Sacrifice

 What in the world is Fuller’s Lye or the Refiners Fire?

Fuller’s Lye is a type of bleach - it is used to whiten and purify clothing.  A refiner's fire is a fire that is especially hot that is used to burn away impurities called dross during metal smelting - it makes the remaining metal more pure, more useful, more complete.

The Messiah comes to burn away what is false and to strengthen what is true.

Christ seeks to purify us so that we can offer sacrifice to the Lord - it is kind of like, he is here to purify us so that we can abide with God, and be in relationship with God.

There is a Truth of who God created us to be - which is who we are in the eye of God.  The reality of Sin is that it corrupts the truth, so when we engage in sin, we become weak, corrupt and less pure.  One of the effects of sin is that we begin to believe that a falsehood about ourselves is true, and that lie (which is a mixture of truth and falsehood) seeps into our identity and weakens us.  For example, the lie might be that God doesn’t really love me because such-and-such happened to me, or I am not able to do thus-and-such.  

Because God is truth, lies cannot exist in His presence, his truth is like a refiner's fire that burns away falsehood. 

What can we do about this?  Reflection and Confession

Reflection on Temptation

Two things that we can do.  When we encounter temptation in our lives, we should reflect on the temptation to a particular sin.  Why am I tempted by this sin?  What weakness within me leads me to this compulsion?  Where is the lie in my heart that makes me vulnerable to this temptation?  By reflecting (in the light of God’s love) on what makes us weak we have the opportunity to ask for God’s grace to show us the truth.

In the light of the teachings of the Church

The sure anchor-point for such an examen is the teachings of the Church and the 10 commandments.  If I find that I have a temper, then my temptation might be to say “God made me this way, so the world needs to deal with it.”  In reality, we are called to examine, Why did God give me this response, and how do I use this for Good and refrain from using it to cause harm?  Rather than acquiescing and saying that it is what it is and so others must suffer.

Confession

Confession is one of the most under-utilized sacraments of the Church.  It is in Confession where we are called to examine ourselves in the presence of the refiner’s fire so that we can grow in holiness to be able to stand in the presence of God.  When I prepare for Confession, I am called to give an account for my actions and to recognize the evil and wrong that I have done to God, to others and to myself.  In that moment I receive sacramental grace that flows from the side of Christ as he hangs on the cross - what a gift of purification and sacrifice.  If you want to grow in holiness, if you want to grow in the truth of who God has created you to be - have a regular practice of confession and examination in your life.

3 kinds of Sacrifice - Self, Others and God

The readings talk about three different kinds of sacrifice today - 

• Sacrifice for Myself, 

• Sacrifice for Others and S

• Sacrifice to God

Penance - Sacrifice for myself

One of the required activities for Catholics who go to confession is to do penance.  You can think of this as a sacrifice for yourself to help you combat the temptations of Sin.  It means that I take some positive action to reinforce within myself the desire to seek what is good and true in order to be strengthened and to avoid what is false and weakening me.  

In its best form Penance helps me to place God first in my life, to grow closer to Him in holiness and to prepare myself for a more complete and full relationship with Christ.

Hebrews - Thanksgiving for others.

Christ comes in the flesh to be our brother, to show us how to wage war against the enemy and to win.  In the 2nd reading St. Paul says that Christ came in the flesh to wage war against the enemy of man as a man - remember that Christ is true God and true Man, meaning that he is 100% God and 100% Man, and it is impossible to separate out one from the other.  So it is as a Man that Christ shows us how to Sacrifice for Others - because that is what Christ does.  He enters into the flesh to wage war against the enemy (Satan) so that he can conquer Him and free us.  Christ offers a sacrifice of himself so that we might benefit - That leads us to the next major point - we ought to sacrifice for the good of others.

We have a need to sacrifice for others

Because Christ is fully God and fully man He teaches us that we have a need to sacrifice for others.  A sacrifice is a willingness to suffer for the needs of another - a willingness to take on a burden of prayer or fasting or penance for the conversion of another, that they might be able to receive the grace to be purified in some small way.  

