Purification
– Now or Later
Friday December 23, 2005 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Fourth Week of Advent
Reading (Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24) Gospel (St. Luke 1:57-66)
In the first reading today, the prophet Malachi speaks about the coming
of the Lord, and he talks about the day of Our Lord’s appearance. He calls it a great
and terrible day
and he asks the question: Who will endure the day of His coming and who can stand
when He appears?
It is an interesting point because when He appeared He was a little baby. We
think about this little child–Who is, of course, Almighty God–and we think of
the innocence, the gentleness of a baby; yet here we have it called a great and
terrible day and there is the question of who can endure it and who can stand
when He appears. He appears in this manner because He is calling us to the same
thing, to be innocent, to be gentle, to be pure. We are told that He is going
to sit and refine the sons of Levi and all of the people of Judah and Jerusalem
so that they will be able to offer fitting and acceptable sacrifice to the
Lord.
Well, we are the members of the New Jerusalem, and we are called to
offer fitting and acceptable sacrifice to God. The sacrifice of the altar is
always fitting, perfect, and acceptable to God because it is the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ. So there is nothing lacking in His sacrifice; the question has to
do with our own. As we come before Him and we unite ourselves with His
sacrifice, what are we offering to the Lord? We have Our Lord present with us,
not as a baby now but in the form of a piece of bread; once again, in a manner
that does not seem so great and terrible; once again, in a manner that does not
seem to be such that we would not be able to stand in His presence and that we
would not be able to endure the day of His coming.
Yet anyone who has taken up the prayer life understands that in the
presence of the Lord we are going to be purified, that if we are really true
about seeking the Lord then in order to be able to see Him more clearly, in
order to be able to have this union with Him that we desire, we have to be
purified. And that purification is like a fire that burns within. The refining
of silver and gold probably looks like a pretty easy task by comparison with
the purification of the human soul.
The difference right now is that we can make the choice to allow that
purification to happen. Because His appearance is one that does not seem so
terrible and great, because His appearance is not one that we cannot endure,
then we can choose to allow ourselves to be purified. We can choose to
cooperate with God in this purification, or we can wait. If we wait, we will
not be able to stand. We will hardly be able to endure what it is that we are
going to have to deal with because then we will see God in all of His glory, no
longer as an innocent, tender, gentle, little baby, but as the Just Judge in
all of His glory. Then we will have to stand before Him and answer to
everything we have done.
Every last one of us must be purified. We can choose to cooperate with
the purification now, and in so doing we will be able to offer pure and fitting
sacrifice to the Lord. We will be able to worship Him with a pure heart and
with a purified soul. We will glorify Him more and we will be united more
perfectly with Him. If we wait (and if we are in the state of grace at that time), the
purification will be exceedingly harsh. There will be no growth in merit. We
will not be able to glorify God with a more pure heart or with anything greater
than what we already have. It is just simply being purified for the sake of
being purified. If we do it here, we grow in holiness, we grow in merit, we
gain a higher place in heaven, and we bring many, many people with us. If we
wait until after the fact, it is pretty much useless, except for the fact that
we are being purified so we can enter into the face-to-face vision with God;
otherwise, we gain nothing from it.
So why wait? Everything is really set up for our benefit. Our Lord has
come. He is present with us. When we think about what we will celebrate in two
days, ask yourself, “If you were to be invited to the manger, how would you
want yourself to be? What kind of disposition ought you to have as you come to
worship the Christ Child at His birth?” See His innocence, His gentleness, His
purity, His vulnerability, and then look at the Eucharist and ask: What kind of
disposition then ought we to have as we come before Him there? If we look at
our own disposition and realize that it needs some work then we need to tell
God to do whatever He needs to do. And brace yourself because the purification
is not fun. It is not easy, but it is worth every bit of it because the glory
we can give to God after we are purified, the pure and fitting worship that
will be acceptable to God that we can give to Him after we are purified, makes
it worth every bit of anything we will have to endure. That is what we have to
think about. Not to look at ourselves, not to get caught up in “what is
happening to me,” but rather to look at Him and ask ourselves: “What kind of
disposition should I have as I come before Him?”
The Day of the Lord is near at hand. In two days, we celebrate the
birth of our Redeemer, and we are invited to come before Him and to worship
Him. What kind of disposition ought we to have in His presence?
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.