3rd Sunday of Lent
15.3.20 Purification
We have in
our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation,
or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favour with you. But with
contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received; As though it were burnt
offerings of rams and bulls, or tens of thousands of fat lambs, Dan 3,38-39)
This summarizes our present
depressed state, that we are not able freely to partake in Holy Communion
(corona virus).
We can give God other things,
however. We bring Him a contrite heart and a humble spirit. And this is what
God wants most of all.
He would rather receive this from
us than a whole hillside of animals. “If I were
hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. (Ps
49(50), 12).
God is so concerned for our
attitude that He sometimes allows His people to go through times of persecution
or deprivation, just so they will have a chance to work on that attitude.
He lets His people suffer to purify
us of false attachments, or even of justifiable attachments where they might
impede our love for Him.
He wants to be Number One. It is
not conceit on His part, as it would be on ours. He knows that if we do
actually worship Him as first and foremost we will then discover the true value
of everyone and everything else.
In the present deprivation of Holy
Communion, we have the chance to step back a little and consider what Holy
Communion means to us; to reaffirm that we still have God Himself, through
faith, hope and charity; that having Him we have all else.
He is purifying us, bringing us to
a deeper state of holiness.
When we face a crisis we really
start praying. We thought we were praying before, but now we are really
doing it.
It is a question of degree. How
seriously do we take Almighty God? How much do we really give Him? We might do all the right things, externally.
Mass, Confession, Rosary, other prayers, give to the poor, do penance – all of
which is good.
Yet it is still possible to do all
these things and be holding back from full commitment to God and His holy will.
There can be dark corners where we do not allow the light to go, areas hidden even
from ourselves.
When we die and face judgment we
will see the dark corners. With a little effort we can see them before we die.
We can see the areas where we are not
completely submissive to God’s will, nor trusting in Him; putting self-preservation
ahead of trust in God; content with doing less rather than more, in His
service.
So we have the sad fact, that
Massgoers, religious people, can still commit sins, and big ones too.
It is a struggle for us to bring
the whole self to submission.
In today’s Gospel there is a
parable of someone who achieves a certain level of holiness, but then collapses
into something worse than he was in the first place.
We cast out one demon and get seven
more instead. It does not have to be that way, but it can happen if we are not
attentive to the whole of our spiritual lives. We can never declare ourselves
perfect. We have to maintain vigilance lest the evil creep back in..
So we are in a constant state of
repentance, contrition, seeking perfection.
Being at one with God is our
greatest joy. We discover that He is no hard taskmaster, but kind and
compassionate.
He will not tax us beyond our
strength. The hand that hurts is the hand that heals (cf Job 5,18).
Let us reaffirm our trust in God,
in the present crisis and any others still to come.
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