Translation of the Epistle for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost (Rom 6:19-23)
Brethren: I speak a human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity for iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from justice. What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting. For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God is life everlasting; in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew (7:15-21)
At that time Jesus said to His disciples: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Not every one that saith to Me: Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of My Father Who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
The Saving Words of the Gospel
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Homily
By their fruits you shall know them. Obviously, Our Lord is talking about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, but also the fruits of grace in our souls, which requires cooperation. Those are fruits that will last. Paul makes this juxtaposition between those fruits of the flesh that end in nothingness and frustration and those fruits that are enduring – that will last forever. Those things that we can bring with us into Heaven. How do we live in such a way to bear fruits like that?
Well, in a in a word, it’s simply fidelity to grace. Fidelity to grace. This is the guarantee of fruits that will last, because it’s rooted in a living, loving relationship with Christ that He initiated, and we do our best to correspond with. And so, this following of Christ is both an objective thing and a subjective thing; objective in that we have these means of salvation, and by degree, sanctification that the Church is given us from the very beginning; namely, sacramental grace, prayer, and virtue. Those are the three legs of the stool, so to say. Not one of them, not two of them, all three. And they have to be habitual. We can’t go in and out of grace and think that our souls are safe. We can’t go in and out of grace and think that we have a living, loving relationship with Christ. So, the objective thing is precisely our living of three things.
We have a debt. We have a debt of our time, which we tithe to God in our prayer each day. He deserves that from us. Our Lord extends to us the means of salvation through the Sacraments, and, as a result of this encounter with Christ and the Sacraments, starting with our Baptism but renewed frequently, I hope, in Communion and Confession, we have now the supernatural means to live this third means, which is virtue.
When we consider the lives of the saints and some of the extraordinary things that Our Lord brought about in them – Padre Pio: bilocations, stigmata, etc., levitations – that’s not why he was canonized. Those are symptomatic of something, but that’s not what holiness consists of. It consists in those three areas: radical living of a life of grace, prayer, and virtue. The ordinary means, and that’s within everyone’s grasp.
There’s also a subjective element in this relationship with Our Lord, which is our heart-to-heart communion, a loving surrender. It’s an openness to the action of grace rather than having something akin to a contractual relationship made up of mandates. This is to be a living, thriving, loving relationship that Our Lord initiates, and He that does the will of my Father shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And so, when we have the three means running at the same time, the will of God becomes liberating, not onerous.
When I’ve made a choice for Christ, His will is not something that causes anxiety; His will is something that is actually freeing. And this requires a certain attentiveness to the action of grace. You have the Holy Spirit, you have the Blessed Mother, your patron saint, other saints of dear devotion, your guardian angel; all of them are echoing the will of the Father. There’s no contradiction amongst them. We can say that Heaven is the one example where big government works. And they all want the same thing, right? And they all want the same thing for us: our holiness, our salvation. And so, the great spiritual writers of the Church distill all of those different spirits down to one, just the Spirit of God.
And so, when there is a prompting in our heart, “Do this; don’t do that,” we have to take that seriously. And it’s not indifferent to say no, or yes, or to hesitate and then say yes. Our Lord wants immediacy of action. He wants us to act without calculation, without taking into account, “Yeah, but I don’t have time; yeah, but what will this cost me?; how difficult will it be?” If my heart is already oriented towards the Heart of Christ, those promptings then become an affirmation in that same direction of the will of God. It’s not pulling me in a different direction. It’s the same thing with a different perhaps expression, but it’s the same will of God.
When we respond with generosity, several things happened. Most importantly, we bring joy to the Heart of our Redeemer. He’s thrilled to see our obedience. And that in itself is, ought to be, enough for us to make Him happy, just that. But wait, there’s more. There’s also an increase in holiness and virtue for each time we obey the prompting. And further still, each act of obedience to the prompting of grace opens up multiple doors of subsequent graces that are dependent on that initial generosity. And so, on the other hand, if I make Our Lord wait, if I say “No,” or I hesitate, all of those things are diminished. The amount of joy I’ve given our Lord, the growth and virtue, and I’m not guaranteed that all of those subsequent graces will still be available for me. And if I say no, none of those things happen. And so, these little promptings “Do this; don’t do that,” is are where real holiness is worked out. This is where we reap fruits for eternity, and it ought to become a virtuous cycle.
