This was delivered as part of a parish evangelization retreat, and as such, it is both personal and incomplete, as it is directed to a particular purpose/mg.
Sin and its Consequences
This is not an easy topic to speak about. After all, the story of sin starts in Genesis and continues right up to this moment. It is an integral part of the bible story, and it has been an integral part of my story.
Psalm 2 opens with “Why do the heathen rage?” As a converted heathen, I have to say, “been there, done that.” Let me tell you about doing it the hard way. St. Paul was not the only one to get knocked off his high horse!
I was raised in the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers. That means no sacraments and a church service that consisted of a full hour of silence, and a tolerance of pretty much any belief set. I believed that mankind was good and that God has set the world in motion and then sat back to watch. Jesus was a great teacher who never intended to start a church, was not divine, and there was no resurrection. We read the bible, but it was with the understanding that it had been corrupted through the ages by all the religions, especially Catholics, who practiced some weird sort of cannibalism.
I liked to think I was a reasonably good kid. My dad used to say “If what you have to say is not better than silence, don’t say it.” I am an introspective person. Since silence was worship, what could I ever say that was more important? So I was silent, I watched and I listened.
And something was terribly wrong. For being basically good, mankind seemed to be capable of incredibly bad things. This heathen raged. It was all God’s fault. So I guess in His infinite mercy, He must have decided to ask me to be a part of the solution. I was 16. My church youth group took a field trip to an institution for the severely mentally retarded. It was really a human warehouse, where seriously retarded adults were kept naked in a very large, damp, concrete building with barred windows. It reminds me now of pictures of the concentration camps. It was horrible and shocking.
I know Christ tried to reach me that day. “When did I see you hungry and naked, and refused to feed and cloth you?” On that day I ran in shame, for my heart was terrified. Besides, the world beckoned, and with gusto I dove in. Or should I say, I ran from God and tried to bury myself in work, college, and an early marriage at 19. I could do anything, everyone said so, and as much as I tried to convince myself of it, it just didn’t seem to ring true in my heart. I sure tried, though. College degree, a business, a nice home, a beautiful young daughter. Those were the exterior symbols; the truth was a failed marriage and the beginnings of a slide towards alcoholism. If I could do anything, why could I not do the thing I desired most, which was to love and to be loved?
When my first wife left me, I felt that I could not go on, what was there to live for? My spirit was crushed, all that mattered to me was gone. That was when I turned and said “God, if you really exist, take this pain from me, I cannot bear this burden.”
And you know what? He did. He answered the first real prayer I ever made. The Father answered the prayer of an unbeliever that the unbeliever might believe and be saved. The burden was lifted and my spirit was renewed. I knew without a doubt at that moment that I owed a response to God, but I had not learned the lesson He wanted me to learn. Although I was now certain there was a God, it seemed impossible to know anything for sure about Him, and shortly I turned from God and again chased after the world.
It was after a car accident sent me through the windshield of my car that my second wife decided that church needed to be a significant part of our lives. I sat in the back of the Episcopal Church for two years before enough of the rebellious Quaker pride wore off so that I agreed to be baptized. I was really uncomfortable with creeds and the bible. I preferred to cling to an imaginary Jesus instead of meeting the real one.
My first marriage fell apart after 10 years. 10 years into the second marriage and it was deja-vu, the same story seemed to be happening all over.
Alcohol could not drown out the pain, marriage was a disaster, why was this happening? Sometimes the smart guy is the last to see the obvious; “No matter where, you go, there you are.” I was the common denominator in all my problems, all of my failures that kept repeating like a broken record.
I needed help and I finally knew it with my heart.
So I knew that I needed help. Where does one get it? Being a humanist disguised as an Episcopalian, I picked a psychologist who was an Episcopal priest. I also started recreational reading; pornography and history. There was a fight for my soul shaping up, and I blindly walked right into it. I am probably not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that pornography provided no help, and a year and a half of counseling mainly produced a puzzled psychologist. Episcopal Marriage Encounter gave me a clue, with the truth that the world’s way, married singles, doesn’t work, and more importantly, that “Love is not a feeling.” But I didn’t know where to go with that.
It was the reading that brought me to Jesus Christ.
I had picked up “A History of the English Church and People,” by the Venerable Bede. I thought I’d like to learn a bit about the history of the Anglican Church. Well, I missed by 5 centuries... But something incredible happened. It was my first exposure to the witness of Christian martyrs, people who gave their lives for their faith, with “gladness and singleness of heart.” And here were kings who gave up their thrones to become monks. I wondered; who was this Jesus who inspired such sacrifice? This was not the Jesus I thought I knew. And here were letters from a pope named Gregory, letters to one bishop Augustine, letters that spoke with so much love of Christ and God’s children; What? A pope who was, could it be, a Christian? But how could that be? It went against everything I had ever learned.
I was participating in an Anglican internet discussion group, when a great storm of derision erupted against the Pope who dared to try and enforce his morality on others. The source of contention was a thing called an “Encyclical.” Rather than join the chorus, I decided to read John Paul’s “On the Value and Inviolability of Human Life.”
