Homily: 4th Sunday of Lent - The joy of being a forgiven sinner

Today the Church celebrates Laetare sunday. Laetare is the latin word for “rejoice”. This 4^th sunday of Lent, the priest wears rose colored vestments to symbolize the joy that is supposed to be coming to us through our lenten penances. Joy during Lent? Joy while we are fasting? Joy while we are sacrificing? Joy while we are admitting our sins with tears of repentence flowing down our cheeks? Yes, indeed.

True Joy only comes from God. And when we make room in our hearts for him through penance, and allow him to fill our hearts through prayer, we become filled with joy. So, Lenten joy comes from stripping ourselves of those behaviors and attitudes which are not Christ-like and allowing the Lord to take over a larger and larger portion of our lives. If we are not yet experiencing the joy of this season, it may be because you haven't yet been generous enough.

One of my favorite images of Lenten joy comes from a very good movie called “The Mission” staring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the time. It is the story of the Spanish Jesuits who go to South America to bring Christianity to the natives there. Robert DeNiro plays a slave trader. He had spent years denigrating and objectifying the natives, treating them as a commodity, murdering them like cattle. After he catches his wife and brother in the act of adultery, he murders his brother, and spirals into a terrible depression. Then something wonderful happens: DeNiro's character becomes attracted to the Christian faith preached by the Jesuits and embraced by the natives.

For a life of enslaving and murdering, he makes a confession of his sins, and undertakes a serious penance. With a backpack filled with weapons and armor, symbols of his old life of violence, he climbs up this gigantic waterfall. And the deeply moving scene of the movie is when after this tremendous strenuous penitential climb, he reaches the top of the waterfall, and surrounded by the Jesuits and Natives, he is embraced by both, and then falls to his knees. Overwhelmed by the mercy of Christ and his own sorrow for his sins, he begins to weep and laugh for joy at the same time. He experiences the sorrow of being a sinner and a joy of being a forgiven sinner at the same time. Where there was only guilt and depression, through his penance, he opened himself to be touched by God. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything like that…it changes your life.

What a powerful image of Lenten joy. With great sorrow for our sins, we go to confession, we undergo penances of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and thereby open ourselves to God in a new way.

Another illustration of Lenten joy is found in the many stories of the martyrs. We can read about saints like St. Stephen in the book of Acts, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, St. Paul Miki, going to their deaths, yet filled with joy, knowing that in their deaths they were united to Jesus Christ.

One of my favorite examples of Christian joy and courage is that of the teenage virgin and martyr, St Agnes, who died around the year 304 AD.

She was from a wealthy, aristocratic Roman family, and very beautiful. All the young noblemen were vying for her hand in marriage, but she informed them that she had already consecrated her heart and her virginity to a heavenly husband, Jesus. At first they laughed at her, but when she persisted they became angry.

Remember, before the edict of Milan in 313, it was a capital offense to practice Christianity, so her angry suitors turned Agnes in to the governor. They were hoping that arrest and interrogation would weaken her resolve, but they were wrong.

At first, she resisted the governor's flattery, reiterating that she could have no spouse but Jesus Christ. Then she resisted the governor's threats. Then she stood firm when they lit fires and wheeled out various instruments of torture for her inspection. The governor tried everything he could think of, but the teenage Christian's faith was too strong for him, she refused to be unfaithful to Christ, no matter the cost. Finally, egged on by an infuriated mob, the frustrated governor had her executed.

Because her executioner was trembling because he was taking the life of an innocent bride of Christ, St Agnes had to help guide the sword herself. Eyewitnesses said later that she went to her execution more joyfully than most young women go to their weddings.

The story of St. Agnes' martyrdom illustrates another form of Lenten joy, of suffering with Christ, but knowing that your suffering is not in vain, but that your suffering is preparing you for eternal life because it is undergone in union with Him.

Pope Benedict XVI said that St. Agnes' martyrdom illustrates “the beauty of belonging to Christ without hesitation.”

Do you know the joy of “belonging to Christ without hesitation”? Do you want to? In what areas of your life are you hesitating to surrender fully to God? Your finances? Your sexuality? Your pride?

We heard this Laetare Sunday from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, which is known for being the most Christocentric of the Pauline letters. The word “Christ” appears 45 times in just six chapters. Paul makes Christ the center of this letter so that Christians may make Christ the center of their lives.

St. Paul writes that even when we were dead in our transgressions, we were brought to life with Christ. Here is the cause for our joy, not that we were spiritually dead, but that God loved us so much, as we heard in our Gospel, that he sent his only beloved Son to die for us.

What does it mean that we were dead in our transgressions? Sometimes we forget that sin has real spiritual consequences. Venial sin begins to kill the fervor of faith within us, while Serious sin and mortal sin truly deadens the divine life within us.

Sometimes we think, “sin isn't that bad. I can sin and still be a good person. My sins don't hurt anybody.” But we forget, that we are created for God's purposes, and sin is abhorrent to our nature. Moreso, because of God's justice when we abuse our free will to resist or undermine God's purposes, we deserve eternal death.

Saint John Paul II lamented the loss of the sense of sin. He called it a crisis that so many of us fail to acknowledge the destructive power that sin has in our society and our own souls. Pope Francis said recently that “When you lose the sense of sin, you lose the sense of the Kingdom of God." If we deny the fact that we are sinners, we deny our need for Christ. To quote the great exultet of the Easter Vigil, “What good would our birth have been for us, had Christ not come as our redeemer?”

But again, the great lesson today, is that God reaches out to us, he calls us to repentance that we may know the joy of being redeemed sinners, and that his kingdom make take deeper root in our hearts.

May the Holy Spirit help each of us to identify those selfish and sinful attitudes and behaviors and attachments which keep us knowing the joy God wants for us. May we know the joy of drinking deeply of the fountain of grace of belonging to Christ without hesitation and making the love of God the foundation of our life for the glory of God and salvation of souls.