How much effort are you making to be holy?

Good News Reflection
Tuesday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time
June 1, 2010
Today's Saint: Justin Martyr
Pray for those with intellectual obstacles to faith:
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/JustinMartyr.htm
Today's Readings:
2 Peter 3:12-15a, 17-18
Ps 90:1-4,10,14,16
Mark 12:13-17
http://www.usccb.org/nab/060110.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_06_01.mp3
How much effort are you making to be holy?
In today's first scripture we read: "Make every effort to be found without stain or defilement...." Oh we are a lazy lot! If we truly were making every effort to be found without sin, we would be going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation every week if not every day. Pope John Paul II used to go to confession weekly. Mother Teresa of Calcutta went daily. What I want to know is: Why? I am not nearly as holy as they were, and I can't figure out why I should go once a month!
The difference between me and these saintly people is that I don't make "every effort" to grow in holiness. Like you, it's not that I don't want to be holy. Rather, we too easily feel satisfied with our current level of spiritual growth. We're too busy to read more books about faith, too tired at the end of the day to attend programs at church, and too distracted to pray when stressed out and in need of a quiet time-out with the Lord.
To feel satisfied with our current level of holiness, we become good at ignoring our spiritual shortcomings and sins. Others see them though, don't they. We're very good at denial and rationalization. We lash out in anger at others and absolve ourselves by claiming they deserved it. We smoke cigarettes and believe that we are not destroying our bodies. While rightfully condemning abortion we also condemn abortionists and ignore that our judgmentalism is another form of killing.
However, once we admit our need to put more time into spiritual growth, God helps us, not with a scolding "I told you not to sin" wagging finger of disapproval, but with mercy and kindness and a powerful gift of grace that will help us grow if we make every effort to rely on it.
In the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist, God fills us with this grace. He enables us to be the holy persons he created us to be during the Sacrament of Baptism. Grace gives us supernatural strength to resist sin. The Blessed Mother was full of grace; this is why she could always choose holiness when tempted with opportunities to sin. Why would we want to ignore such a gift?
The reason it so often eludes us is because we're ignoring our faults and failures and stains and defilements, because we feel ashamed and fear rejection. But what we're protecting ourselves from is only a mere illusion, the lie that we are no good, unlovable, worthless. In God's forgiveness we rediscover who we really are. And we receive the help that he freely and generously wants to give us.
Let's make honest assessments of ourselves, with full confidence in God's love and forgiveness and helpfulness. Through the Holy Spirit who lives within us, we can get off the merry-go-round of a life controlled by busyness and tiredness and distractions and stress and move forward making great strides on the road of holiness.
© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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