Good morning everyone! As you know, many of us have just come back from the Rise Above Young Adult/Young Professional retreat in Surfside. Thank you for your prayers because the Holy Spirit was literally howling in the wind! It was a great way for us to begin this Lent season and open our spirits up to the ways in which we have fallen into the habit of sin, especially in regards to the form of the Seven Deadly Sins. What was even more exhilarating was to see the ways in which we can turn those sins around and live out the VIRTUES that glorify Christ within us. In my own reflection of what was discussed on the retreat I think two main points stand out:
The first is that PRIDE is the ‘head’ of all sins…many don’t even understand what the real sin is in ‘pride’. We often think pride of our country, or our children and accomplishments…but that is a healthy pride. The ‘sinful’ pride is that which keeps you from recognizing your weaknesses and wanting to work on them in order to glorify God in the virtue of humility. When we ignore that we are not behaving/or thinking in a ‘Christ-like’ manner then we begin to lead our lives with excuses that allow us to stumble into all of the ‘deadly sins’.
And second, to go along with that is SLOTH. Sloth isn’t just being physically lazy it is also the avoidance of spiritual work, in other words, we avoid the ‘work’ it takes to be on a spiritual journey. I think sloth goes along with pride b/c we don’t want to put forth the ACTION it takes to align ourselves with God’s will in order to keep us from sin.
We avoid the virtue of humility b/c we think it will be too painful and we fear being vulnerable…and we avoid the virtue of diligence in aligning ourselves with God’s will because we fear the unknown of where God is taking us.
What’s the common factor? FEAR Who creates fear? The ENEMY What does God embody? LOVE
What do you have to lose in being humble and diligent? NOTHING
Do me a favor and reflect on that as long as you need this Lenten season. Why? Because FAITH did have a price, Christ’s life. We owe Him.