The Perils of Infidelity and the Call to True Faith

Introduction

The Epistle and gospel today are very clear warnings from Saint Paul as well as from our Lord, just cautioning us about the fact that of of the penalties of infidelity. Saint Paul reminds us of the example of the Israelites who, after their their liberation from slavery in Egypt were put into such were made to wander the desert for 40 years before they could enter into the promised land. While they were doing so, they had just received tremendous graces from God. And even in the moment that Moses was up on the Mount receiving the the Ten Commandments, they forgot about the glory that the gift that college has given them and the wonders he had just worked to liberate them. The ten plagues as well as the destruction of the armies of Egypt and everything else.

Israel's Infidelity

And instead they, as Saint Paul points out, it says said in the Gospel that in the end the Old Testament, that they sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They fell into idolatry. They fell to fornication. They fell to the sins of the flesh and into the loss of this world. And they were punished over and over and over again, but not just one punishment, because they kept following those 40 years of them wandering in the desert before they entered the Promised Land. Ah, one series. It's just. It's just a cycle. They murmur. They complain. They fall away. They fall to sin. Cry. God comes down and punishes them in one way or another. They repent and they ask Moses to intercede for them. Moses. Moses intercedes. Or Aaron with Moses intercede. And then God's wrath subsides and he gives them another chance. And over and over again.

Our Lord's Lament over Jerusalem

When our Lord weeps over Jerusalem, it is because their infidelity has, as is as reached its final mark. The Jewish nation. The nation of Israel was created for one purpose, and that was to maintain the bloodline and the traditions for the coming of Christ. And when he came, they rejected him, and he weeps over it because now they are broken. Because of what they had done, because of what they what they had done in rejecting Christ, the covenant, which they had with God, was abolished. It was perfected by the coming of Christ and the moment where they could receive him and accept him. Instead, they turned away from him and as such, Jerusalem was destroyed in such a savage and horrible way from within, as well as from without, to the point that it is true that not a stone was left upon a stone. And the diaspora of the Jews took place, sent to every corner of the world for the Roman Empire. Condemned to never hold a nation again. Well, until recently. But that is the punishment for their infidelity.

The Higher Bar for Christians

And the caution here is that what they received in figure and in prophecy and in promise, we have in completion, we have instead of a simple prophet like Moses preaching the Word of God to us and telling us what we must do and believe, receiving only one person to receiving the Word of God to give to everybody else. Rather, we have the Word of God itself. We have the Scriptures. We have the Word of the Church. We have our Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the sacrifice of the Mass and in the Eucharist, we have direct access to him. And as such, the bar is set much, much, much higher for us. And if the Jews were in, the Israelites were punished for their infidelities in these tremendous ways. How much more so have we merited terrible destruction upon our own selves? And just as with the the the destruction of Jerusalem and the year 70, also, we have this danger that our enemies will surround us and will tear us apart from within and from without until there's not a stone left upon a stone in our own soul.

The Danger of Infidelity

And how very dangerously close we are to that every breath of our life. Every betrayal of the gifts that God has given to us for any purpose. Calls down the wrath of God upon us. Because any time we voluntarily choose any good. Above the good that God has revealed to us any time we prefer any love, love of self or love of another above the love of God. Then we are losing ourselves entirely. God has called us to the heights of sanctity. He has called us to be his own children. Not just the carriers of his word and the lineage that was necessary for Christ. He has called us to be the living exemplification of his nature and of his presence. This is a powerful burden that we carry and a very important one as well.

The Enemies of Our Souls

But the world, the flesh and the devil are three great enemies do not want to let us hold these things in peace. And they will do everything they can to destroy our souls. They'll do everything in their power to do so. And if we let them out of laziness, out of selfishness, out of sin, out of lust, out of any other temptation or sin. Then what we have done effectively is we have created the same destruction of Jerusalem within our own souls. Because the Jews, by preferring their own idea and image of what the Messiah was supposed to be rejecting Christ, invited upon themselves, the destruction of Jerusalem. And we, when we put false gods upon an altar in our hearts, above that of God Almighty and the love that He offers to us, we invite the same destruction of our souls and of our wills and hearts.

