Have you ever noticed how we commit the same sins over and over again, rather than different ones all the time? There is a reason for this. Sin leaves its mark upon us, rather as red wine does when spilled on a white tablecloth. The cloth can be washed clean, but the stain remains. It takes a lot of rubbing and stain remover to get the cloth white again. In the same way, the stain that sin leaves on us has to be scrubbed away, or it will cause us to commit the same old sins over… and over… and over…
The Church has traditionally identified seven of these “stains” of sin. Three have to do with love of others’ harm: pride, where we push ourselves up at others’ expense; envy, where we hate another for having something we want but do not possess; and wrath, uncontrolled anger directed towards another, which can be active or passive (sulking). There are three in which we turn our love away from God himself and towards the objects he has created; lust, gluttony and covetousness, which is longing for the possessions or gifts that others possess. Between these comes sloth in which, though we don’t actually do something bad, we somehow never get around to doing what we should. As Philip Neri put it, “When shall we begin to do good?”
How can we deal with these sins? From earliest times, Israel had three practices which the Church has accepted into its life; fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Fasting means taking control of our bodies’ incessant demands for comfort and indulgence. By saying “No!” to our physical side, we take control of our lives. In prayer, we turn away from self and allow our relationship with God to be restored. In almsgiving, we turn away from self to restoring our relationship with those around us. All of these are aimed at turning us away from turning our lives inwards on ourselves, and outwards towards self-forgetfulness, love of God and love of neighbour. And in doing this, we are making it possible for God to enter our lives and to scrub away at the stain of sin within us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus draws his disciples away from envy and pride towards humility and self-forgetfulness. He sets the relative unimportance of a small child against the desire for self-importance among his disciples. He calls us to do the same. We should be able to rejoice in the gifts God has given us, and at the same time to rejoice in those of others, even when their gifts are greater than ours. But we need, too, to live out those familiar but forgotten old practices of fasting, prayer and almsgiving as a path to holiness. In the words of David, “O purify me, then I shall be clean. O wash me until I am whiter than snow.” May David’s longing become a reality in the lives of each one of us.
Fr Phillip.
