16th Sunday after Pentecost 12 Sep 2010 Sermon

16th Sunday after Pentecost 12.9.10 The secret of holiness

One of the requirements of our Catholic faith is that we must try to be good at all times and in all places. We are never allowed a ‘day off’ from the requirements of holiness.

This could sound like an intolerable burden. Yet Our Lord said His yoke was easy and His burden light. (Mt 11, 30)

And St Paul tells us that we are never tested beyond our strength. (1 Cor 10, 13)

Yet it remains true that there is no ‘day off’ or ‘time out’ from holiness. In practice we might take time out but we are not allowed to.

So can we be good all the time?

We can learn something from the example of Our Lady. She never sinned in her whole life, from conception to death. Not one sin, not so much as one uncharitable thought or loose word! Is it possible?

Sometimes we are tempted to sin and we manage not to. For example if I am tempted to say something in anger, I can manage to keep my mouth shut but it comes as something of an effort, and my anger would probably register in other ways, such as coldness of manner or impatience of gesture.

But with Our Lady, not even these things would have happened. She would not have been walking about like a time bomb ready to explode as we can feel ourselves to be.

The ‘secret’ of her success lay in her closeness to God, to the Source of holiness.

We define holiness in terms of how close one is to the nature of God.

If we act in a God-like way, such as being charitable, generous, chaste – then that is being holy. If we sin we are acting in a way other than God would act in the same situation.

Our Lady was so close to God in her thoughts, in her heart, mind and soul that there was no possibility of sin occurring to her.

It was not by some supreme effort of willpower that she avoided sin. It was natural to her to pick always the God-like way of responding to whatever happened.

This is the way we must travel. To be holy all the time means we must draw closer to God Himself and draw from His nature to transform our sinful nature.

This process will happen by a gradual change in the way we see things; the way we think.

If we see holiness as a burden it is a sure sign that we are not seeing reality as it really is. Our spiritual eyesight is suffering a blockage. We need to be healed of whatever is not registering properly.

Thus the epistle reading today where St Paul prays that the Ephesians will be strengthened with a power which reaches their innermost being; that they be able to understand more clearly the height and depth of the love of Christ.

We note that it is an interior process that needs to happen. There is something inside each person which needs to change. This is St Paul’s prayer and it is our prayer for ourselves and each other.

May all of us come to see as God sees, as Our Lady did see in her life; and countless other saints also.

It will be painful sometimes to unlearn some of the false worldly ways we have accumulated. But each sinful habit discarded is a glorious liberation and paves the way for further spiritual progress.

We must always remember that to sin in any form is not ‘normal’ behaviour; it is a deviation from the norm. Holiness is the normal state. We were created to share the life of God, and even His nature. Drawing from His nature it is not so hard to be good all the time.