Sharing in the Divine life!

The consequence of original sin deprives us of the capacity to love as God loves. The lack of love within causes us to sin. Sin committed by all generations is a result of the original sin. By offering himself as a ransom Jesus paid the price for the original sin once and for all thus Jesus’ sacrifice is a valid reparation for  all sins. In baptism you and I receive the merit of Jesus’ priceless redemptive work -freely. This is called sanctifying grace.

By choosing to submit their will to the source of death (satan) and rejecting God the father, the source of life, our first parents deprived themselves of the divine life they shared with God. This resulted in a wound (vacuum) deep within that kept humanity enslaved to sin. We too have inherited this woundedness and are thus inclined to sin. Today you and I who are baptized have the sanctifying grace unless we reject it by un- repented sins. But we have a wounded heart too.

Primary objective of Jesus’ incarnation was to heal the mankind of its woundedness and restore to them their original nature. By instructing us in the light of truth, sacrificing himslf on the cross, by his resurrection and instituting the sacraments, Jesus granted man the privilege to be completely healed and be restored to divine nature by abiding fully in the life the church- His body.

Unfortunately as Catholics we do not understand the capacity of the sacraments especially the ones we receive too often - reconciliation and the Eucharist. We draw boundaries for these sacraments depending on the magnitude of our own woundedness and ignorance. Sacraments if received in the full knowledge of its actual capacity and in the full knowledge of our own real need can change us over night. But because man achieves this knowledge only progressively over time, the change is also progressive.
If despite of receiving Eucharist and confessing for decades we have not made any progress in holiness (Partaking in the life of Christ) we must wonder why? We must then sincerely seek the real problem within us that needs to be addressed and also the real capacity of the sacraments. The sacraments are meant to enable us to share in God’s holiness and to partake in divine life. (Please think about this. This is profound)

The recurrence of sin and our continuous battle against it is the evidence of the woundedness we have within. What we need is His healing. Unfortunately we approach the sacrament of reconciliation only as a means get our sins forgiven and unburden ourself until the time we sin again. The tragedy is that we do not seek to be healed of the woundedness that is causing us to commit these sins. This is precisely why have the same laundry list every time we go for confession.

If we go to God only to get our sins forgiven we are considering God not as a loving father but as an authoritarian boss. We see this tendency even in the prodigal son who settles for the position of a hired servant but God the loving father ceremoniously restores his sonship.

I must stop seeing confession as a dirty routine I ought to go through in order to feel righteous and justified but rather experience it as a beautiful moment with Jesus my bride groom where I constantly seek healing knowing well that He is fully in love with me and that his love is all that I need to heal my wounds. We must allow Jesus to love us out of our sins. We must experience Eucharist as the means by which we enter into the divine life of Jesus and allow ourselves to be consumed by his love. If our hearts are completely content and loved by God, we do not need to look elsewhere for pleasure and cause ourselves to sin because nothing else satisfies us like the pleasure of love God offers.

We might ask why can’t Jesus along with restoring sanctifying grace, heal our hearts us too that we no longer have to struggle against sin. But the fact is that Jesus will not do that without our permission because true love respects our freedom. But rest assured, he does not waste time to come in if we say yes to Him. Let our “amen” upon receiving the Holy Eucharist resound like Mary’s fiat “be it unto me according to thy word”. We will be healed in proportion to our openness to Him.