“He that
is not with me, is against me; and he that gathers not with me,
scatters.”
Ordinary
of the Mass]
[English Mass Text]
[Latin Mass Text]
[Lenten Observance]
Our Lord’s words, taken from
today’s Gospel, are probably the most unsettling statement about our
spiritual life. It is not possible to be neutral—one has to side either
with God or against Him; with Jesus Christ or with the devil—there is no
in between. That is, I believe, what we find so impressive about Saint
Paul, when we read about his “ship-wrecks,” his “perils in the
wilderness,” his “escapes in a basket through a window in the wall,” and
all of the other wild things we heard about back at the beginning of
Lent.
Paul is an ideal model for our spiritual life, for it is obvious that he
has “joined up” and completely given himself over to the service of
Jesus Christ.
Now it does not seem that any of
us have been called to go about the Mediterranean and getting in trouble
with the authorities by preaching the Gospel. Most of us probably think
that is a good thing! But yet, we are told that we must join with Jesus
Christ in His mission on earth—“He who is not with Me is against Me.”
So what are we to do?
The answer for most of us is
that must try to live the life we have in the most perfect way. Saint
Paul himself, in today’s Epistle gives us an idea of how this is to be
done:
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let
it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints;
nor obscenity, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which is
to no purpose; but rather giving of thanks:
Saint Paul is telling us that
not only must we refrain from sin, but that sin has no place in our
conversations—“let it not even be named by you.” It is all together out
of place for Catholics to engage in risqué conversation or to tell jokes
about sinful behavior. Sin is evil and not funny—and when we talk or
laugh about sin, we are joining up with the devil—we are not gathering
for Jesus Christ, but instead we are scattering.
The moral theologians take Saint
Paul’s advice one step further: One should not even think about sin.
In another Gospel our Lord tells us:
But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to
lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in
his heart.
That is to say that one can sin
merely by contemplating a bad action and taking enjoyment from the
thought.
Now, I think that most of us
understand the idea that our thoughts can be sinful, but it might be
useful to ask ourselves why they are sinful.
The most obvious aspect of evil
thoughts is that our wills are acting contrary to the will of God. God
tells us, for example, “Thou shalt not steal.” So if we daydream about
stealing something, we have already set our personal will against the
will of God—God says “stealing is bad,” but we must think stealing is a
good if we choose to run it through our minds. We are, of course,
contradicting God’s will even if we don’t actually steal anything.
A less obvious aspect of evil
thoughts it that they make us accustomed to something sinful. If I
regularly think about stealing something, it will cloud my mind to the
sinfulness of actually stealing something. It will be almost as though
I were in the practice of stealing regularly—the sin will feel more
comfortable.
Similarly, the thinking of evil
thoughts acts to plan the way in which I would carry out the evil
action. If I think regularly about stealing something, it is likely
that I will refine a method to carry out an actual theft—What locks need
to be opened? Will I need to carry a flashlight? Must someone be
bribed? How will I make my getaway? A workable plan will make the sin
much more likely.
Finally, to take this full
circle, the more we think about sinning, the more likely we are to
discuss it with others—making our sins their sins. “Fornication, and
uncleanness, and covetousness, and obscenity, and foolish talking, and
scurrility” will be named among us if we devote
much of our time to thinking evil thoughts.
Instead, we must resolve to
follow Saint Paul’s example. Whether our life is an adventure on the
one hand, or very commonplace on the other hand-- we must “join up” with
Jesus Christ in His mission on earth—“He who is not with Me is against
Me; and he that gathers not with me, scatters.”