What I read changed my life; for here was a living Pope who had that same spirit of one ancient Pope, St. Gregory, in his letters to St. Augustine. I felt touched at the core of my being. It was a good touch, the touch of God’s love, and I hungered for more.
After I finished that encyclical, I was ashamed, for I knew I was a fool. So much of my pride was based on lies that I had never questioned, and I had rejected truth without even honestly questioning it.
St. Augustine’s Confessions played the next significant role. On the very first page, I knew I was coming home; St. Augustine writes: “Because you have made us for yourself, our heart is restless until it rests in you.” I couldn’t read this book fast enough. I was reading my very own life! And this written by a ‘primitive’ man of 1500 years ago; once again, how could this be? I took the book on a fishing trip, and sat in the hot sun for 4 days, reading while fly fishing in a float tube (you really can do this). I had to figure out how he got himself out of his mess! I knew that his answer would be mine. I was reading so fast I almost missed it… I had to go back and re-read it, perhaps it was the hot sun.
Faith. Could it be that simple? And on that hot afternoon, sitting in an inner tube with a fishing pole and a somewhat soggy book written by a saint 1500 years ago who was no doubt praying for me at that very moment, I said “yes” to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. With the help of St. Augustine, for the first time I really accepted the existence of God, that He was not limited by my understanding, and that based on the witness of the apostles, yes, Jesus Christ, Son of God, lived, was crucified, died, and arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. I could not understand it, it was impossible according to what I thought I knew, yet it happened, and I accepted it.
Jesus had been asked, “What sign will you give us?” He told them “an evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. And there is something greater than a Jonah here.”
I returned from that fishing trip with a new direction in my life. People asked me “how was your vacation,” and I responded with a silly grin that I had not returned. In fact, I still haven’t. Imagine yourself holding your breath under water until your lungs force you up into the air, and you gulp those huge breathes of air. For me that air was provided by frenzied reading. “The Imitation of Christ” introduced me to the spiritual life, Merton’s “Seven Storey Mountain” introduced to me the concept of obedience, and Brother Lawrence’s wonderful “Practice of the Presence of God” showed me that what Christ asked was possible for everyone. Even me.
There was one little thing that was still lacking in my conversion. I was still a sinner who did not believe in sin. Jesus turned me from sin, and he did it from his cross, just like he did to Peter so long ago. Listen to St. Luke:
“The cock crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him; ‘before the cock crows you will deny me three times.’ And Peter went out and began to weep bitterly.”
And that is what the Lord did to me. From the cross, He looked down on me with that same look he gave Peter, and said, clear as day, and like a sword though my heart, “I did this for you.” And I wept bitterly. For my sins were the nails through His holy hands, my words were the words of Pilate that condemned Him.
Like the prodigal son, I ran to God the Father, the Father who had waited so long and so patiently for me while I squandered His inheritance.
I realized that I had to learn to pray. And I wanted to so very much, there was so much to catch up on. But it just did not seem to be working. You see, although this tremendous conversion was happening to me, my marriage wasn’t getting any better, it was still going down hill. And when I hit bottom, who was there but St. Augustine. That very day, I read a letter he wrote about the scripture that says “we do not know what it is right to pray for.” Jesus himself sweated blood while He prayed in the Garden. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup be taken away from me, yet not what I will, but what You will, Father.”
Jesus said, “come to me, all who travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That was the day, October 26 1995, that I sought out a priest, and arrived on the doorstep of St. Matthews Church. That was the day I found what my heart was looking for.
Remember what happened when Jesus trashed the money changes in the temple? He said, “My Father’s house is a house of worship.” His disciples marveled, remembering that it was written that the Messiah would be consumed with zeal for His father’s house.
Do you not know that YOU are a temple of the Holy Spirit?
I didn’t know, I just didn’t know.
O Lord, when did you see my hungry, naked and in prison? I was hungry, for I was without the word of God, and you have fed me with the bread of life. I was naked, for I was without the garment of charity, and you sent me your Holy Spirit in Love. I was in the prison of sin, you broke my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh so that I could be reconciled to you, my Lord, and my Savior.
I had been headed for divorce in a sad replay of the end of my previous marriage. Yet, in 1996 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, my wife and children were received into the Catholic Church (1). Suffering alone, we were broken. Accepting the consequences of sin, and with faith turning from sin to our Lord Jesus, our crushing burdens were made light, as we grew in Love with God and each other though Jesus’ help.
He did promise us crosses, and to scourge every son he receives, and He has kept His promise. For my dear wife, it was a rapid and aggressive leukemia. For me, it was an indolent form of muscular dystrophy that is slowly destroying my muscles. I know we would not have survived these burdens without His assistance, and because of His help, our last year together was without a doubt our best.
He sends roses with crosses, and it was on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, he took my dear wife home. As weakness becomes more and more the rule of my life, I remember St. Paul, asking God to take the thorn from his side, and God’s response; “My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Roses with crosses. You are my roses; may God be ever praised.
(1) I had actually looked forward to what so many had described as the horrors of the annulment process; I thought that obedience to the Church and practice of continence would strength us, but the Church thought otherwise, and set aside my the prior civil marriage through the Pauline Privilege, as neither myself or my first “contractant” had been baptized, and my wife had not previously been married.
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