Wednesday January 4, 2006 (Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Wednesday Before Epiphany
Reading (1 John 3:7-10) Gospel (St. John 1:35-42)
In the Gospel reading today, we hear about Saint John the Baptist
watching Jesus walk by and pointing Him out to his disciples as the Lamb of
God. As such, the disciples immediately leave their teacher to follow Jesus.
Now this is something that is of great importance for us, first of all, to be
able to recognize that once these two men understood (at least to the degree
that they were able) Who Jesus was, they immediately were willing to leave
behind everything else and follow Him. Not only that, but once they had found
Our Lord, they went to tell others. We are told that the first thing Andrew did
was to go find his brother Simon. Bringing Simon to Jesus, Jesus changes his
name and says, You will be called Kephas (Peter). Immediately, there is a change in
the lives of these men because of their initial meeting with the Lord. From
there, of course, we know they had to continue to work on growing in virtue,
but nonetheless, we can see the immediate change that takes place.
The same thing needs to be in us: When we recognize Who Jesus is, we
have to make a change. If we think back, if we had fallen away at some point or
perhaps we simply did not know the Lord, I think we would all have our own
little story about what happened and how we came to the Lord or how we changed
our lives. But then we need to keep working at it. That initial conversion is
not enough; we have to continue to grow.
For instance, we think about James and John. We hear about Saint John,
the beloved disciple, who is with Andrew. Saint John is extraordinarily holy,
to the point where in the first reading he is telling us that the way you can
tell who is of the devil and who is of God is by the way they act. And so we
know, obviously, that Saint John was not running around doing all kinds of
horrible things. He was the closest disciple to the Lord; yet he, along with
his brother, are the ones who wanted Jesus to call down fire on a town that
would not accept Him. We have Peter coming to the Lord and having his name
changed, which signifies an entire change in the way he is going to live; yet
he denies Jesus three times. So we see that just because there is that initial
conversion to the Lord, it is not complete and it needs to continually be
worked at.
Each and every one of us needs, first of all, to be so grateful to God
for that conversion He has worked in our lives, and that we cooperated with His
grace to turn around. But we cannot stop there. What happens all too often is
that we are willing to settle for mediocrity. If we are willing to settle for
mediocrity then we are going to fall into the same trap that some of the
apostles did. After being with Jesus every day for a couple of years, they
still were doing things that were stupid. So we see that it is not going to be
quick and it is not going to be easy. But it is necessary. We have to keep
working on growth in holiness, growth in virtue.
Perhaps you have gotten to the point where there are not any mortal
sins in your life anymore. Praise God! But do not stop. Keep working at it
until the venial sins are gone. Maybe you have gotten rid of the venial sins.
Praise God even more! But do not stop because now you need to keep working on
it until you get rid of the voluntary imperfections. And if you have gotten
that far, praise God even more! But keep going because now you need to get rid
of the involuntary imperfections. When they are all gone, it is then that you
have perfect union with Christ. That is what He wants for us in this life so
that we will have it completely and fully in the next.
We cannot settle for mediocrity. We cannot say, “Well, it’s enough that
I’ve turned to the Lord and I’m not committing mortal sin anymore.” We cannot
even say, “It’s enough that I’m going to daily Mass.” These are great things
and we need to be praising God for them, but if we really, truly love God, we
need to keep loving Him more and we need to continue to grow in holiness
everyday. That is the way we are going to express our love for Him most
perfectly, and the only way that can happen is in prayer. So that is the
decision we have to make. If we are going to have this change in our lives
because of our meeting with Christ, then that change needs to continue to
happen until the union with Him and the love for Him is perfect.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.