Homily

I was listening to Catholic radio this past week, the Dr. Ray Guarendi show, and someone asked him a question: “Let’s say a man is a good practicing Catholic all his life, but at age 75 he commits a serious sin and before he can confess it, he dies. It doesn’t seem fair that in the face of all those many years of good living that one single sin could send him to hell.” Dr. Ray replied that if he truly was living such a good Christian life for so many years it is hard to believe that he would commit a serious sin at that point in life. And if he did, he must have seriously wanted to do some evil, because he would be going against all habits of a lifetime.

And that fits in very well with something that has been on my mind this week. Our whole life requires that we make choices all the time, from morning until night, every day of every week. We are not usually aware of the fact we are making choices all the time because our choices are often guided by choices that we have made in the past that continue to operate and work in the present. At some point in the past a woman decides that she really likes oatmeal for breakfast, so she chooses that for several days in a row. Before long she doesn’t even think about it. She automatically reaches for the oatmeal box every morning. A habit is formed and becomes part of her life.

These habits are not just about breakfast choices, of course. Our life in Christ is also formed by many habits, and those good habits help us to grow in faith and virtue. For example, most of you, perhaps even all of you, are here today to worship the Lord because it has become a good habit for you. You don’t have to struggle with the question every Sunday, “Should I go to Liturgy or not?” That’s a blessing. And quite literally, because of it, we are blessed. Dr. Ray is correct. The more good choices we make, the more they tend to become good habits that guide our lives in godly ways.

One of the earliest titles that Christians used to describe themselves, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, was as the “People of the Way.” In one of the early Christian documents, the Didache, it is explained that there are two ways—a way that leads to life, and a way that leads to death. The question is which way will we choose? Which path will we follow? As we walk in our lives which way will we go? The road before us has many, many intersections that come up all the time, many forks in the road, and we have choices to make. One turn, one choice, is putting us, or keeping us on a route that is leading to life, another on a route that is leading to death. As I see it many Christians are on the road that leads to life. Sometimes, when we sin, we step off that road momentarily, ask forgiveness, and then get back on it. Other times we may, more seriously, take a turn that is leading to death. But if we repent, we can backtrack and get on the good road once again.

I am sometimes amused when I hear parents talking to young children and explaining that they can either make a good choice, or a bad choice, because when I think of my mother raising us, it would never occur to her to think to tell us that we actually had a choice because that choice had already been made for us, thank you very much. The choice was “do what I tell you” or, “do what I tell you.”

Here’s the thing: it’s something I have thought about a number of times over the years, and once again this past week. Being a pastor in the same parish for so many years has allowed me to watch the lives of many people over a long period of time, both inside and outside the parish. When people start to turn down the wrong path it’s a very dangerous thing because those paths are on a downward slope. They seem easier and even better roads to travel. Gravity is working for us. Those paths lead to other downward paths and they can look as though they are even better and easier routes to follow. A person may turn around and look back, but going back would mean climbing uphill, and that would be more difficult. One downward path keeps leading to more and more of the same, and it can start to seem only natural to keep choosing these routes in life. After a while it can become so habitual to keep walking these roads that a person starts to forget that there even was a different direction they could be travelling, and even if they do remember it, they have gone so far downhill that it seems impossible to even climb back up to where they had been. Better to just stick to the way I’m going. My friends, I have seen this many times over the years. One bad choice leading to another, to another, and lives become ruined in so many ways, faith is abandoned, God is forgotten. People don’t usually choose that sad ending as a goal, but step by step, one road easily leads to another, and they end up in a place they never thought they would be, but now they call it their normal life. Avoiding the teachings of Christ, and indeed, avoiding Christ Himself, they can end up in lives of sadness, misery, and sin. And they never even saw it coming.

But the opposite is true as well. Every time we choose for virtue and holiness it becomes a little easier to do it again. Every time we choose to follow the path that goes upward we become stronger to go upwards again. Every time we choose to follow the path of Christ’s truth, even though we are working against the gravity of our sinful natures, we find it easier to continue to do it, as Christ’s grace gives us the extra strength that we need to continue upwards. Every good turn makes it a little easier to make another good turn, and the virtuous choices we make draw us closer and closer to Jesus Christ our life and our hope. It’s difficult to see the progress we make sometimes, just as it is difficult for those on the wrong path to see how far down they may have gone. But if we look over the long run we can see how our good choices and God’s grace have lifted our lives up into greater goodness. Even though we are still sinners in need of continued repentance, we are still on the way that leads to life and a heavenly home. I have had the grace to be able to see that in so many of your lives. Let’s be encouraged to continue walking on the way that leads to life choosing again and again the paths that lead to life, not only for us but for the lives of many others as well. And, as it says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, Who inspires and perfects our faith.”