The Consequence of Our Choices

It may be for any motive, motivation whatsoever in this world. It has won a great victory over our souls in general, the collective soul, shall we say. St Thomas Aquinas warns that the worst punishment God can inflict upon a soul is to leave it to its own devices. If that's what you prefer, go for it. If you prefer that above, my love, you have it. Frequently. The worst thing that can happen to us is to get what we want. Because we don't know what we want. We don't know what we should want. Instead, we choose the thing that is wrong. We choose the thing that is not God or not from God or not for God. And instead we prefer something that gives us pleasure, happiness, or whatever else.

The Trap of the World

God created us to be infinitely happy because He created us for Himself. He created us to possess him who is infinity. So there is nothing on this earth that could possibly satisfy us. So what is the world do instead? The world has created an environment of instant gratification where we can constantly fill ourselves up with tiny little happiness along the way so that we don't actually have to worry so much about the pursuit of the great happiness of eternal glory with God. Of being his his child. Instead of looking for true happiness, we settle for banal contentment of a momentary nature. The world has created an environment in which we choose, which makes it easy for us to choose a comfortable hell. And St Thomas says that it is easy for us that some of God's worst punishment is to let us have our own way.

The State of the World

How else do we explain the world around us? The world had the message of God and rejected it. It had the love and the salvation of Christ and the mass and has rejected it. And we can see the fruits. All around us. A world that hates God and has replaced him with insignificant little pleasures. A world that has rejected God on a fundamental level and instead is preferring to focus upon humanity and not about humanity in service of God, but rather God in service of humanity.

The Tears of Christ

But our salvation is the fact that Christ weeps. He wept over those the he wept over Jerusalem and he bemoaned how I would have longed how I have longed to shelter you under my wings as a mother hen does her her chicks. That's what he longs for and that's what he suffered and died for, and that's what he sacrifices himself for. And that's what he gives to us constantly, every day. That opportunity born of his tremendous love for us. But rather than listen to the sirens, call of the world and its pleasures of the flesh parts of Egypt, of the murmurings among the the world. Instead of focusing on all of these things, which St Paul warns us about, let's take advantage of the tears of Christ, the pain and the suffering and the passion and the death and and the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ to be able to wake up within ourselves, the desire to be with Him, He who has loved us so, absolutely and so perfectly.

The Call to Love

Let us learn to love from the master himself. Let us learn to give back. He has loved us. First. Let us love him and return. It has respond love for love, Saint John says. And let us make him the most important thing in our lives. And let us show him that is the case by being able to offer up all those little contentment in the end. Easy path to hell. And force ourselves onto the difficult and narrow path to heaven.

The Trap of Contentment

The world wants to condemn us through contentment. And comfort. Let us not fall into that trap. While we can appreciate and enjoy the good things of this world, it always will be at a price. And that price has to be been aware of the fact that God himself gave us these things not for our contentment and our comfort, but so that we could find him in them. And we have to use them in his service. Or not at all. We must practice the virtue of discipline over ourselves, as painful, as difficult as it may be. We must constantly maintain vigilance over ourselves that we do not that we do not slip into, as I put it earlier, the comfortable health of this earth and of the world of flesh and the devil. We have to practice constant vigilance. Our souls are too valuable. Our souls are virtuous. Too delicate. Our desires are too strong. Our enemies are too fierce and too voracious.

The Tears of Christ as Our Favor

But we have one thing in our favor, and that is the tears of Christ himself. He wept. He sweat blood and he gave his entire life for us. That counts for an awful lot. But that means we have to live up to it and live for it and in it. We must also recognize the fact that we owe God all things and find happiness in that debt that we must repay to God day in and day out.

Turning to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Let us turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, in one of her more amazing apparitions at last alert, was discovered weeping upon the stone because of the weight of our sins. She claimed in that apparition that she was the one holding her son's hand back from smiting the earth and all of it and punishing us for our sins. And she complained, his hand is so heavy. So she's the one helping us and holding us back. But at the same time we must ask her for her. Not only her intercession, but her guidance. Like our Lord, she is meek and humble of heart, perfectly united to His sacred heart. We must learn to love him like she loved him, like she loves him, and like she loves all of us. We must learn to love God through her. Let His turn to our blessed mother and have great hope and confidence in her, but absolutely working out our salvation in fear and trembling so that we can really work for our salvation and denying our own our own wish for pleasures so that we can search out the immutable and absolute perfection of of the happiness that God offers us in Heaven.