The Second Sunday in Lent: The Work of Our Sanctification
Collect:
Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves;
keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls; that we may be
defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil
thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
In the
midst of life’s travails and worries, in the face of our personal failures and
frustrations, we are often prone to wallow either in self-pity and pride, or in
despair. We may even grumble against God and dispute the ordinances of his
sovereign will. The magnitude of our sufferings weigh us down so much that we
dare not call out for help. We settle upon well-rehearsed excuses (all too
readily supplied by a modernist and Godless psychology) for our sins, habitual
or not. We sometimes erect our sorrows and our sins as insurmountable barriers
between divine grace and ourselves. Our sins are objective barriers between
ourselves and God. Christianity, through redemption in Jesus-Christ, offers us
the means to overcome, if not destroy them altogether. But, in order to do so,
we must know what sin is and what it does to us.
The Seven Deadly Sins (counterclockwise: Pride, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Envy, Sloth)
Sin is a
disease that disfigures the creaturely likeness of God in us, that grievously
impairs our community with God, that makes a mockery of the sacrifice of Jesus
upon the Cross. But God will not be mocked, nor despised, as the Apostle Saint
Paul reminds us in the epistle. We must seek release and healing from such a
mortal disease as sin. And we can only do so if we have a clear understanding
of our Christian vocation. St Paul admonishes us to remember the teachings of
Jesus, transmitted to us by his apostles and his church. This teaching regards
at once our conduct within ourselves, our conduct towards our neighbour, and
our conduct towards God. We are bidden to seek our own sanctification and to
avoid all uncleanness, to treat our neighbour well and to grow in our knowledge
and love of God. Our quest and desire for holiness cannot be a matter of
internal disposition only. Christianity, after all, is a religion of the
embodiment of the Deity and of the practice of the virtues. Our vocation is to
witness to this dwelling of God among men in our lives and in our conduct. That
is why we must refrain both from the fornication of the flesh and of the heart.
How can we witness to the abiding presence of God among us, of his abiding
love, if we constantly live in the “lust
of concupiscence”? How can we say that we know God, when all that we know
is the pleasure of our senses? By holding out to us our lofty vocation, the
Apostle invites us to steadfastness in our struggles, and to conversion and
repentance.
(The Transfiguration, in the Yaroslavl Museum Reserve)
If the
sublimity of our Christian vocation (and the prospect of the fall from a great height) is not a sufficient motive for perseverance in the spiritual combat and
for the conversion of our hearts, wills and bodies, then, we can still look up
to Jesus Christ himself, the author and finisher of our faith. At Rome, the
gospel pericope for this Sunday is that of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Before
going down to Jerusalem, to his passion and death, he ascends a mountain with
his closest disciples, and there reveals to them his divine glory: “Thus did Jesus encourage his Apostles, when
the time of temptation was near; he sought to impress them with his glory, that
it might keep up their faith in that trying time, when the outward eye would
see nothing in his person but weakness and humiliation”[i].
Thus does he also encourage us, when the time of our own temptation is upon
us, when all the tangible consolations are removed from us, and we are cast
into the desolations of tribulations and spiritual derelictions. Then, we must
be emboldened to look up to his transfigured Face and be quickened by his
radiance, his love and his grace to fight, resist and persevere in our
struggles. In our own weaknesses and humiliation let us look up to Jesus, whose
Face bearing the marks of deep pain and suffering is also the Face of the
Victor over death and sin.
(Jean-Germain Drouais, The Woman of Canaan at the feet of Christ)
But,
beforehand, we must prepare and dispose ourselves to approach him and to
beseech him to continue his healing work upon us. In the Use of Sarum, the
gospel pericope of this Sunday is that of the healing of the Canaanite woman’s
daughter. Like the Canaanite woman, we must approach Jesus with a deep sense of
our lowliness and helplessness and of our utter need and reliance upon him. We
are undeserving of God’s mercy and grace, and we must comport ourselves
accordingly. Let our prayer and supplications for grace in the struggle of our
lives, especially in this holy season of Lent, be made with humility and
surrender. Let us also ask for the grace of making good and holy confessions in
the sacrament of penance, again, in all humility of heart, so that we may be
encouraged to persevere in our penitential endeavours, and in our love for God
and for our neighbour.
[i] Dom Prosper Guéranger,
OSB. The
Liturgical Year: Lent: http://www.liturgialatina.org/lityear/lent/sunday2.htm
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