainly explain that they would, under no circumstances, tolerate any such stink in their home, and therefore, they would rightly insist that the child submit to a cleansing bath.

Every sin is an act of foolishness and disobedience, like the child chasing the skunk. And every sin envelops the sinner in the odor of evil, although, to be sure, there are various degrees of that malodor. Yet even a little sin pollutes the pure aroma of a soul sanctified by God’s love, so God insists that the sinner submit to a cleansing bath of His mercy.

And there’s no sin that cannot be cleansed by immersion in the mercy of God! The penetrating stink of a skunk might take several washings to eliminate thoroughly, but through the purifying water of baptism and the cleansing power of the sacrament of confession, in an instant, God entirely removes all smell of sin, even the rotten stench of mortal sin!

Naturally, a child sprayed by a skunk is thoroughly aware of his olfactory offense, and thus generally quite eager to be cleansed. But even if they’re not hit by a skunk, all children (and adults!) get dirty and smelly after awhile, and end up needing a bath, but sometimes, immature kids resist that idea, protesting, "I don’t need to get cleaned up - I just had a bath last month!"

Yes, we laugh to think about some grimy, smelly kid engaging in such ridiculous objections for something he so clearly needs, and yet many kids and adults fall back on those same antics when God dares (during this season of Lent, for instance) to suggest that it’s high time to be thoroughly cleansed of sin: "I don’t need to go to confession - I just went last year!" Try not taking a bath for a year, and others will notice your body odor, even if you don’t. Try going to confession regularly, and you will notice a stronger aroma of sanctity in your soul, and most likely, others will to!