5th Week of Lent 2021 (EF) - Monday - Sin is turned in on itself (incurvatus in se)

 The epistle today contains one of the most dramatic responses to the call to repentance in the entire old testament—the entire a city of Nineveh—about 120,000 people—the nobility, the peasantry, even the cattle and sheep—all repented when God sent Jonah to preach to them. 

Contrast the response of the Ninevites to the response of the Pharisees in the Gospel. They have not responded to the Lord with signs of repentance—quite the opposite. They have sent out their own agents to silence the Word of God—to arrest and murder Him.

Where the Ninevites show by their actions how they have turned from evil, the Pharisees have shown how they remain turned toward evil.

St. Augustine coined a phrase to describe this unwillingness to turn toward God. He called it, “incurvatus in se”. Sin is turned in on itself, curved in on itself. Instead of using our gifts and our time for the glory of God, sin has us curved in on ourselves, concerned more for the fulfillment of earthly appetites, than pursuing heavenly goods. 

You will find this same idea in tomorrow’s epistle, in the great story of Susanna from the book of Daniel. You likely know the story well. The two elders lust after Susanna and conspire to have their way with her. Scripture says that as they began to lust for her, “they suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven.” Sin always involves a failure to turn one’s eyes to heaven, the suppression of our consciences, the silencing of the Word that has been preached to us. 

In times of temptation, rather, we are invited by the Lord to turn to him and recognize that He offers the waters that truly satisfy. In times of temptation, we must turn to the Lord for help, for strength, for fortitude. God is never displeased when we lift our eyes to heaven for help, especially when we are being assailed by assaults from the flesh, the enemy, or the world.

In less than two weeks we will celebrate the Great Sacred Triduum. In the Lenten days we have left, let us like the Ninevites show by our actions, our Lenten penances our desire to turn definitively from all sin, to allow the Word of God to echo in our lives, to drink deeply of the life giving waters, that the spring of living water may rise up within us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.