OVERCOMING INNER DIVISION THROUGH CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR IDENTITY SCRIPTURE READINGS: Rm 7:18-25; Lk 12:54-59 universalis/20131025/mass.htm We can easily identify with St Paul in his struggle to live a life of integrity when he says that “for though the will to do what is good is in me, the performance is not, with the result that instead of doing the good things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want.” We all face this inner division within us. On one hand, we know what we should do but quite often we choose evil, the wrong things. Why is that so? According to St Paul’s analysis of the cause of this division, it is because of sin living in us. He wrote , “When I act against my will, then, it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me….In fact, this seems to be the rule, that every single time I want to do good it is something evil that comes to hand. In my inmost self I dearly love God’s Law, but I can see that my body follows a different law that battles against the law, which my reason dictates. This is what makes me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.” If, according to St Paul, the reason why we continue to sin is that sin lives in us, just like the cancer cells living in us. How can we then ever get out of the situation? Indeed, because of our fallen nature, we are not capable of overcoming the sin of the flesh on our own. Hence, when St Paul was referring to that inner struggle within, he spoke about how he was using his will to fight against sin. As a Pharisee and like all Jews, he certainly loved God’s law dearly. At the same time, he realized his incapacity in his fight against sin: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me form this body doomed to death?” he exclaimed. Like him, often in our struggles against sin we feel discouraged as well. We too find ourselves doing the very things we know are wrong. Much as we don’t want to do them, yet we cannot resist the temptation as well. We end up doing things against our conscience and hurt ourselves. And the devil wants us to fall into hopelessness and despair. But St Paul gives us hope. He says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” we can overcome the sin in us, which is the sin of the flesh. How can recognition of Christ help us to overcome the sin of the flesh? Only through Christ, can we receive His Holy Spirit. When Christ lives in us in the Holy Spirit, then it will no longer be us running our lives but Christ, who lives in us. If that is so, why do we still sin even though we have the Holy Spirit at baptism? Why is it that even those of us who have had the grace of a personal encounter with the Risen Lord in the Spirit and the accompanying gifts of tongues, healing, prophecy etc, still continue to fall into sin? We know that in the case of Jesus, after being baptized in the power of the Holy Spirit, He was led to the desert to be tempted by the devil, but He emerged victorious. Why? Because He was living in the power of the Spirit! The truth is that we are not conscious of the Holy Spirit who is latent in us! This is what St Paul meant when he spoke about the true self. He said, “when I act against my will, then, it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me.” In other words, he was not conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God within him. As a result, he behaved like a man who is under the slavery of Satan. Yet, his real identity does not to belong to the Evil One but to God. This lack of consciousness is what Jesus in the gospel is challenging us. This is what Jesus was saying: “When you see a cloud looming up in the west you say at once that rain is coming, and so it does. And when the wind is from the south you say it will be hot, and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the face of the earth and the sky. How is it you do not know how to interpret these times?” Yes, the crowds failed to recognize Jesus as the Saviour in their midst even though they knew many things. Like them, we are unable to discern what is right or wrong in our lilives. This is because we are not living in the conscious presence of the Holy Spirit and therefore lose our center and sobriety to judge situations objectively and rightly. Consciousness of our center and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us is therefore the key to overcoming the sin of the flesh. That is why Jesus challenges us to interpret the signs of the times. Are we discerning in what we do? A person who lacks center, focus and consciousness behaves in a way that does not reflect his true self. Isn’t it true that when we get angry with someone or say or do some stupid things, we often excuse ourselves by saying, “I was not myself”? Truly, because we are not alert to the Spirit of God in us, our false self takes over. Earlier on, we said that self-effort alone cannot help us to win our battle over sin. It is true that in the history of spirituality, there have been excesses in asceticism. Many saints tortured or inflicted themselves to discipline the body so that they might not succumb to the flesh. Even Buddha before he was enlightened tried to overcome temptations by fasting and mortification. But he realized that such excesses only destroy himself. What is needed is the inner realization that things of this world are transient. In this way, one loses attachment and greed, living a life of contentment and freedom. This is not to say that mortification and penance are irrelevant in spiritual growth. They are important insofar as they prepare us to be more disposed to the presence of the Holy Spirit and our true selves. So there is wisdom in all spiritual traditions when they underscore the importance of fasting, penance, etc in spiritual life. Through a deeper prayer life, we become more conscious of what we do and the presence of God in our lives. That is why in our practice of mortifications, we must not misunderstand the body as being identical with the flesh. Although the flesh makes use of the body to sin, the body itself is not sin. As Paul said, sin lives in the body. The flesh refers to the weaknesses of man, that fallen nature that tempts us to sin. Conversely, if the flesh uses the body to commit sin, so too, the Holy Spirit can use the body to do good. Thus, we must realize that the body is but the window of the Spirit; the vehicle through which the spirit in us, be it the divine or human spirit, expresses itself. That being the case, it behooves us to use our body to do good whilst we can. For without the body, we cannot do any good even if we wanted to. Indeed, when we die, our immortal soul becomes helpless. We cannot do anything except to pray or to regret. From this perspective, we can also understand why the Church teaches that at death, we are given the last opportunity to repent and make amends for our sins. For at death, when we no longer have our bodies, the soul cannot help itself. That is why we pray for the souls in purgatory since they are unable to help themselves. Even though they might regret and want to do good, it is not possible for them now. Of course, for those souls in hell if any, we cannot even help them because they have totally alienated themselves from God and us due to their hatred. Consequently, the Gospel reminds us that just as we take the opportunity to settle our debts with our opponents so we must use the present time as an opportunity to straighten our lives and do all the good whilst we can. We must begin now and not later, not even if it were a few years before our death. The truth is that if we are generous and kind only before we die, our motive for giving would not be pure. Indeed, when we become more generous when we get older or worse still, when we give our wealth away just before we die, it is of lesser value because we know that we cannot bring our wealth with us to the grave and we must leave them behind anyway. So the true test of a generous person is not when he begins to do good when he realizes that his time is near, but rather when he gives all that he has even when he thinks that he still has many years to live. Only this kind of generosity demonstrates the true character of the person. This certainly was the case of St Francis of Assisi and the widow in the parable of the Widow’s mite in the gospel. Yes, we must heed the advice of Jesus seriously. Let us not be deceived by the devil when he tells us that there is no hurry to do good and live holy lives because we have time. It might be too late by the time we decide to repent. Thus, Jesus warns us, “I tell you, you will not get out till you have paid the very last penny.” WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV MSGR WILLIAM GOH ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 23:03:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015