The Sickness of Sin

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

Ez 37:12-14 - Ps 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 - Rom 8:8-11 - Jn 11:1-45

How did you get injured?
When you wear a neck brace everyone wants to know what happened. Did you have a car accident? Hurt yourself Skiing? Mountain Climbing? Fall on the Ice?

I did it to my self – what do you think about that?
How would you respond if I said I got this injury on purpose? What? I am Aghast? Why would you injure yourself? You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would attempt suicide, or self-mutilation…

What if it was a horrible disease?
What if I didn’t have a neck injury, but rather I purposefully infected myself with some horrible disease like the plague, leprosy, hepatitis, AIDS, Ebola or something worse?

What would you do?

Would you let me come and stay in your house – infected with a terrible disease?
Would you be my friend?
Would you tell my family? Boss? The Doctor? Social Services?

We are crazy to hurt ourselves
You would be right to think that I was crazy to hurt myself, You would be right to think that I am not sane to infect myself with a horrible disease. There is something horribly wrong when people do that – and they need help.

I am Not Sick – I used this brace to illustrate the sickness of my soul
Providentially for us, I am not physically sick or injured. I do not have some really bad contagious disease. I wore this neck brace to illustrate a disease that affects all of us, it is a sickness of the soul – it is sin

Sin is killing me
Sin afflicts me, The sin that I commit tears me down, it destroys my soul, it is my sin that is killing me and it is often hard to visualize. So I wear a neck brace to remind myself that Sin is killing me, and I need to change so that I am no longer crippled.

A Man was Ill
The Gospel today begins with the statement – A Man was ill. Which man? You and me. Like Lazarus we are ill because of the Sin that we have not repented from. Sin is a sickness of the Soul.

We need sin like lung cancer needs cigarettes
Like Lazarus, we are dying – we often don’t see it because we often don’t recognize the true state of our soul. We are like an emphysema patient dieing from lung cancer, and yet we keep on smoking cigarettes.

Mary prays for Lazarus
Fortunately we are like Lazarus, we have a family that does care for us and wants to do something about our sickness. We need to pray for one another, and to counsel one another to get better. Lazarus had his sisters who prayed for him – the Gospel says that they “sent word to Jesus that the one who he loved was ill…”

Lent is Hospital for the Soul
Lent is the time when the Church invites us to go to the Hospital for our Soul – a place of healing and rest, so that we can be healed and so enjoy the celebration of Easter – the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Seven Deadly Sins
The Monks of the Early Church used to evaluate their relationship with God in terms of the “Seven Deadly Sins” – Seven ways that their relationship with God was sick, and dying. They had specific ways of addressing the illnesses of the soul, and this lent we have an opportunity to dip into some of their wisdom, to get some help, so that we leave this lent spiritually more healthy than we entered into it.

What are the Seven Deadly Sins?
Lust – Pornography is polluted love – Antidote is Chastity
Lust – Pornography destroys my ability to love purely, it is polluted love. Lust replaces true love – seeking the good of the other which heals, cleanses, strengthens and builds up with selfish love, which takes, destroys and spreads its hatred because it ends up empty. Lust is a sickness of the Body.

Gluttony fills a hurt with stuff. – Antidote is fasting
Gluttony – Gluttony attempts to fill a hurt within myself with food, or busyness or distraction. It is not always a physical ailment, but rather a psychological / condition where we have been hurt and we protect ourselves by indulging our body. Sometimes we can be a glutton with food, or with busyness, or with drugs or alcohol. Gluttony is a sickness of the Body.

Greed hoards gifts meant for others – Antidote is generosity
Greed – Greed means that I hoard the gifts that God has given me and use them for my selfish gain, rather than steward them and use them according to God’s plan. Don’t misunderstand me – I am not suggesting that we must give away what we own, but rather that we need to use what God has given us in cooperation with His plan. Greed kills within me any ability to be thankful, or grateful to God for the gifts that he has given me.

