Homily

Today's epistle begins in Colossians where it ended in last Sunday's reading, where you remember St. Paul telling the Colossians to strip off the man who is anger, fury, malice, obscene language, lying, immorality, evil desire, and instead to put on the new man. And, today, we are told about some of the qualities we are choosing if we put on that new person: "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

Those are the examples of the two sides of the coin of Christian life: on the one side, it is to strip off sins, and on the other side, it is to clothe ourselves in virtues. But, it seems to me that we probably pay more attention to the "stripping off” part than the "putting on” part. Very young children find it a lot easier to take their clothes off than to put them on, and sometimes they don't even want to put them on. In a similar way, I think we can find it easier to try and correct our bad actions than to grow in virtuous actions, just as it is easier to teach your child not to hit his sister than it is to teach him patience.

As I'm thinking about it, I realize it's also a whole lot easier to identify and recognize sin than it is to find virtue in our daily lives. For example, a person might remember that he lied to his boss yesterday, but very few people will stop and think, "I was honest and truthful all day long yesterday.” We might remember saying something hurtful to another person a lot more quickly than we remember saying something kind to someone. I think that is rather interesting. It is a kind of recognition that we are called to live in holiness and virtue, which we generally don't even notice when we are practicing it because we see it as simply a genuine part of life that is expected of us. Virtue never harms us, unlike sin; it only adds to the richness of our lives and also to the lives of other people, whether they see it or not.

Any good parent does not want their children to hit one another, but any good parent wants a lot more than that for their children. They also want them to grow up in real virtues, like the ones we heard in today's epistle: mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Good parents want their children to be as full of virtue as possible so that their lives will be rich in good things. Our heavenly Father desires the same thing for us, whether we are children or adults.

So yes, we should work at stripping away our sinful tendencies but at the same time also pay attention to putting on virtue, because of all the things we might ever wear, nothing is as attractive on us as virtue. Pick a virtue or two to focus on and practice. We pay attention every day to putting on clothes which is why we have never ended up at work or school naked. Can't we also spend a few moments putting on the desire for some particular virtue? And if we notice our appearance a few times a day in a mirror, can't we also develop a habit of checking how we look a few times a day in our virtue? If we pray God to give us this day our daily bread, we can also ask His help to eat that bread in the virtue we have chosen to grow into. If we could trade off some of our concerns for things we are afraid of and instead put that thought and energy into gaining habits of holiness, we can score double victories in our daily walk with Christ.

For Jesus Christ will smooth our path with further grace, but only we can begin and seek out growth in virtue. It's our work, and it's work that brings us lasting wages that cannot be taken from us.