Sometimes people can consider this with great anxiety, and almost becomes a neurosis when they think, perhaps with a scrupulous heart and mind, they’re worried about “Was this right; was this wrong?” There ought to be freedom in all of this choice. You know, scrupulosity is not a… it’s a it’s a disorder of the conscience. Scrupulosity is an ape of contemplation. True contemplation has heart, and our mind opened, abandoned to Our Lord. Scrupulosity is wrapped up in itself, and it’s an illness of doubt. And it thrives on uncertainty. Scrupulous people think they have to woo Christ in order to win his love. No, He loves you. It’s a question of do you… are you gonna let Him? Are you gonna give Him that joy? And are you gonna love Him back? And so, this uncertainty is actually the hindrance to growth, and it becomes a cause of great sorrow to Our Lord because it’s self-inflicted.
Sometimes people wait for their emotions to be confirmed or affirmed, but they actually ought to be apprehending by faith without any emotions. Emotions aren’t bad, but they’re just not trustworthy. And then these scruples, if we’re not careful, they can they can become obsessions. Could be obsessions over past sins. “I know I’ve confessed it, but it was I really forgiven?” Well, this becomes an insult to Our Lord’s mercy because I’m reducing Him down to my own size.
So, what are some helps to grow in our fidelity to grace? Well, first of all, we have to be stable in grace. We can’t be going in and out of mortal sin. We have to increase our prayer life. If we’re already doing enough prayer, according to our state in life, then we work on the quality of prayer. Quality of vigilance of heart. Quality of recollection throughout the day. We work on cultivating the affective aspect of our mental prayer and our Adoration. But this also requires internal silence, internal recollection, which means I’ve gotta cut some things out. News, blogs, music, entertainment, sports, all of these things that clamour for attention, that at the end of the day mean nothing.
If we also identify our dominant fault, the thing that I most frequently have to confess, and all of its expressions, then we don’t work against it, rather we work towards its counter-virtue, and we replace that vice with virtue. Once we’ve done that, we’ve got a program to work on, and like good soldiers of Christ, we start picking off the enemy one by one. Hopefully, next year, my dominant fault will be something else, because I’ve made progress in that area.
The more we mortify our bodies, the more we cultivate recollection in our hearts and our minds, interior and external silence, the more awake we become to how the devil works on us. The devil hates a body that is penitential, hates a body that fasts, and hates a mind and a heart that is contemplative. And the more we grow in this ascesis, this penitential spirit, the more we grow in our interior life, the more awake we become to how the enemy works on us. As long as we coddle ourselves, as long as we follow our passions, the devil’s having a great time and an easy time, and we’re oblivious to how he works. But the more penitential we become, the more united we become with Christ Crucified, the more the Passion of Christ moves us, urges us, prompts us, the more obtuse do those demonic proposals become, and we know how to simply let them die of neglect.
The more we work on the quality of our prayer, the more access we grant to Our Lord. Before Mass, before Adoration, before mental prayer, before your rosary, it’s a help to ask your guardian angel two things: to help you to be focused and to pray along with you. They love to do that; that’s their job, and we’re their mission. You know, some people back in the eighties and nineties, they used to have this habit of naming their angels. We’re not allowed to do that, okay?; the Church put the kibosh on naming angels. They’re not our pets, but it’s more like we’re their pets. And so, we ought to recognize their role in our lives. They’re there to save us. And they work also through these promptings. “Do this; don’t do that.” The more we speak with them, the more we cultivate the relationship with them, the more easily it is to discern their voices. And when we obey over and over, we create a habit. The more we obey, the more readily we obey, without overthinking it, the easier it gets. The easier it gets, the more pleasing it is to God, because there’s no more internal struggle or calculation, “Will I; won’t I?” We just do it.
And then another interesting phenomenon in the spiritual life is the more docile we become to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, of the guardian angel, the less we notice that it’s the guardian angel working, because there’s a certain connaturality in this friendship. And that’s the way it really should be. So, we both want the same thing, and we’re just doing it anyway. That’s where we ought to get. And that’s what Our Lord means when He’s talking about bearing fruit for eternity.
~Fr. Ermatinger