Laziness leads to couch-potato-dom – we are meant for motion – Engage the world with charity
Sloth – Laziness. A kind of depression, where I give up, and stop caring for my self. Sloth is taking a laize-faire attitude towards the spiritual or practical situation of my life, and rather than engaging the world, I just try to hide in the corner and ignore it. Look at the Human Body – it is created for action and motion, not for couch-potato-dom.

Anger comes from unforgiveness – Antidote is Forgiveness
Anger / Wrath – The root of anger is unforgiveness. If I am suffering from this affliction of the soul, it is time to ask – Is there someone I need to forgive. The struggle with Injustice makes this especially difficult – and so we need to forgive, to turn justice over to God who can judge justly.

Envy is distrust of God’s generosity – Antidote is focus on your mission (Vocation) Envy – Distrust of God. Envy is really an expression that I am mad at God for the gifts that He gave another rather than myself. It is always a case of paying more attention to the other guy’s toys rather than using the gifts that He gave me. It eats away at my soul because I no longer focus on the vocation that God called me to, but rather I focus on what I don’t have…

Pride is blindness to the Truth – Antidote is Humility
Pride – Blindness – I do not see myself for who I am but rather I see things out of proportion. Either I need to get some spiritual glasses or have Jesus wash out my eyes with clay and spittle (Remember last weeks Gospel).

What is the medicine for the Deadly Sins?
The reason why Lent is like a hospital for the Soul is that we are encouraged to spend our time during Lent with Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. These are the three great cures for the Soul.

Prayer – time with the Sanctifier
Prayer increases the time I spend with God – If I want to live a holy life, If I want to live a life filled with the presence of God – who leads me to the fullness of Joy, then I need to spend time with the one who sanctifies. This means I need to work on my relationship with God.

Fasting curbs Gluttony, Lust, Sloth and Anger
Fasting – Fasting curbs the appetites of my body. If I struggle with Lust, with Gluttony, Anger or Sloth, Fasting puts me to work. It attacks the disease at its core, by reminding the flesh that it is the Spirit that leads me to eternal life.

Almsgiving curbs Envy, Pride and Greed
Almsgiving – Just as deadly as the sins of the Body, are sins of the heart. Giving money to those in need attack my pride – because I learn to see myself as God sees me – a beautiful creation of His love, created to steward the gifts that he has given me. It also attacks my greed, and my envy by focusing myself on the mission that God has called me to, in my own particular situation.

Lazarus is sick, Mary helps with prayer
In the Gospel today we see that Lazarus, like us is sick with Sin. His sister Mary acts to help him by sending word to Jesus – Lord, the one whom you love is Ill. That is us. When we see a brother or Sister struggling with Sin, then we need to pray for them, not gloat about how much better we are then they.

See the Love of Jesus – He weeps for the sick
Also notice that the one who is sick is the one who Jesus Loves, and He weeps for us, and is perturbed. See how much that Christ loves you, even though your sickness is leading you to Death.

Jesus comes to us according to His plan.
When Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick he doesn’t come immediately, but rather he comes according to Gods plan, at his time, so that God’s grace can be maximized. The lesson we take from this part of the Gospel today is that of patience, and perseverance. We need to persevere in our Lenten disciplines, trusting that God hears our prayers and will answer them in his own time, for our better good.


It’s not too late to start (or restart) lent – Jesus wants to awaken us from the death of Sin!
Jesus than says to his disciples that “He is going to awaken Lazarus” – To bring him back from the dead. This is what Christ is saying to us today. “I don’t care where you are with your Lenten resolutions, if you have been faithful throughout lent, or if you quit 3 hours into Ash Wednesday – I want to bring you back from the dead!” It is never too late to begin to repent, to change your mind, to ask Christ to reveal to you the depths of your Sin and so lead you into new life! It might be the 5th week of Lent, we might be at the threshold of Holy Week – there is still time to get to the banquet full of Joy!

Jesus is calling you from your tomb of sin!

Today Jesus is coming to the tombs that we have dug for ourselves with our sin.

He is standing outside and calling us away from the sickness that afflicts us. Jesus is calling us to witness to the Gospel this week by accepting his healing love, by hearing his tears over our illness and death and changing our minds about our sin.

