Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2020 •
God did not make you to control you. He made you to be in His image and likeness, to be free. And He comes to dwell within us through the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments, but only to strengthen our freedom. And to enable that freedom.
Now, we must ask Him for help to be virtuous. But ultimately, it's a cooperation between the in-dwelling of God with His grace and my own free will.
That's the whole point of conversion. Brothers and sisters, once we've attained the grace of Jesus Christ in the Sacraments, it's the process of conversion. It's allowing the Holy Spirit to work with us - not to control us - but to work with us. Most of our life, most of our experience, is with sin. We know how sin works. Sin is easy. ... You just follow those impulses and it's no problem. We want virtue to be like that. We want virtue to be an impulse, that I can just surrender my will over to. And it will never be that way. This is why so many people ultimately don't want to follow Christ - because it's hard. It's very hard. That's why it takes so long to grow in holiness and to become a saint. All of the suffering we endure in life, especially once we have received Christ, once we have the Holy Spirit in us, is meant to help us grow. The struggle is necessary, so we don't need to be concerned or fearful about any of our struggles.
Act 8:5-8, 14-17; Ps 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20; 1Pt 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21
Homily begins at 12:30.
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