A friend checked out this humble blog last week and commented on how she enjoyed reading the homilies. I mentioned to her, “You know, you can listen to it too.”
“What?” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied, “Just click on the play button on the audio file. Right under the title of each post. It’s that little black triangle right there. ”
“Oh, my goodness! Well, will you look at that! Who’d have thought.”
I enjoy bumper sticker theology and pithy church sign sayings. Sometimes they incorporate different eras of pop culture. Who would not be moved by: “The fact that there is a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and a ‘Highway to Hell’ tells you a lot about anticipated traffic patterns.” They may be exhortative. What self-righteous church goer would not be knocked off their pedestal by: “Acting perfectly in Church is like dressing up for an X-ray.” They may also take an eschatological bent. This one for passing motorists: “Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you want to meet him now.” Some of them are just darn good theology. My favorite is one reminiscent of one of Pope Francis’ early talks: “The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a rest home for saints.”
In the next few weeks, you will note a decided shift of emphasis in the readings. As we near the end of Ordinary Time, the Church invites us to get our spiritual house in order so that we may be prepared for the glorious second coming of Christ at the end of the age.
Fall is a great time to get rid of clutter in one’s life. And the staff will tell you that I hate clutter. Clutter is one of the great evils that plagues the Church.
How does physical clutter start?
Like all insidious vices, it starts with an immediate need. “I have need of this item, so I will put it here, in this place, so that I may have ready access to it.” Or perhaps: “I have need of this now so I will put it here. I will put it back when I no longer need it.”
But the item does not get put back. And there it remains. Soon other items gather near it as if by force of gravity. Eventually, the space that it occupies is no longer recognizable or useful for its original purpose, and it has taken on a life of its own.
Let me tell you a story.
May 5, 1996, was a momentous day in the life of St. Patrick Parish. Do you know what happened here then?
– We dedicated the new church building.
It was a glorious day. All the priests of the Archdiocese were here, several bishops, and every member of the parish.
About an hour or two beforehand, the Pastor, Fr. Steven Moore, realized that there was no table on which to set the programs for the liturgy.
He turned to his young associate, Fr. Leo Walsh, and said, “Leo, run over to the rectory and get one of the sofa tables. We’ll use that to put the programs on. We can put it back when we are done.”
So off the young associate dutifully ran and grabbed the sofa table, a nice piece about a foot wide and four feet long. We put it in the middle of the Gathering Area and it worked great.
But the next week, we had no table on which to put the bulletins, so the table remained so that we could use it for that.
One week turned into two, and two into three. Months went by and the table remained.
In due time the young associate was reassigned, but he returned every few years and sure enough every time he looked in the Gathering Area, that sofa table was still there with various items laid upon it.
Years went by, and in God’s good providence, the young Associate returned, but this time as Pastor of St. Patrick Parish. Upon his arrival, he gazed into the gathering area, and sure enough, that trusty sofa table stood resolutely in the Gathering area, now covered with hymnals and bulletins and children’s activity sheets and whatnot and surrounded by many other tables and racks of various shapes and sizes…
And the little sofa table was happy.
And there it remains to this day…
This, my dear friends in Christ in St. Patrick’s Parish, is how clutter happens.
Spiritual clutter follows the same dynamic. Fall is a great time to clean up one’s spiritual house.
The first step is to remove any and all obstacles that come between us and Christ. I’m talking about sins.
In my 25 years of priesthood and 55 years of life, I have never seen anyone who purposefully set out to sin mortally. Usually, it begins with one, small seemingly harmless venial sin, but that leads to another and to another and another…eventually, disaster looms.
The current sloppy weather, gives us another good example. Think about this the next time you are driving and you notice a little speck of mud on your windshield. Now a single speck is not that big of a deal, but soon there is another here, and then another…here a speck, there a speck, everywhere a speck, speck…
Eventually, you cannot see the road in front of you and if you don’t take corrective action, disaster looms.
So it is with spiritual clutter.
When we stand honestly before Almighty God, we have to admit that wherever we are on the moral spectrum, we all are in need of conversion, repentance, and reconciliation. I’ll go more into each of these in the weeks to come, but for now a short introduction.
Conversion is the initial moment when we turn back to God. The Greek word for this turning back is “metanoia.” It’s a navigational term. When they were traveling across the desert, sometimes they would get off the right path. So they had to “turn back” to get back on track. Conversion is that initial turning back to the Lord. When we realize that things are out of whack and we need to get back on the right path in life. We see that when Zaccheus changes course to intercept Jesus on the road in Jericho.
When our heart turns back to the Lord, repentance for sin is the next logical step. We realize that some of our actions or inactions have harmed our relationship with God, self or others. We need to set those aright.
Zaccheus does this in a big way. (“Half of what I own I give to the poor and if I have extorted anyone in the past, I pay them back fourfold.)
Also, I am comforted by the insight from the Book of Wisdom that reminds us that we typically don’t get hit full-force by all of our sins at once, but rather that God will “rebuke offenders little by little.” (Wis 12:2). The Holy Spirit is very kind to us. There is only one who has taken all of our sins upon Himself at once. For the rest of us, the Holy Spirit only gives us what we can handle at any given time. So don’t get to distraught if after about three months of getting back into regular confession that a big nasty sin from your past will come to mind. It is actually a sign of spiritual maturity. That is the Holy Spirit saying, “Okay, now that you have progressed to this point in your spiritual life, let’s get this one reconciled too.”
Reconciliation is the process by which are restored to communion with Christ and His Church. This involves a good examination of conscience, sacramental confession, absolution, and satisfaction of one’s penance.
Again, we see how Christ restores Zaccheus to the community of Israel. “Today, salvation has come to this house. For this one too is a child of Abraham.” Zaccheus is restored and reconciled to the community of believers by Christ, and so are we.
Yes, fall is a great time to get rid of the physical clutter in one’s life. In her wisdom, the Church invites us to get rid of the spiritual clutter as well. Christ will most definitely come in glory at the end of the age. Let us get our spiritual house in order. The Church is a hospital for sinners, it is not a rest home for saints. Let us be moved to conversion, repentance and reconciliation so that we may be prepared as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.