Do you have a defeatist attitude towards sin and temptation? Or are you always victorious when sin comes knocking at your door? - Daily Reflections October 21, 2015

THE CHOICE IS YOURS TO MAKE

 

One day I was repairing some wooden frames that my dad used in catching oysters. I was banging away with a hammer when my uncle asked me a weird question, “Hey, Steve, have you only bought half the handle of your hammer? Is the rest on lay-buy or something?” I told him that dad had bought the hammer a few years ago, and asked him what he meant by his question. He then told me that I was not maximizing the hammer’s use because I was holding it half-way along the handle. I was limiting the full length of the swing of the handle and its power. He demonstrated that he could easily bang a nail through the wood with a tap and two solid thumps. It had been taking me five or six thumps to get a nail in. I suddenly understood what he was saying after a few sore thumbs. I was able to swing the hammer properly and I halved the time it took me to repair the frames.

       The problem with most Christians is that we do not understand the power that is available to us through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. We receive this grace at our baptism (usually as infants) but no one ever seems to get around to catechizing us properly as to the true meaning of entering into the death and resurrection of Christ through this sacrament.

       We have been given the power to banish sin from our lives. Yes, temptation will always knock at our door, but sin has no more power over us than we allow it to have, because Christ has defeated sin (and death) on His cross. We need to take hold of this victory every day and use it to ensure that we grow in holiness and not in sin.

       The choice is ours — if we do not understand it fully, then it is time for us to demand that the priests of the Church explain it to us properly. Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Do you have a defeatist attitude towards sin and temptation? Or are you always victorious when sin comes knocking at your door?

 

Holy Spirit, help me to understand the full effect of the sacrament of baptism in my life so that I can live under its grace, free from the powers of sin, every day of my life.