June_8_2008

“I did not come to call the righteous but I came to call sinners.”

That’s you and me and it’s important that we know that and admit that. We say it at the beginning of every Mass. We make our Act of Contrition. We admit our weaknesses, sinfulness, etc…but it’s important that we internalize that and know that about ourselves. We need to know ourselves. We need to know also that the person sitting next to you is in the same boat. You know I hear confessions. It’s part of what I do for a living. Let me tell you, we are all a mess, all of us. There was a book years ago, “I’m Okay, You’re Okay.” Remember that book: a terrible book on pop-psychology. According to our beliefs, a good book would be, “I’m Not Okay and You’re Not Okay, But It’s Okay.” That’s not to say that sin is okay because it’s not. It’s not okay. It hurts us, right? Doesn’t it? That’s why it offends God. It doesn’t offend God because, “You broke my rule.” It offends God because he loves us. It hurts us and what hurts us offends him, even if we’re the perpetrator of the offense ourselves.

God gives us standards. He challenges us to be perfect. Jesus said, “Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.” We do try to progress in virtue and we try not to sin but we often fail. We are human and we are weak. I “Googled-up” human weakness and got 347, 000 hits in a microsecond. It’s a crazy world we live in. Are we any better because of all of this? In most cases, (I did not check 347,000 citations.), but in most cases, human weakness refers not to physical weakness but it refers to our spiritual weakness. Think about the great heroes of the Bible. Were they perfect? David? Adulterer murdered Bathsheba’s husband. Solomon? He committed heresy to enter the kingdom. Peter, who denied Christ? Thomas, who doubted? James and John who were ambitious. etcetera, etcetera. Our heroes of the Bible were clearly sinners.

Our political leaders: It seems in the last 30 or 40 years that all our political leaders were deeply flawed and I’m thinking specifically of presidents, with Iran-contra, Watergate, Lewinsky-gate and all that nonsense. Nevertheless, this is nothing new in human nature. We didn’t have an active press back in 1800 or they would have made deals with the politicos then. I mean, I bet you, if we were back there then, we could probably dig up some dirt on Abe Lincoln. It’s human nature and our church leaders, well, we all know they’re not perfect. I read something recently that said we’ve been on a roll. We haven’t had a wicked Pope in 300 years or something. So people say, “Father, is it true that some of the Popes were bad?” I said, “Yup, sure they were. They’re human.”

We are all flawed. You’ve heard the expression, “There’s a little bit of good in the worst of men and a little bit of bad in the best of men.” Paul. Paul said it all, I think for us in Romans 7. This is Paul after his conversion. He had already met Christ and then elsewhere he tells us he had this mystical experience where he had been taken to a place, perhaps heaven. This is Paul, who had a degree of faith greater than we could ever have because he had seen his faith proved. I’m not sure that’s faith but he really knew Christ. He said, “For I do not do the good I want to do and I do the evil I wish to avoid.” You know what he’s talking about? I do and I think you do too. Even when we say, “No this is a sin. I know this is wrong. I don’t want to do it.” You find yourself doing whatever it is.

“Gossiping, I’ll never do that again.” “Hey, did you hear about…?” Human weakness indeed is the stuff of great drama in art, in operas, right? There could be no operas without human weakness and it’s clearly the stuff of comedy. “Archie Bunker” was all about human weakness, wasn’t it? “Everybody Loves Raymond”, I love that show. Everybody’s nuts; it kind of reminds me of my family. “The Honeymooners”, you kids missed something great. Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, remember? Audrey Meadows and what was the other woman’s name? Joyce Randolph, “The Honeymooners”. It was all about Ralph’s human weakness, wasn’t it? And Carney’s, as well of course.

