While atop Mount Sinai the
Lord told Moses to go down to the people whom you brought out of the land of
Egypt, for they have become depraved.
The Israelites had been
led out of slavery by a pillar of fire, through the Red Sea which had
miraculously parted for them. They had
seen and heard the thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud descend upon Mount Sinai. Yet, the Israelites who had been
exposed to the pagan worship of the Egyptian culture for centuries, soon turned
away from God their savior, and began to worship a pagan idol.
You can take the Israelites out of Egypt, but taking the
Egypt out of the Israelites is another story. So God sends Moses back down Sinai to
deal with these “stiff-necked people” as God himself calls them.
Don’t members of the Catholic Church have a similar
story? We’ve been given the pillar of
light that is the teaching of Christ, we’ve been led through the waters of
baptism into the Holy Catholic Church where we witness miracles upon miracles
and receive blessings upon blessings. We
really have no excuse at not being pretty saintly. But, exposed to the evils and distractions
and idolatry of the culture, we adopt the attitudes of the world rather than
the beatitudes of Christ.
The Catholic is subject to
becoming stiff-necked; that is, resistant to divine teaching, dull to divine
inspiration, and rejecting of the fullness of grace offered to him in the
Sacraments.
Lent comes along every
year to aid us in realigning our priorities and disposing our souls once again
to all that God desires for us—that is the fullness of the gifts of
salvation—he wants to make us into saints.
Ash Wednesday was four weeks ago, if you haven’t found
Lent to be challenging perhaps it’s time to enter more deeply into the prayer,
fasting, and almsgiving that we may, as we prayed in the opening prayer “be
corrected by penance and schooled in good works, to persevere sincerely in
God’s commandments and come safely to the paschal festivities” for the glory of
God and salvation of souls.
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