Image from Stephens

     Every reading on this Memorial of St Benedict, seems to cry out to us. We have to change!  We must convert and walk in conformity with God’s will. This cannot be just an outward show, but instead an inward surrender, a change of heart!

     In the first reading we hear the prophet Isaiah cry out,

“Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” (Isaiah 1:15–17 NABRE)

     Isaiah prophesied to a people who had turned a deaf ear to the Lord. Their worship had taken on an outward hollow shell of going through the motions of worship without engaged hearts. Instead of serving God with humility and offering love to their neighbors, the people of Judah offered prayer and sacrifices in God’s temple at Jerusalem and simultaneously committed horrible injustices throughout the nation. They are what the Church has described as, “practical atheists.” Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but complete godlessness in action. It is as if they would worship at temple and then walk outside its gates and act like there was no God at all. We hear from the Psalmist today,

“Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?” (Psalm 50:16–17)

     How often are we guilty of the same thing? How often have you walked out of Mass and completely forgotten the readings or worse, remembered them and then acted in our engagement with others as if they do not matter.

     This is worse than apathy. The apathetic are indifferent to God. At least they are honest enough to say, “I don’t care”. The practical atheist is two-faced.  They say I care but act as if God does not matter.  Their hypocrisy works counter to the conversion of the hearts around them. They are like a drop of poison in a well that contaminates all the water. Those, seeking God, see the person on their knees at Mass and then observe their actions away from the Parish, at home, or at work, where in their heart he or she worships at the false altars of pride, ambition, lust, or greed. They are focused on their wants, their needs, and their desires and abuse all those that get in his or her way. I wish I could say that is never who I am. But I cannot.

     When we are turned inward on ourselves, there can be no love, for love is the willing of the good of the other. Love has the other as the focus and where there is no love, God does not abide. We must turn from false altars, ourselves, our wants, and give our lives back to God with honest open hearts. Hear Jesus’ words again from the Gospel,

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” {Matt 10:39 NABRE) 

     God pleads with us to lose our life, change our hearts.

     This change of heart is called conversion. The Catechism defines conversion as “a radical reorientation of the whole life away from sin and evil, and toward God.” (CCC Glossary) Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, that he has not come into the world “to bring peace upon the earth … but the sword.” (Matt 10:34 NABRE) We cannot sit around peacefully. The radical reorientation of the heart is a struggle. It runs counter to our human nature. It requires a cutting away of the attachments to sin and an opening to discern the will of God. Hence the “sword”. The Author to the letter of the Hebrews writes:

“Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” (Heb 4:12 NABRE)

     In speaking with groups, I often ask who among us is a convert. Inevitably, a few hands come up from those that have come through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) process. We should all be raising our hands! We need a conversion each and every day. We must make a radicle reorientation of the heart away from self and the world and toward God. It is a daily decision to take up our cross and follow the Lord.  The Lord does not promise peace but desires that we become fully alive. The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote that

“Today the mood of the world is, ‘Go with the world, go with the spirit.’ Listen, dead bodies float downstream. Only live bodies resist the current. And so the good Lord is testing us.” (As quoted in Hackett Archbishop Sheen’s Warning of a Crisis in Christendom)

     St Benedict in his Rule gave us what he calls, “Instruments of Good Works.” I would like to call them tools for conversion. There are 72 Instruments. Below are just a few in St Benedict’s words:

• “To love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” and “To love thy neighbor as thyself.”

• “To honor all men” and “to renounce oneself, in order to follow Christ.”

• “To relieve the oppressed,” and “to comfort those who are in sorrow.”

• “To be estranged from the ways of the world,” and “to prefer nothing to the love of Christ.”

• “To have unfeigned peace with all men,” “to speak the truth with candor,” and “[never] return evil for evil.”

• “To injure no man, but to bear patiently an injury inflicted,” and not to speak ill of those by whom one is reviled; but rather to bless them.”

• “Not to be proud,” “a murmurer” or “a detractor”

• “To put one’s hope in God,” and “long for eternal life with most ardent desire.”

• "To pray often,” “hate no man,” and “be reconciled to those with whom one is at variance, before the setting of the sun.”

• “Never to despair of God’s mercy.”

Now is the time for a change, to convert and walk in conformity with God’s will. St Paul writes, “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:2 NABRE)

Endnotes:

St Benedict, Abbot of Monte Cassino. The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict. London: Thomas Richardson and Son, 1865. Print.

Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd Ed. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000. Print.

Hackett, Mary Anne. “Archbishop Sheen’s Warning of a Crisis in Christendom.” CatholicCitizens.org, 3 Aug. 2018, catholiccitizens.org/views/80291/archbishop-sheens-warning-of-a-crisis-in-christendom/. Accessed 9 July 2022.

New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011. Print.

Stephens, April. You Deserve to Be Happy: Why It’s Time to Change Your Career and Do Something You Love | This Lady Blogs. 22 Sept. 2017, thisladyblogs.com/deserve-happy-time-change-career-something-love/. Accessed 10 July 2022.

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