THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost 25 September 2011

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

Today we witness a wondrous miracle. Jesus has raised the widow’s son to life. He restored him to his mother to alleviate her pain and suffering. He did this out of love and compassion for human suffering but perhaps even more importantly to prove His divinity. As God there is nothing that He cannot do. Jesus can do all things, because He is God.

While this resurrection of the dead is something wondrous for us all to consider and remind ourselves that we too will one day be brought back from this physical death, there is a greater and more magnificent resurrection for us to consider – a spiritual one. Scripture speaks of two deaths the one physical (the death of our bodies) the other spiritual the death of our souls. The first one we are all subject to. It is one of the things that is unavoidable in this life. The second death though, is completely avoidable, if we will only cooperate with the grace of God.

Each and every mortal sin destroys the life of grace in the soul and therefore sadly leads to a spiritual death. Jesus restored supernatural life many times and has even empowered His priests to do the same thing in His Name in the Sacrament of Penance. This is an even more wondrous miracle than restoring physical life.

As much as we fear the physical death we should fear the spiritual death even more. We cannot avoid the first death – it is inevitable. If we are in the state of grace this first death becomes a good thing and is even a blessing as it delivers us from this world and into the next which is incomparably better. Many of the saints with St. Paul longed to be freed from this life so that they could enter the next one. To them this first death was a release from the prison of this world and freedom to enter into heaven. Far from death being a curse for them, it actually was a blessing.

Rather than fear the physical death of our bodies, we must learn to fear even more so the death of our souls. There is nothing that we should fear more than committing a mortal sin and destroying the life of God in our souls. The death of our souls is an eternal death in Hell. The death of our bodies is only a temporary circumstance, because on the last day all the bodies that ever were or ever will be will be brought back to life to die this physical death no more. The just will enter (body and soul) into eternal happiness in heaven, while the evil will enter (body and soul) into the eternal punishments of Hell.

If we would only consider how long “eternity” is we would see just how foolish it is to exchange a brief passing pleasure in this life for an eternal misery in the next.

In restoring physical life to this young man, Jesus also gave him the opportunity of a second chance to merit eternal happiness in heaven or to at least attempt to increase his merits in heaven. It is only in this life that we can merit or increase our merits in eternity. Once we die the physical death then we can merit nothing more. Our lot will be forever sealed. Even those in Purgatory suffer not to gain or increase merit, but rather to purge themselves of the less serious accretions of sin that weigh their souls down. Those in Purgatory will enter into Heaven without a doubt as soon as their imperfections have been purified.

We too are given many second chances in this life just as the young man in today’s gospel. We may not have physical life restored to us, but we have been given the sacraments. It is advantageous to our soul that we especially partake in the sacrament of Penance if we have the misfortune of falling into mortal sin. It is through this sacrament that our soul can be easily restored so that we may begin anew.

Let us take up the frequent use of this sacrament whether we have known mortal sins or not as the cleansing from even small sins is of great help to us both now and in eternity.