Back when I was at primary school, we had quite a large field (or at least it
seemed rather large when I was so small), and looking through one of the
fences, there was a sign that said “NO TRESPASSING”. Somebody asked me
what it meant. Being a young child, but also a Catholic who knew my prayers,
the only time I had come across the word “trespass” was in the Our Father, so I
said that it meant no sinning, or not to do bad things. I think a teacher later
explained that it meant not to go onto that person’s property. In a sense, I
suppose the two ideas are connected. Trespassing, in the property sense, is to
go too far and to stray onto someone else’s territory. In the sense of sin, to
trespass can be to go too far, to excess. For example, if we think in terms of
virtues and vices, the virtuous path is the middle way in-between two
extremes. Courage is the virtue which is in-between the two extremes of being
too timid or too foolhardy, over-courageous, if you like, a bit like a soldier in
ancient times thinking he didn’t need a sword and a shield – “I’ll finish them
off with my bare hands!”
We can all be guilty of trespassing, and also of claiming one thing, but
preferring another. We often pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”; but
sometimes, the way we act seems like we actually prayed: “my kingdom come,
my will be done!”
Three people in the parish discovered on Monday that I have a working video
recorder, and I discovered in the presbytery garage recently a box full of
videotapes, including all three films of The Lord of the Rings. A bit like the
Narnia books, The Lord of the Rings also shows the corrupting influence of
evil: despite the harmful effects, people are still enthralled by it as they don’t
have the strength to fully resist it, and there’s the example of a wizard in the
first film who has changed sides, taking the attitude of, if you can’t beat ‘em,
join ‘em.
In the Gospel, Our Lord references a similar thing in human society:
“though the light has come into the world
men have shown they prefer
darkness to the light
because their deeds were evil”
We have only to look at society and see how people have become enthralled by
various evils, including theft, drug dealing, selling of pornography and so on.
The thought of the money they can make has blinded them to the damage they
are doing to themselves, as well as to wider society. But we also need to look
at ourselves:
“Everybody who does wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
for fear his actions should be exposed;
but the man who lives by the truth
comes out into the light
so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.”
Which one are we?
This Lent, we have the opportunity of allowing the light to shine into our
hearts, to illuminate those areas of darkness, and bring them to the Lord, who
came, “not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be
saved”.
For quite a few of you, the experience of using aftershave is not part of your
regular experience. But when you apply it on broken skin, believe me, it can
hurt a bit, just like when we were expected to keep on constantly applying
alcohol gel to our hands during the pandemic – it could be a sharp experience
in the winter. Going to confession can seem a bit like use of aftershave or
alcohol gel, and we might want to avoid it. But it is the remedy God gives us
to get rid of our sins, to put us right with Him, and to give us the grace to do a
better job at resisting sin in the future. In the second reading, St Paul tells us
that God’s forgiveness is not an external legal declaration that our sin is gone;
instead God’s grace works within us to get rid of that sin, to heal us and restore
us, “to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it”, in
other words, to give us the grace to live as we should have done from the start.
Confession is a sacrament that transforms us from within, helping us to form
new, good, habits, and break the old ones.
So, from now on, no trespassing! And I want to see you all lining up for
confession.
Curious about exploring things further? If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk