15th Sunday after Pentecost 25.9.11 Raising us to life
When Our Lord restored the son of the widow to life He was relieving that woman’s grief, but also giving us a symbol of His power over life and death.
He does not normally raise dead people back to life, not to this earthly life at least, but does often raise people back to life spiritually.
Every time He forgives sin He is raising back to life. We should rejoice in sin forgiven even more than we would rejoice if someone came back from the grave.
But we should also learn from the lesson that sin is a deadly thing, to be avoided in future.
God restores sons to Holy Mother Church by the forgiveness of sins. That is the crucial thing. To be away from God is to be dead; to be in union with Him is to be alive. We are like planets - the closer to the sun the warmer we are, the further away the colder and darker.
Generally people think far too much in physical terms and far too little in spiritual.
We try so hard to stay alive. We are careful crossing the street; we eat the proper food; we don’t go down dark alleys at midnight... but the soul is so neglected by comparison. So lightly do people take the spiritual dimension, so blithely do they disregard the fate of the soul; or they just assume it looks after itself somehow.
And how much grief is poured out over physical death while the death caused by sin is missed altogether!
We want healing for our aches and pains but healing of the soul is always more important.
(Of course we can be careful about both body and soul and proper care for the body does itself have a spiritual dimension via the fifth commandment. Also we could say that our bodies would be healthier if we lived with less sin.)
But how do we heal the soul? In one way it is easier, in another way harder to heal the soul. It is easy in terms of confession with sincere contrition. But harder if we mean a deeper healing which requires a change of heart, where the sin came from.
When we go to confession it is not just to be forgiven but to ask for the strength not to sin again. What can I do differently?
So the healing of the soul has two levels: the removal of sin and the firm purpose of amendment. I will not sin again.
But though there are many aspects to being holy there is an essential simplicity in that we can just come to Jesus with all our burdens, and be forgiven freely.
Then we can look for the deeper solutions - what needs to change in our lives etc.
Our Lord said: I came that they may have life and have it to the full.
When it is said that someone lived life to the full it usually means the person did a lot of adventurous things: but was he doing the will of God, which really would be living to the full?
This is where we find how alive we are or not. It is not how many things we do or how many places we go or people we know: it is whether or not we have lived in union with God and His holy will.
We can start that anytime, but sooner is better. Resurrection begins when we claim the life of God to be in us. Sanctifying grace. This must be our first priority.
Each of us is the ‘son’ in this story, that Jesus wants to raise from death (in all its senses).
And collectively we are the Mother (Church) rejoicing when others sons are brought back to life.
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