Dominica III in Quadragesima - Spring Cleaning our Souls

Notes
Transcript

PRESENTATION: Cleansing our souls in Lent

In exactly two weeks time, we will once again experience the first day of Spring. Of course, the Church already commemorated this transition with the Spring Embertide during the First Week of Lent. Spring always brings with it the annual tradition in many homes of spring cleaning. It’s a chance to throw open the windows for the first time in many months, after the cold and snow of winter, and let some fresh air in for the first time since last fall. It’s an opportunity to get rid of all the dust and dirt that has accumulated all winter, and it’s a chance for many to gather up the belongings that they don’t want anymore and make a few dollars at a garage sale (a sanitary and socially distant garage sale, of course).
Lent is, of course, an opportunity to perform some spring cleaning in our souls, but not in the way many people think. As I said back on Ash Wednesday, for many, Lent has become a kind of self-improvement activity, trying to break bad habits or vices like giving up smoking or not viewing pornography. Sadly, this interpretation of Lent is even supported by high-ranking churchmen. You may have seen a list of suggestions on the internet containing such suggestions as, “fast from hurting words… fast from sadness… fast from anger… fast from pessimism” and so on. There are two problems with these. First, as I explained last year in my series on the tenets of Lent, “fasting” referes to food and drink only. Second, you can’t fast from a vice, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. It would be like a thief saying he was going to give up burglary for Lent.
The principal purpose of Lenten penance, or indeed any penance, is not to free us from sinful habits, it’s to free us from the residue of sin. Even after we have made our Confession and received our absolution, there still remains in us a residue of sin that must be overcome by penance. I’m sure we are all familiar with the concept of temporal punishment due to sin. Since sin is an offence against God, in justice we must make some kind of reparation. This is one of the reasons that the priest assigns us a penance at the end of our confession, and if we don’t atone for that injustice we have committed against God while still in this life, we will do it in Purgatory.
But that is only one aspect to the residue of sin, the Catechism tells us the rest:

1865 Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil.

Sin engenders vice, perverts our inclinations (also known as our appetites or desires), clouds our conscience, and corrupts our judgement of good and evil.
The words of absoluton wipe away the eternal punishment due to our mortal sins, but not the residue of sin, for that we must perform works of penance.

EXPLANATION: Without penance we are easy targets

Failing to perform penance can lead to the consequences that Our Lord speaks about in today’s Gospel:

24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest: and not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out.

25 And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished.

26 Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself: and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.

St. Alphonsus Liguori puts it in a more straigtforward manner:
Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year Sermon XXI.—Easter Sunday: On the Miserable State of Relapsing Sinners

By the confessions which you have made your souls are healed, but not as yet saved; for, if you return to sin, you shall be again condemned to hell, and the injury caused by the relapse shall be far greater than that which you sustained from your former sins.

When we fail to perform penance we become easy targets for sin and temptation. The devil knows our weaknesses far better than we do. The residual effects of sin are like a wound on our souls, and why strike an opponent where he is strong, when you can strike him at his weakest point.
Again, St. Alphonsus says:
Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year Sermon XXI.—Easter Sunday: On the Miserable State of Relapsing Sinners

Every sin, though pardoned, always leaves a wound on the soul. When to this wound a new one is added, the soul becomes so weak that, without a special and extraordinary grace from God, it is impossible for her to conquer temptations.

Performing penance helps to strengthen our souls, and fortify us against temptation, in order to prevent the residue of sin from dragging us back.

IMPLICATION: Keeping our Lenten resolve

If we wish to truly cleanse and purify our souls this Lenten season, then we must be serious about our penance. I’m sure that we all entered Lent with the best of intentions, as we always do, but have we persevered? When we were confronted with the reality of our chosen penance, and immediatly faced the temptation to change, lighten, or simply forego what we had chosen, did we persevere?
Perhaps we are like the late Fr. Willie Doyle, the heroic Irish Jesuit military chaplain who died at the battle of Passchendaele but whose greatest battle was at the breakfast table. St. Josemaría Escrivá alludes to Fr. Doyle in his book The Way in what he calls, the “Butter Tragedy”.
“’I have read quickly the life of Fr. Doyle: How well I understand the tragedy of the butter.’”
“He took strong disciplines. In addition, he took tea without sugar, bread without butter and meat without salt, making of his meals a continuous series of mortifications. He had, by nature, a good appetite and a refined taste for sweets and pastries. He made all this an arena for self-denial.”
From Fr. Doyle’s diary: “A strong temptation during the Mass and the act of thanksgiving to scuttle my resolution and to give joy to my appetite at breakfast. The idea of a breakfast with dry bread and tea without sugar in the future, seems intolerable to me.” “God has been urging me on strongly during these exercises to give up butter completely. I have done so at many meals without any difficulty; but I have turned back out of human respect and through fear of the others noticing it. But, even if this were the case, of what importance would it be? One thing I feel Jesus constantly asking of me and I don’t have the courage to give it to him: to give up butter completely (Sept. 1913).”
Even if we struggle to keep up our penance we must persevere or the residue of sin will continually draw us backwards in our spiritual lives. If we feel ourselves faltering, St. Thomas à Kempis offers this suggestion to help us carry on:
Sermons to the Novices Regular Sermon XVIII: Of the Spiritual Warfare against Vices

Let him often sharpen his sword renewing his first purpose which he undertook; now meditating on the Passion of the Lord: now on the combats and bloody wounds of the martyrs: now on the flames of the eternal fire, now on the great horror of the demons: now on the unbearable stench of the pitch and sulphur, now on the lamentable crying of the damned: now on the despair of all salvation. These things, if they come to the mind, shake off sloth: repress the concupiscence of the flesh; consume the rust of vices, reprove negligence: and mightily enkindle to spiritual progress, and the fervour of devotion.

Lent is the perfect time each year to perform some spring cleaning on our souls, performing penance so that the residue of sin does not keep drawing us back into sin and vice. As we celebrate this Holy Mass today, let us ask Our Lord for the grace to persevere in our resolutions so that we may welcome him into souls that are truly pure.
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