When we allow Christ – who is The Way, The Truth and The Life into our lives, through conversion, we witness the power of his Cross and Resurrection to our families and friends, so that they too can come to believe and be healed!

HNN – Heavenly Network News

First Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7 - Ps 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 - Rom 5:12-19 - Mt 4:1-11

HNN – Real Reality Television

God likes to watch TV. In fact, He is up in heaven right now, sitting in his recliner, sipping on a nice cool beverage, with his feet propped up in his favorite Lazy-Boy watching HNN – Heavenly Network News. But God’s Television is not like our TV. He doesn’t just watch some Virtual Reality world, but rather He participates in Real Reality Television – Interactive and in Truth!

The beauty of HNN is that God (Because he exists outside of time) and sees all of the Superbowl Games all at once. And although he knows the outcome of every game played throughout all of time He still gets a kick out of watching all of them.

Hearing the Word at Mass is like Watching HNN with God

Hearing the Scriptures in Mass is like watching HNN with God, In the First Reading we learn that there is such a thing as Good and Evil. It is partly a consequence of our Human Freedom. The right use of freedom is to choose the good over the evil – because choosing the good leads us into happiness, while choosing evil leads us into a life of death.

Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden

On HNN today we watched Eve be confronted with temptation and fall into sin. This is our struggle with sin. With Adam and Eve we too chose to listen to Satan, and fall into sin. When we sin we use our freedom to reject God.

Scorn or Cry

When we glance over at God the Father, to see how he is taking this terrible turn in events – We see tears pouring down His cheeks. God is greatly saddened to see his creation fall victim to Sin and the Devil.

St. Michael – The Angelic Analyst

Now the Angelic Analyst comes onto the screen to give his Analysis – Look it is Saint Michael the Archangel, Captain of the Heavenly Host.

“Notice how the enemy engages us. He never uses a frontal assault, because he knows that the Heavenly Host will go through him like snow through a snow blower! See how slippery he is, he asked Eve a question – diversion, deception and trickery are the hallmarks of our enemy. Let’s analyze his attack strategy...”

“Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”

An innocent Question – or is it. First of all, the first mistake of Eve was to listen to the suggestions of the Devil to begin with. He always starts with a question to get us thinking, and then he tries to twist our thinking with rationalization so that we are unable to resist his attack.

What underlies this question is the suggestion that God is not to be trusted.

• Did God really tell you that lusting after pornography is adultery?
• Did God really tell you that Gluttony is sinful, destructive to your body and your soul?
• Did God really tell you that violence is evil and begets more violence?
• How much violence, flesh, greed, anger, lying, lust, laziness, disobedience, pride is evil. Is it all evil, or just some of it evil?

This is where we fall into the grip of Sin, we follow the pattern of Adam and Eve.

“Notice that now that the Devil has her attention, he slips in the deception, the lie – she has been duped and doesn’t even know it!”

“You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.”

“See how skillful Satan is, he packs lies into simple statements.”

• God is a liar (You certainly will not die!) – But really Satan is the liar (The wages of sin is death)
• God is not looking out for you – you can’t trust him!
• God does not want you to be a God like him (why else would he forbid the fruit?)

Sitting next to God as He weeps
God is crying because he sees the destruction wrought by Original Sin. Not only does he see the personal sin of Adam and Eve, but remember HNN’s slogan is “All the News from All of Time All at Once”. God is filled with sadness to see that what He created out of beauty and love for goodness, happiness and fulfillment is used to hurt His creation. What do I mean?

Adam and Eve only realized that they were naked after they ate the forbidden fruit because they no longer saw one another through the eyes of love, but rather through the eyes of selfish Lust!