The prophetess Anna does this in the Gospel today.  St. Luke tells us that she had spent her life in prayer and fasting - sacrificing to God for the benefit of others.  In that way Anna is open to the presence of the Holy Spirit and she is able to live a life imitating the love of Christ.

Look for someone to sacrifice for this week

Ask the Holy Spirit to point out to you this week where you are called to offer a sacrifice for another - it might be helping a friend find a new job, or praying a rosary for someone who is suffering or sick.  God will let you know where the opportunity is in your life to imitate Christ a little more today.  Remember - they don’t need to know you are praying and sacrificing for them - you just need to do it.

Sacrifice to God 

The Prophet Malachi says that we are purified so that we might be able to offer a sacrifice to God.  Sacrifices to God are made out of an expression of Thanksgiving.  To offer a sacrifice to God helps us to recognize that all that we have is a Gift from God, and it places Him first and foremost in our lives.  

Christ comes to wage war on the enemy

Christ is the one whom Malachi refers to.  He comes to wage war on the enemy, and so he comes in the flesh to redeem us from the wages of sin - that is how He is the refiner’s fire.  He enters into our existence (true God and true Man) so that he can conquer sin and Death as a Man, and as God.  Sin enslaves us with a form of addiction.  Why?  Because Sin traps us in fear, in shame, and in lies.

Christ comes to show us what merciful love and sacrifice does.  Christ comes to be the model of sacrifice before God for us, to show us how to be pure, how to be true, how to be transformed by the Love of God and through that transformation how to intercede for others.

Celebrating God’s blessings with a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

To offer a sacrifice to God is the most primitive form of Thanksgiving as it expresses our gratitude to God for His help and grace in our lives.  This is the reason why Mary and Joseph go to the temple today - to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God for having Jesus.  It is like when we get a promotion at work, or an unexpected bonus we like to gather our friends and celebrate the blessing in our lives.

Simeon - Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise

St. Simeon has led a holy life and is ready to encounter the Messiah. When he does he offers this sacrifice of prayer.

“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

This is a beautiful prayer that the Church recites each night just before bed-time as part of the Liturgy of the Hours - which is a time we set aside in our day to reflect on all the good things God has done for us this day.  I invite you to bookmark this in your bible when you get home (Luke 2:29), and pray it as you lie down to go to sleep.

Mass - The Ultimate Sacrifice

At Mass we practice all three forms of sacrifice - we offer a sacrifice of ourselves in the offertory when we bring our gifts to the Altar.  We Sacrifice for others in the prayers of the faithful, and we offer a sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God when we receive Him in the Eucharist.

Participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice!

This is why we come today to Christ’s Sacrifice - the Eucharistic Sacrifice in which Christ gives us His Body and Blood to purify us, to wash away our sins and to make us ready for the Kingdom of God.  That we become in truth who He created us to be.  Strengthened by this sacrifice let us leave this place emboldened to give God a sacrifice of praise to amend our lives and to share the love that God has shared with us those whom we meet.

What are you thinking about?

 What were you talking or thinking about in the car today?

In the Gospel today Christ confronts the disciples with what they were discussing on the way to Capernaum with Him.  I think that this is a great question, and a way to start to examine our lives to see how fully Christian we are, so I want to ask you to take a moment and reflect.  What was I talking about on the way to Mass this morning?  Where was my mind, what was I reflecting about?

Anxieties?  Worries?  Politics?  Family?  Work?

If you came here alone, then my question is a little different - what are you thinking about today as you came to Church?  Did you have worries, anxieties, distractions?  What was going on in your heart?

Christ wants to share his heart with us; so set it aside.

Christ asks His disciples this question because he just took them off on a journey through Galilee so that he could teach them something that was important to Him, something from His heart.  Today, Christ desires to explain something important to us, something from His heart.  To be able to hear Him we need to set aside our internal distractions and truly listen to Him.

So whatever you were talking about - set it aside.  If it was important the Lord will remind you about it later.