Christ saves us but he does not save us from our humanity, he saves us in our humanity. Pope Benedict XVI had that in a Christmas message two years ago. Let me say it again: Christ does not save us from our human condition, he saves us in it. It is in this “stuff” that he will save me. A lot of times we have this idea that “I have to get out of myself completely.” We almost curse our physical nature and think the spiritual part of us is superior. But that’s heresy. That’s a Greek thought. Plato taught this duality between the physical and the spiritual. The physical is nasty, bad, and corrupt. The spiritual is good. That’s not what we believe at all as Christians. We believe that both the physical and the spiritual are sacred, made by God. We believe in the resurrection of the body, this body, in the next life. This is where we will be saved in our own human weakness. This is where salvation occurs, not some other place. He uses the good that we do and we do good.

I love Shakespeare’s words from Hamlet, “What a piece of work is man”. Imagine if you tried to update that and make that politically correct. “What a piece of work is the human person.” “What a piece of work is man; how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties; in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god.” God uses the good but it’s his good that he gives us and he transforms the evil that we do.

First step, we must understand and acknowledge our weakness and we must understand it’s universal. It’s not just me. It’s not just you. I have so much trouble in confession when people come in. They think they’re wicked. They are the only person doing these things. We’re all messed up. You know what I mean. The degrees of sin are different, of course they are, but for those of us who know Christ, what used to be a minor sin is really rather major today if we’re that close to Christ. The closer you get to him, the more accountable you should be for your actions because you know him and you’re fond of his grace. We must understand and acknowledge our weakness.

Second, we must accept God’s forgiveness. Indeed, we must delight in it. This is another problem people have. They won’t forgive themselves. They know they did wrong. They’ve confessed their sin, they’ve received God’s pardon and forgiveness, and yet you can see they’re carrying around the guilt on their shoulders. You know what I’m talking about. They go through their whole lives carrying around guilt.

St. Augustine had it right. Now Augustine’s been maligned as preaching too much about sin but Augustine knew what sin was. He had a Ph.D. in it before his conversion but he also knew what forgiveness was. Listen to these words from his confession. He’s talking to God. “You have forgiven and covered up my past sins, blessing me and you and changing my soul by faith and by your sacrament. Yet when the confessions of these past sins are read and heard, they rouse up the heart and prevent it from sinking into this sleep of despair and saying, ‘I cannot.’ Instead, they encouraged my soul to be wakeful in the love of your mercy and the sweetness of your grace.” He was writing this, remember, in his confessions.

I tell that to people when their sins are forgiven. “Delight in God. He’s delighted to forgive your sins. Let them go.” Guilt is the “chicken soup” of the soul. It brings you to repentance but after repentance, guilt is not of God. It is of Satan.

First, we must understand and acknowledge our weakness. Second, we must delight in God’s forgiveness and finally, we can only offer God our brokenness. It’s our weakness that we offer him because everything else that’s good is from him. Really, the only thing that I own personally are my mistakes, are my weakness. They are not of God and I can offer those to Christ on the cross and he’ll take it up. The Bible said, “He became sin for us.” He took all of our sins on and offered them to the father.

We’re all in this together and we all are in need of God’s forgiveness and mercy. We, as Catholic Christians are so blessed with the gift of confession. Here I go again, but it’s so true of confession. Yet, I know there are some in this church tonight that haven’t been to confession, Catholics, in 10 or 20 or 30 years. You’re depriving yourself of such a beautiful grace, such a beautiful sacrament. Recently a child asked Pope Benedict XVI why it is necessary to go to confession. The Holy Father said, “It is very helpful to confess with certain regularity. It is true our sins are always the same but we clean our homes, our rooms at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same, in order to live in cleanliness, in order to start again. Otherwise, the dirt might not be seen but it builds up. Something similar can be said about the soul. If I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end, I am always pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must always work hard to improve, that I must make progress. This cleansing of the soul which Jesus gives us is the sacrament of confession. It helps us to make our consciences more alert, more open and hence, it also helps us to mature spiritually. As human persons, it is very helpful to confess regularly in order to foster the cleanliness and beauty of the soul and to mature day by day in life.”

Let me finish. I’ve used this poem before. It’s one of my favorites because it’s written by John Donne, the English poet. It’s called “The Hymn to God the Father”. If you’d bow your heads, maybe we can make Donne’s poem a prayer.