Homily for Friday
3d Week of Lent
March 8, 2024
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle
We prayed in the Collect that we would “be constantly drawn
away from unruly desires.” When the
Bible and the liturgy use the passive voice like that—“may we be drawn away,”
with no actor specifically identified, it’s understood that God is the
actor. May you, O Lord, constantly draw
us “away from unruly desires.”
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| The Garden of Earthly Delights (Hieronymus Bosch) |
We could be more specific: “from our unruly desires.” In this Collect we’re not talking about the unruly desires of the jihadists in Nigeria or of the Kremlin or of Xi Jinping. As Pogo said a long time ago, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
What do we mean by “unruly desires”? Unruly could mean just rowdy or
rambunctious, like students at 2:00 p.m. on Friday.
We mean something more disordered and disorienting. We mean those passions and desires that would
lead us astray, what we’ve traditionally called “concupiscence.” Our tendency to pass judgment on others and
find fault with them—sometimes rashly and falsely—is an unruly desire. Our desire to possess more material objects
and to consume more food and drink than we need is an unruly desire. Our lust to possess and use another person
for our own gratification is an unruly desire.
Our reluctance to fulfill some responsibility and to indulge in
distraction or loafing is an unruly desire.
Instead, we pray that by God’s “grace poured into our
hearts” as his good gift, we may obey “the heavenly teaching” he gives us. We know well from our own experience how hard
it is to fight against our own unruly desires.
We need the power that comes from God thru our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has already crushed the supposed power of Satan. Even when we fail, Christ’s power is still at
hand with the gift of forgiveness and the encouragement to keep on trying to be
faithful to his “heavenly teaching.”
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