The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the passing from death to life. Jesus rose from the dead to die no more, and He calls to us to spiritually follow Him. We have been dead to sin, and now He calls us to pass over from our spiritual death to supernatural life with Him.

Jesus became the Sacrificial Lamb to satisfy for the punishment due to our sins and as an example for us to follow. We must also be ready, willing, and able to deny ourselves and take up our daily cross — dying to ourselves and this world to live eternally with Jesus in Heaven.

In the beginning, sin entered the world through the disobedience of our first parents. God forbade only one thing so that they may be tested and thus merit the many graces He so lavishly poured out upon them. Many with an immature understanding see sin in the physical action or deed. With the instruction of Jesus, we now know that sin is in our will. The desire is accepted for the act. Murderous anger is just as spiritually damning as physical murder. Lust within the heart is just as damning as fornication or adultery. The sin in the Garden of Paradise was one of disobedience. It had nothing to do with picking or eating fruit. The picking and eating were just the material manifestations of the rebellion and disobedience that already existed in the hearts of our first parents.

To restore order in our lives, we need to turn our hearts and minds (our free wills) from rebellion and disobedience towards love and conformity of hearts and minds to the Will of God.

St. Gregory Nazianzenus (Bishop and Doctor) says: "We were created for happiness: we were made happy when we were first made. We were given Paradise: to enjoy its delight. We received a commandment: that obeying it we might win merit, not that He knew not what was to be, but as laying down the law of free will. Through envy we were deceived. We were cast forth because we had broken the law. We hungered, because we did not deny ourselves: being defeated and overcome by the Tree of Knowledge. For the Commandment was with us from our beginning, being in a manner an unvarying guide to our soul, and a restraint upon pleasure; and to it we were reasonably made subject, so that we might regain by keeping it what we had lost by not keeping it. That we might live we needed a God Incarnate, and dying for us. We died with Him, that we might be cleansed of our sin. We rose with Him, because we died with Him. And with Him shall we be glorified, because we have risen with Him."

Once we have put off the sins of the past, we need to remove ourselves, as far as possible, from them. We will never be able to stay far away from the physical acts of sins if we do not remove the delight or pleasure of them from our hearts and minds. We need to replace the self-love in our hearts and minds with the true love of God. We should replace the passing pleasures of our bodies with true unending happiness in conformity to the Will of God. When we love God with the necessary preferential love He demands of us; we see that doing His Will comes naturally. Self-denial is made easy when we see that God's Will is better and greater and brings true happiness rather than the false happiness of fleeting pleasure. Because we have indulged the sinful appetites, we now suffer the hunger or pains of want. Because we overindulge, we are often hungry.

When we fast from some temporary pleasure, we conquer or overcome the pain or hunger associated with that particular passing pleasure. Then we gain mastery and control over ourselves and experience true happiness rather than the fleeting pleasure and pain that comes from self-indulgence. Self-indulgence brings a momentary pleasure, followed by a real emptiness/hunger/pain. This is the source of many addictions and substance abuse. In denying ourselves that fleeting pleasure, we break the chain of events. A desire may tempt us, but the craving or need for the substance never gains a hold over us. This self-denial is the key to our true happiness. Not knowing the pain of sin, addiction, regret, and an intense craving is happiness. Only the innocent truly experience true joy. The guilty only know momentary pleasure. The sinner who repents returns to the path of innocence and justice. He dies to his self-love, passions, addictions so that he may rise to simple innocence and true joy once more.

Hopefully, we have spiritually followed Jesus this past Lenten season in the practice of dying to this world and our disordered self-love. If we have failed in this, then let us begin this minute to express our love of God by putting off the sins of our bodies, hearts, and mind. Then, in the true spirit of the Easter Pasch, may we pass over from the death of pleasure-seeking into the everlasting life of true happiness with Jesus.

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