When I was a child, my favorite book was “The Velveteen Rabbit”. Many of you have probably heard this book, maybe you have read this book to your children or grandchildren. This story is about a toy, a stuffed rabbit, who belongs to a young boy. Throughout the whole story the rabbit has one great desire: to become fully alive. During the story we learn that the rabbit can only become alive through love, the love of the little boy to whom it belongs. This story helps us better understand today's readings. As we will see, in our life, each of us should share the desire of the velveteen rabbit, the desire to be fully alive.
In today’s gospel we discover that Jesus restores life
out of love. Because of His love, Jesus
gives life to the dead man. Try to
picture this scene. You are standing on
a dirt road outside the main gate of a walled city. You see a large group coming out of the city
passing through the gate. You can see
that they are carrying a platform on which there is the corpse of a young man. Beside the platform, clinging to it is a
woman wailing. She is the mother of the
man. She is inconsolable because her
only son has died. It is as though her
own life has ended because with her son dead she will have no one to provide
for her. Suddenly you see Jesus approach
the platform. He is visibly moved and goes
straight for the grieving mother. Jesus’
love for the woman is evident in the way He speaks with her, trying to console
her. Jesus’ words surprises all those
present: Jesus tells the corpse to get up.
Everyone’s surprise is turned to shock and amazement with what happens
next: the dead man arises, he has been raised from the dead. Two points are clear from this scene: 1)
Jesus has the power to give life to the dead and 2) He does so out of love, in
this case, love for the grieving mother.
In today’s gospel we discover that Jesus restores life out of love.
Though each of us here is physically alive, at times we
can be spiritually dead. Even though are
bodies are healthy, our souls may be sick and dying. We are all meant to carry within us the life
of God. We call this Divine life
grace. Here on earth, grace fills us
with faith, hope and joy. It helps us to
be a better person. When we die, it is
because of this grace in our souls that we are able to live with God forever in
heaven. When we sin, we either damage
this Divine life within our soul or banish is from our souls altogether. Sin robs us of life, both here on earth and
eternal life with God in heaven. At some
time in our life, we have all probably experienced the crippling effects of sin. It robs us of freedom, joy and peace. This is particularly true when sin becomes a
habit, a kind of addiction. There are
many examples. A work-aholism in which
we work so much we neglect our relationships with family members and God. A consumerism in which we find the only way
we can feel good about ourselves is by buying more stuff. The internet has made addiction even more
common whether it be addiction to social media, gambling or pornography. Because of addiction to sin, we run the risk
of being spiritually dying even though in body we may appear to be healthy.
Jesus has the power to restore our spiritual life. Because of His love for us, Christ desires to
give us back our spiritual life. As a
society we are very much aware of the importance of physical health. We strive to maintain it. If we lose health, we try to restore it by
all means, even spiritual. If you watch
a program from a tele-evangelist, you find it is full of people seeking to be
healed physically. Though we recognize
the importance of physical health, we sometimes ignore spiritual health,
something that is so much more important.
Though we should pray for those who are physically ill and rejoice when
healing is given, we forget that to be spiritually healed is much more important
than a physical healing. To be raise
from a physical death, such as the case we see in the gospel, is nowhere near
as important or miraculous as to be given life after a spiritual death. In the second reading we are presented with
such a spiritual resurrection. St. Paul
had been stuck in a sinful and destructive pattern of behavior through his
pride he was persecuting the followers of Christ. His actions brought death to others and
spiritual death to himself. All this
changed when Paul encountered Jesus Christ.
At this moment he was spiritually raised from death to life. His life changed forever. Only Jesus could have worked such a
miracle. Jesus alone has the power to
restore our spiritual life.
It is up to us to seek the life-restoring power of Christ. Jesus forces His life-changing power on no
one. What if I told you that there was a
way for each of us to be raised from spiritual death? What if I told you that it was easy and only
took five minutes? Would you do it? In His love, Jesus has made his
life-restoring powers readily available to us in the sacrament of
confession. Sin robs us of the gift of
Divine life, it causes a spiritual death in our soul. Confession forgives our sins and gives us
back the gift of Divine life. It is
truly spiritual resurrection. A huge
gift, readily available. Yet we tend not
to take advantage of it. Yes I know,
confession can be embarrassing and a bit awkward, I feel the same way when I go
to confession. But is shouldn’t be this
way. In confession we encounter the
loving, healing presence of Jesus Christ.
No one is judging us. No one is taking
notes on what we say. Jesus desperately
wants to give us the gift of life through the sacrament of confession. Will we let Him? It has never been easier to take advantage of
this gift. You can always come before
Mass at St. Matthews. If that is not
convenient, you go to the Archdiocese website, rcav.org, you can look at other
parishes close by to find times for confession.
Christ loves us and desperately wants to raise us from spiritual death
to life, but we must seek His help.
The Velveteen rabbit
desperately wanted to be alive. In the
end, love gave life to the rabbit. Jesus
loves us and wants to give us life, but do we have this same desire which
motivated the Velveteen Rabbit? Do we
want to be a fully alive, both physically and spiritually health? Or are we satisfied to be physically alive
and spiritually dead? To be a kind of
spiritual zombie? Jesus has both the
power and the desire to raise us to life.
Let us allow Jesus to restore us to life by going to the sacrament of
confession soon.
