Mortuorum Ambulantum
Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and
is corrupt through deceitful lusts,
And be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature,
created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness.[1]
Homily for the
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
31st of
August- 1st of Sunday
St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish (Union Street)
Rev. Michael Taylor
If you will
pardon me for doing so, I would like to take a step back from our lectionary
readings and talk about a subject which I have found to be reoccurring in many
conversations I’ve had in the past couple of weeks. It has to deal with the
topic of sin and what exactly we mean when we speak of sin. The reason I am
talking about this is because if Christ saves us from sin, then it would seem
important for us to understand what exactly sin is.[2]
I think all too often, we think of sin as purely a juridical reality, one in
which there are a series of rules and laws, and if you break one of these laws,
there is a corresponding, legal, punishment. Yet there is much more to sin than
this. There is what some theologians would call an ontic event, but what I will
try to explain by talking about zombies.
Now first, I
must confess, I find the reality of horror films fascinating, because I believe
they tell us much more about ourselves than the monsters on the screen. A
couple of years ago, Bravo networks came out with a series on the One Hundred
scariest movies of all time. They had the usual actors, producers, and
directors on talking about various films. More interesting though were the
psychologists and sociologists that were also interviewed, because they spoke
to the great fears of a society expressed in these movies. Scary movies
basically reveal to primordial fears of humanity, a fear of the destruction of
the body or a fear of the corruption of the mind and soul. When you think about
the movie Jaws, there is the fear
that a giant shark will eat your body. I’ve met people who still will not go into
the ocean because of that movie. Yet the great fear seems to lie with the loss
of our soul, our mind, and our humanity. I think that’s why the past decade has
seen a dramatic increase in zombie and demonic possession movies. We’re afraid
we are losing our humanity. This is not a new fear though. Recall the words of
Jesus, do not fear those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and
body in hell.[3]
So this is a very ancient fear.
And that’s
why I want to talk about zombies. So first, let us talk about exactly how
zombies come to be. In the latest round of movies, some virus or other disease
causes human beings to go from normal to zombie. This disease then spreads
rapidly causing widespread chaos within society. This has a theological
counterpoint, that which we call original sin.[4]
Saint Paul speaks of this in Romans when
he writes, Therefore as sin came into the
world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men
because all men have sinned.[5]
Sin becomes the zombie virus.
Now note what happens in a zombie movie. A
zombie looks human, moves like a human, eats like a human. Yet these things
have become corrupted. What was good has been turned towards evil, namely, the
eating of brains. The same thing can be said of original sin. Again, St. Paul
in Romans 1, writes therefore, God gave
them up to the lusts in their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their
bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and
worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.[6]
We, through faith, know that humanity was created in the image and likeness of
God.[7]
Yet in sin, we became less than the human being we were supposed to be. We look
human, walk and talk like humans, yet our appetites, our passions, have become
corrupted. As it is written, Among these
we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body
and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[8]
Let us return to the topics of zombies. In
the zombie film, they usually are trying to find a cure. Yet in order for them
to know if the cure is effective, they need someone who has been untainted by
the zombie virus. They need someone who’s blood can show if the cure works.
Again, there is a theological connection. When we say that Jesus is the lamb
without blemish, the one who has been
tempted as we are, yet without sinning.[9]
You see, we can understand medically what Jesus sought to explain spiritually.
We need an antidote. This is why Jesus is necessary for salvation.[10]
Only in him can be found the antidote to the disease of sin. Let me put it to
you this way. If you have a zombie standing in front of you, well, you should
run. But let us say, for arguments sake, that they’re in a cage. Let us say you
forgive that zombie for every zombie thing it has ever done in its past. At the
end of the day, you still have a zombie standing in front of you. You need a
healing, a transformation, to occur. Likewise in the spiritual life. We need a
new nature. This is what Paul is saying Ephesians 4 when he says put off your old nature which belongs to
your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts[11]
or in Galatians 2 when he says it is
no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.[12]
Now, let’s take a step back for a moment. If
any of you have ever had a serious illness or a serious injury, you know that
the time of recovery can be quite significant. It can require months or even
years of physical therapy. It is the same in the spiritual life. Even though
baptism has cured us of the disease of original sin,[13]
if you will, the effects of this disease are so profound that they affect us
for the rest of our life. This is what the Church calls concupiscence.[14]
Saint Paul talks about this in Romans 7; For
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.[15]
That is a battle that everyone can recognize. I would like to bring to your
attention for further proof exhibit A: deep-fried Oreos. I go to the fair and I
see them. I know they’re not good for me. I know that they are indeed very bad
for me. But the next thing I know, I have a dozen in my hand. And the next
thing I know after that is that they are mysteriously all gone. It is the same
in the spiritual life. We know that the way of Christ is good, yet we find
ourselves still stumbling and, at times, falling.
This brings me to the next point of a
zombie. What happens if you get bit by a zombie? You become a zombie. It seems
like in almost every zombie movie, one of the characters gets bit. They’ll try
to hide it from the others, like they’re going to be able to walk it off.
Eventually though, they become a zombie, because that’s what happens in a
zombie movie. It is the same in the spiritual life. Think about what we call a
mortal or grave sin. Sure, we can go about our lives looking like everything is
normal. Yet the death of sin is already in us, and eventually we can die in
that sin, being cut off from God. This is the kind of sin St. John talks about
in his first epistle; there is sin which
is mortal…All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.[16]
That is why we have confession. It restores in us the antidote that is lost
when we commit a mortal sin. So if you’ve missed mass on Sunday or a holy day
of obligation without a good reason, or perhaps used the Lord’s name in vain,
or maybe shanked someone because they took the last piece of pie. The Church
requires us to go to confession at least once a year.[17]
Think of it as a yearly booster shot, and make sure you’re not cut off from
God’s grace. Our gift of life has been bought for us with too great a price to
allow ourselves to fall back in among the walking dead.
That being said, it brings us back to my
last zombie point. In any zombie movie, there is a fear among the survivors of
being around zombies. They don’t want to become zombies. They don’t want to
lose our humanity. With this fear deep in their hearts, they form
fortifications, and try with all their might to avoid the near occasion of
zombie. Likewise it should be for us in the spiritual life. We should not spend
all our time with those not concerned with spiritual life. Now there are
limitations to this analogy. I am not saying we can never be around sinners.
Were this the case we could never evangelize. Yet there is something to be said
about the kind of friends we keep. As Saint Paul says, Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals.[18]
If you hang around zombies all the time, eventually you will become a zombie.
If you hang around people who are angry all the time, you eventually become
angry. If you hang around people who gossip all the time, eventually you will
find yourself gossiping. We need to surround ourselves with good, holy people
who are striving to grow closer to Christ.
We are in the midst of a spiritual battle,
and it needs to concern us in our day to day lives more than if we were
characters in a zombie film. We need to realize that there is work to be done,
and that the struggle to overcome original sin’s effects on us is a process
that requires great diligence. As Saint Jose Maria Escriva noted, “Every day be
conscious of your duty to be a saint.[19]
A saint![20]
And that doesn’t mean doing strange things. It means a daily struggle in the
interior life and in heroically fulfilling your duty right through to the end.”
[21]
[1] Ephesians 4.22-24
[2] The Catechism
of the Catholic Church defines sin (§1849) as “an offense against reason,
truth, and right conscience; it is a failure in genuine love for God and
neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature
of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a
deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law’ (St. Augustine. Contra Faustum 22; St Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II Q71a6).”
[3] Matthew 10.28
[4] Catechism of
the Catholic Church, §407: “The doctrine of original sin, closely connected
with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man’s
situation and activity in the world. By our first parents’ sin, the devil has
acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free. Original
sin entails “captivity under the power of him who thenceforth had the power of
death, that is, the devil” (Council of Trent; cf. Heb 2.14). Ignorance of the
fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious
errors in the areas of education, politics, social action and morals.”
[5] Romans 5.12
[6] Romans 1.24-25
[7] cf. Genesis 1.26a, 27: Then God said, “Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.
[8] Ephesians 2.3
[9] Hebrews 4.15
[10] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Dominus Iesus, 2000. §13: “The thesis which denies the unicity and salvific
universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ is also put forward. Such a
position has no biblical foundation. In fact, the truth of Jesus Christ, Son of
God, Lord and only Saviour, who through the event of his incarnation, death and
resurrection has brought the history of salvation to fulfilment, and which has
in him its fullness and centre, must be firmly believed as a constant element
of the Church's faith.
The New Testament
attests to this fact with clarity: “The
Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world” (1 Jn 4:14); “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). In his discourse before the Sanhedrin, Peter,
in order to justify the healing of a man who was crippled from birth, which was
done in the name of Jesus (cf. Acts 3:1-8), proclaims: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). St. Paul
adds, moreover, that Jesus Christ “is
Lord of all”, “judge of the living
and the dead”, and thus “whoever
believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:
36,42,43).”
[11] Ephesians 4.22
[12] Galatians 2.20
[13] Catechism of
the Catholic Church §1263: “By baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin
and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin (see Council of
Trent). In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their
entry into the Kingdom of Heaven; neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the
consequence of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.”
[14] Catechism of
the Catholic Church §405-406: Although it is proper to each individual
(cf Council of Trent DS 1513), original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of
Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but
human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural power
proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and
inclined to sin- an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence.”
Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns
a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined
to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
The Church’s teaching
on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth
century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against
Pelagiansim, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant
Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural powers of free will
and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he
thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant
reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin had radically perverted
man and destroyed his freedom; they identified sin inherited by each man with
the tendency to evil (concupiscentia),
which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data
of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)
(DS 371-372) and at the Council of Trent (1546) (cf DS 1510-1516).
[15] Romans 7.19
[16] I John 5.16,17
[17] Code of Canon
Law, canon 989: “After having reached the age of discretion, each member of
the faithful is obliged to confess faithfully his or her grave sins at least
once a year.” SEE ALSO can. 988 §2: It is also recommended to the Christian
faithful that they also confess venial sins.
[18] I Corinthians 15.33
[19] cf. Leviticus 20.26: You shall be holy to me; for I
the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you may be
mine. SEE ALSO: I Peter 1.15-16: but as he who called you is holy, be holy
yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I
am holy.’
[20] Cf. II Vatican Council. Lumen gentium §39: “The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of
all perfection, preached holiness of life to each and everyone of His disciples
of every condition.”
[21] St. Josemaria Escriva. The Forge. Ch.2: Struggle, §60
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