The Jesus Channel (Channel 2)

Providentially, at the same time, God is watching Jesus on Channel 2 (He is the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity) in His battle with Satan in the Desert. Here, Jesus is winning back all of the ground lost by Eve and more in his contest with the Devil. It’s like watching “Let’s make a deal”, where the Devil is playing the part of Monty Hall, and Jesus is a contestant on the show. But this version is different. The Devil shows up with Door Number One (You can Turn Stones into Bread), Door Number Two (Go ahead and throw yourself off the Temple, you’ll be alright), and Door Number Three (Worship Satan and you can get everything in the World). The funny thing about this show is that Jesus sees through the temptation of Satan. He does this with Prayer, Fasting and a thorough understanding of Scriptures (He is after all, the Word made Flesh) and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus plays the game by God’s rules – He chooses the greater good over all of the temptations that Satan offers Him. He chooses fasting over gluttony. He trusts in God Word rather than the twisted reading of the Scriptures. He chooses to serve the God of Selfless love rather than serve the selfish devil.

King David and Temptation Palace!

On the “How to Fix It Channel” we see King David confessing his sins. This is what today’s psalm speaks to us about.

David’s Sin

Tradition has it that King David wrote this psalm after Nathan confronted him about sleeping with Bathsheeba (Adultery). After David got her pregnant he tried to get her husband Uriah to lie with her so he wouldn’t get caught (David Lied). When that failed, King David sent Uriah up to the front to die (Murder).

YOU ARE DEAD!

After this happened to him, the prophet Nathan came to King David and told him of his Sin. Nathan told David that he was DEAD in God’s eyes. Nathan was filling the role of our conscience in David’s life.

David responded to Nathan’s witness by writing Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, we learn how to fix our broken souls. What we need to do to recognize our sinfulness and to find healing in God.

Recognize the Wrong by Guilt.

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness
In your compassion blot out my offense.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
And cleanse me from my sin.

The Battle with Satan, the struggle with Sin, with selfishness versus selflessness begins with…

• An understanding of God’s Goodness.
• Knowing that God has the ability to cleanse us, and to wash away our sin.
• Knowing that God can save us (To Wash away our Guilt means allowing God to heal our sinfulness).

The Gift of Guilt – It leads to honesty – which leads to dealing in the Truth.

Guilt is a good thing – it leads us to conversion – to repentance – and healing. Guilt is like pain for the soul – it is a gift from God that keeps us safe.

We need to “own” our actions – because our conscience will remember them anyway. We can choose to tune out our Guilt, like David did for a while, but eventually the truth of our actions will come home to roost.

My offenses truly I know them;
My sin is always before me.
Against you, you alone have I sinned;
What is evil in your sight I have done.

This verse of the psalm speaks about the role of the Conscience in keeping us honest – it remembers. Repentance is about taking ownership of what you have done, and recognizing the evil that it is.

Why do we rationalize our Sin?

One of the reasons why we struggle with Repentance is that we fail to acknowledge the sinfulness of our actions. We fail to see how sin kills us – Why? Because often it is a slow death.

But our conscience always reminds us of the truth of our deeds – whether they are good or evil.

During Lent the Church invites us to meditate on our lives. When we are honest, we confront our Sin and we see why our behavior is sinful – how does it damage our relationship with God.

The Prayer of a Soul seeking healing!

(Confession is Disinfectant for the Soul)

A pure heart create for me, O God,
Put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
Nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

The psalm reminds us of the cleansing and healing action of God’s love – When you cut yourself, you clean out the wound with disinfectant to kill the germs. Sin is the same way, when you wound yourself with Sin, you wash it out with the cleansing presence of the Holy Spirit through the sacrament of Confession!

Todah – Thanksgiving

O rescue me, God, my helper
And my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
O Lord, open my lips
And my mouth shall declare your praise.

(Remember A Kid's First Confession)

The Joy of Confession – of healing is that we experience the true Joy of God – Our life, gives praise to God for the great things he has done for us.

CONCLUSION

Now God is tuned into Channel 23 – Where he witnesses the events of your lives. Don’t let time or sin keep you from taking advantage of the great grace of this sacrament.

Lent is the time for us to take up the heroic path!
Lent is the time for us to deal with Temptation and Sin!
This Lent will you follow the path of King David, and come to healing in your Soul?
At the end of this Lent will we see that the Fathers Eyes are filled with Sorrow at what we have done channel,

or with Joy?