A 9th Sunday after Pentecost Thought to Start the Week Off Right
For the 9th Sunday after Pentecost, The Inner Life of the Soul encourages sinners not to despair. It's a message that I suspect applies to each and every one of us. We are, after all, sinners.
"Who has not, in his past, some hour, some day, of which he says ever to himself mournfully: 'If I had known!' It is the cry of Augustine: 'Too late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty of Ancient Days, yet ever new!' It is the cry of every penitent sinner, of every pardoned soul. And it has a natural tendency to weigh down man's spirit, to fill the mind with gloom and depression, and to sadden painfully the heart."
Remember that these words were written at the beginning of the 20th century. Catholics at that time would know instinctively the depth of meaning, even the depth of emotion, being communicated here. But do we?
Read the passage again. Does it seem excessive? Too negative?
Have you ever felt so weighed down by the thought of your sins - present or past - to the extent that "gloom and depression" would aptly describe your state of mind?
Too many of us don't take our sins sin seriously enough to descend into gloom and depression at the very thought of them. If we did, the lines outside the confessionals would be a lot longer. And the demand for more times when we could go to confession would be more strident.
The fact is, we live in a time when the very concept of sin has been whitewashed. Our idea of sin today is some sort of "sin lite." I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, for the most part, neither we nor many of our priests and bishops take sin very seriously anymore. We spend little time thinking of just how terribly our sins offend God, Who is instead worthy of all our love. We'd rather skip - or at least skim - over that and instead jump ahead to His love and mercy.
His love and mercy surely await us when we express sincere sorrow for our sins. But knowing that doesn't mean we forego that sincere sorrow.
Fathers, Excellencies, the pendulum has swung too far. We need reminding of the terrible nature of our sins such that we can again be moved by those words of St. Augustine: 'Too late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty of Ancient Days, yet ever new!'
Now, before you say it, yes, there were - at one time - priests who may have been overbearing in the confessional. And perhaps some priests' sermons were indeed a bit heavy on the fire and brimstone. I've heard this from contemporaries. I've read it many times. However, as one who remembers going to confession before the "Spirit of Vatican II" descended on Holy Mother Church, I can say I never - not once - was made to feel uncomfortable in the confessional. And I don't ever remember a sermon about the reality of sin and evil that caused me to come unglued. But even if we concede that such examples once existed, the pendulum has taken us a full 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Can we at least agree on that, even if my memory of those days conflicts with yours?
What I remember about those days was a sense that when I sinned I offended God - mightily. I remember too how that sense became dulled as the years passed. Why? Some of the blame rests, of course, with me. But some must be shared by my post-Vatican II Catholic High School and Catholic College. Just as the trivial strumming of guitars replaced those profound chords of the pipe organ, so too the seriousness of personal sin was mitigated.
Those words from The Inner Life of the Soul should jar us. It's time to return to the understanding and appreciation of the terrible nature and effects of personal sin. Without such an understanding and appreciation, our spiritual lives will forever remain in that lukewarm state that Our Lord said He would spit (in some translations "vomit") out of His mouth. We don't want that, do we?
So let's rekindle the fire that once warmed our spiritual bellies. If we wait for the pendulum to swing back, it could be along wait - too long for some of us.
Perhaps we might remind ourselves: While we may not take our sins very seriously now, the time will come when we'll stand before Our Lord at our particular judgement. If you understand the concept of a Day of Reckoning, you'll understand why it probably makes a lot of sense to take those sins seriously now, rather than wait until it's just you and Him, face to Face.
A few minutes of recollection on this Sunday about the seriousness of sin could be an effective counterweight to that pendulum, don't you think?
"Who has not, in his past, some hour, some day, of which he says ever to himself mournfully: 'If I had known!' It is the cry of Augustine: 'Too late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty of Ancient Days, yet ever new!' It is the cry of every penitent sinner, of every pardoned soul. And it has a natural tendency to weigh down man's spirit, to fill the mind with gloom and depression, and to sadden painfully the heart."
Remember that these words were written at the beginning of the 20th century. Catholics at that time would know instinctively the depth of meaning, even the depth of emotion, being communicated here. But do we?
Read the passage again. Does it seem excessive? Too negative?
Have you ever felt so weighed down by the thought of your sins - present or past - to the extent that "gloom and depression" would aptly describe your state of mind?
Too many of us don't take our sins sin seriously enough to descend into gloom and depression at the very thought of them. If we did, the lines outside the confessionals would be a lot longer. And the demand for more times when we could go to confession would be more strident.
The fact is, we live in a time when the very concept of sin has been whitewashed. Our idea of sin today is some sort of "sin lite." I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, for the most part, neither we nor many of our priests and bishops take sin very seriously anymore. We spend little time thinking of just how terribly our sins offend God, Who is instead worthy of all our love. We'd rather skip - or at least skim - over that and instead jump ahead to His love and mercy.
His love and mercy surely await us when we express sincere sorrow for our sins. But knowing that doesn't mean we forego that sincere sorrow.
Fathers, Excellencies, the pendulum has swung too far. We need reminding of the terrible nature of our sins such that we can again be moved by those words of St. Augustine: 'Too late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty of Ancient Days, yet ever new!'
Now, before you say it, yes, there were - at one time - priests who may have been overbearing in the confessional. And perhaps some priests' sermons were indeed a bit heavy on the fire and brimstone. I've heard this from contemporaries. I've read it many times. However, as one who remembers going to confession before the "Spirit of Vatican II" descended on Holy Mother Church, I can say I never - not once - was made to feel uncomfortable in the confessional. And I don't ever remember a sermon about the reality of sin and evil that caused me to come unglued. But even if we concede that such examples once existed, the pendulum has taken us a full 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Can we at least agree on that, even if my memory of those days conflicts with yours?
What I remember about those days was a sense that when I sinned I offended God - mightily. I remember too how that sense became dulled as the years passed. Why? Some of the blame rests, of course, with me. But some must be shared by my post-Vatican II Catholic High School and Catholic College. Just as the trivial strumming of guitars replaced those profound chords of the pipe organ, so too the seriousness of personal sin was mitigated.
Those words from The Inner Life of the Soul should jar us. It's time to return to the understanding and appreciation of the terrible nature and effects of personal sin. Without such an understanding and appreciation, our spiritual lives will forever remain in that lukewarm state that Our Lord said He would spit (in some translations "vomit") out of His mouth. We don't want that, do we?
So let's rekindle the fire that once warmed our spiritual bellies. If we wait for the pendulum to swing back, it could be along wait - too long for some of us.
Perhaps we might remind ourselves: While we may not take our sins very seriously now, the time will come when we'll stand before Our Lord at our particular judgement. If you understand the concept of a Day of Reckoning, you'll understand why it probably makes a lot of sense to take those sins seriously now, rather than wait until it's just you and Him, face to Face.
A few minutes of recollection on this Sunday about the seriousness of sin could be an effective counterweight to that pendulum, don't you think?
Happy Sunday!
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