The scriptures confront our Christianity

What are the ways that we reject the teachings of Christ in our lives?  This is hard to do because the natural response is for us to attack the one whom we find obnoxious - to tune them out or to ignore them. Yet, if we want to grow closer to Christ we absolutely need to allow the scriptures to confront how we live our Christian lives.  The reason is that we can only grow in holiness if we can recognize the ways that we are not being faithful to Christ.  That means we need to allow the Scriptures to challenge us to adopt a more Christ-centric view of the world.

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In a nutshell, the truth of the scriptures today is that Christ must die because we prefer Sin and death over God’s love.  

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The truth of the scriptures today is that we prefer death to life.  We choose slavery over freedom.  We are more interested in ourselves rather than others.

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St. James - Where do the wars among you come from?

St. James shows this today in the second reading when he says “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

St. James points out to us how empty our lives are.  St. James is saying that we are selfish - in my heart - I am always right.  

• This means when someone disagrees with me they must not be right, they are unjust, and they might as well be dead.  

• I will use the most negative way of thinking of my enemies rather than loving them.  

• I covet them (for their freedom or for their wealth).  

• I label them as extreme, ignorant so that I don’t have to listen to them.

  In this way I cut them out of my life, and in doing so 

I miss one of the core teachings of Christ.

The disciples (like you and I) often miss out on this core teaching of Christ.  So to make this point more clearly Jesus 

Catholic = Universal

The word Catholic, as we use it in the creed is meant to convey the sense of Universal, Complete, open to everyone.  In that way Catholicism is the way for us to live a “full life” or a “complete life”.  How many of us realize that this is the gift that God has placed before us this week.

Christ teaches us to have an Abundant life!

Jesus took on flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary so that he could teach us how to live a complete, full, life - a life that gives glory to God.  He does this by understanding how He needs to reveal the Father’s love to us in a complete way.  He does this by calling us to conversion - away from our slavery to sin and into a way of living that overflows with abundant life.

When the disciples still don’t get it this is what Christ does for them and for us.

Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

How do I welcome children into my life?

Christ’s instruction is serious - if I can welcome a child in the name of Christ, I not only welcome Christ, but God the Father.  When I encounter children (especially here in God’s house), what is my response?  Do I find them distracting or fulfilling?  Am I welcoming or not?

• If I am not married, am I welcoming children into my life as God has intended (Selflessly) or (Selfishly)

• Am I living my life so that my view of sexuality is uncorrupted by pornography - which leads to selfishness?

• Am I living my life so as to become open to children according to God’s will?  

• Do I seek the sacrament of marriage before I seek children, or I have got that out of order?

• If I am married, is my marriage open to receiving children?  

• Do I accept them as a gift to help me grow in holiness from God?

• Do I/we look at fertility as a “problem” that must be managed through contraception and sterility?

Why does Christ use a child?

Because we all were one (once) and many of us have children.  Christ uses children to lead their parents to take up the cross - 24 x 7 x 365 until the end of their lives.  Once we have children we understand what it means to be “the last of all and the servant to all.”  Children move us from Selfish to Selfless.  They help us to imitate the love of Christ in the flesh, every day and all day.  

With Children we live out the corporal works of mercy - feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, cloth the naked, visit the sick…

Children open our lives to Christ

We live in a culture that is increasingly becoming more selfish and self-centered, isolated and distant from one another.  We are all clamoring that “we are the greatest”, and that is what ails us today.

Children are a natural way to evangelize

Children are an opportunity for us as Christians to proclaim the Gospel through the witness of Life - that God loves us and blesses us to grow in happiness and holiness.

Zone Defense

Often when my co-workers share a story about raising kids, I encourage them to be open to life by sharing what they are missing out on, what an adventure it is. I describe it as going from 2:1 to Man to Man to Zone Defense.  Yes it is difficult, and sometimes drives you crazy, but at the end of the day, becoming the least of all and the servant of all is the greatest thing ever because it brings us into the heart of Christ.

Think about it!

• God’s first gift to each one of us is the gift of life.  

• When Jesus came he said “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly!”

• That is why his second gift to us is the gift of His life.

What will you be talking about as you drive home from Mass today?