6th Sunday after Pentecost 12.7.09 Death to sin
When someone dies it is often said he is ‘at rest’ or ‘at peace’ – the idea being that the person concerned cannot suffer anymore, having been through all his earthly troubles and physical pain. The assumption that he is at rest is based either on a belief he has gone to heaven or gone nowhere. In either case he cannot feel any discomfort.
The Catholic view of death is not so simple. We believe a person dying might be in even more discomfort after death than before, but we do heartily concur with any prayer for the person’s being at rest and at peace.
There is another form of dying, however, that does definitely lead to peace and that is referred to in today’s epistle – the dying to sin.
St Paul likens Baptism to a form of death, a death to one’s former life, a turning away from false beliefs and behaviour, and at the same time a coming to life in a new form, a life of holiness which will yield the person great peace.
This is not death as in being unable to feel anything, but a death to evil, a complete absence of anything wrong which in turn means there is room for all the good qualities to enter. The best way to be dead to sin is to be filled with holiness. We are not just alive but radiating life through this view.
We can learn from Our Lady, who avoided sin, not by carefully treading her way through the commandments but rather that sin never even occurred to her, so absorbed was she in the will of God.
No turbulence of the passions; everything in order.
We have died with Christ and risen with Him. We have not yet risen from the grave in the physical sense but we have risen from sin – at least we should have.
We should never have sinned after Baptism. Baptism was supposed to be a complete break with what went before. If we were baptized as babies then we should never have tasted sin in any form.
It is like taking a bath and then rolling in the mud again; or a dog returning to its vomit.
However, we find in practice that it is not so clear for us. We find that we are not so totally dead to sin in our hearts and minds that we can leave it forever.
There is, because of concupiscence, a lingering desire in us to prefer what is forbidden. This seems to be part of fallen human nature, and not even Baptism removes this desire completely.
However, though it may be ‘normal’ to continue committing sin it is not something we should ever rest with, or simply shrug off as inevitable.
It is normal insofar as it is widely practised, but against the norm which Christ has set for us. He has not returned to death having once died and risen from the grave.
Nor should we return to the death of sin having once been set free.
The Church, in her maternal mercy, has another remedy for us – the Sacrament of Penance – whereby we can be forgiven for sin committed after Baptism.
We can become frustrated with our inability to cast off sin, yet with persistent use of this Sacrament we can at least reduce the sin.
If we cannot come to life all in one moment we can at least edge our way towards it.
At least we can recognize the absurdity of thinking that sin is a normal part of life. It is no more normal than dying twice.
Turning away from sin is actually the beginning of resurrection. Resurrection is not just something that happens to us after we die. It is the end result of a process that begins with the turning away from sin, the death that leads to life.
We cannot avoid physical death but we can guarantee that it is no more than a stepping stone towards eternal life.
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