Many years ago, I went shopping for something on Easter Sunday and I felt so guilty because of the 3^rd commandment that I decided from then on, I would never shop on Sunday unless it was an absolute emergency. Last Sunday, I realized that we had run out of a Magnesium supplement that Joni takes. We had 1 pill left and she takes 2 a day, and I felt terrible. It’s my job to keep the supplements stocked and I made a mistake on an order and now it was Sunday and we were out. So, I began to debate. I could run up to the Vitamin Shoppe. Is this an emergency? No, but I felt really bad. And I thought of what Jesus said in the gospel today about loving family more than Him, and I thought, well wait, He wants me to love my wife doesn’t He? Luckily for me, Joni had already taken her morning pill so the 1 remaining was enough for the day. But it got me thinking – when would love for our family come between us and Jesus?

Well, in Jesus’s day, a person would have to leave the synagogue and probably be separated from his family to be one of His followers. He said I have come to bring division. From now on, a house will be divided. Even in our day, there are people who have to pay a very heavy price to convert to Christianity. No doubt there are other situations where family might want us to do something that we know is sinful, and that could be much more serious than my issue.  But here’s the thing – God is #1. Remember the 1^st commandment. Everyone else comes second.

I want to reflect on this by digging into our second reading today from St. Paul because I really think that Paul and Jesus are saying essentially the same thing but in a different way. To give a little context, just before today’s reading, Paul had made the comment that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So, then he imagined someone might say, well if that’s true, maybe we should continue in sin? And then today’s reading is his answer to that question.

Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?

We were … buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead …
we too might live in newness of life.

If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. …
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all;
as to his life, he lives for God.

Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin
and living for God in Christ Jesus.

For St. Paul, baptism is not just a symbolic dying with Christ. It is that for sure, especially when baptism was generally done by full immersion. Going under the water and coming up again symbolized dying and being buried with Christ and then rising with Him. So, it is symbolic, but it’s more than that. It’s a real dying. It’s a dying to sin. The early Church Fathers said that whereas Jesus died physically, in baptism, we die spiritually. It’s a death like His, as St. Paul says.

For example, St. Origen of Alexandria says that to live according to the will of God is to live to God and to live according to the will of sin is to live to sin. If we satisfy the desires of sin, we live to sin, if we do not satisfy these desires, we die to sin.

And Paul says this repeatedly.

2 Tim 2:11: The saying is sure, If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;

Rom 8:13: if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.

It’s conditional. If we die, then we shall live.

I remember Joni shared with me once, and she said I could share this, that after she was baptized at Easter and came into the Church, she went to her first confession and she was really upset about some sin that she had committed. And the priest, Father Brault, asked her – when in your life have you had to say no to your desire? She said, well, never. He said, right. It takes time. Stay with it and you’ll grow.

Joni says her conversion was just like another conversion I heard. A young woman shared with her friend that she had had a major conversion. The friend responded – Oh, that’s wonderful! So, you no longer sin? And she said Oh no, I still sin and the friend said, well what kind of conversion is that and she said, before I was running to sin, now I’m running away from sin.

Let us remember the good news of grace that comes to us through the sacraments: baptism, eucharist, confession. Through grace God gives us strength, and if we fall, He’ll forgive us. It’s a win-win for us. First, He gives us grace to help us die to sin and live to God, and if we fail, and we turn back to Him with sorrow and ask His mercy, He forgives us, without limit, and gives us more grace to help us grow.

Grace is huge! We don’t always see it, but it makes a big difference. Fr. Ripperger, an exorcist who has a lot of YouTube videos on the spiritual life, says that when he first got started as an exorcist, he asked the old guys when they got started back in the 50’s and 60’s, how long would an exorcism take? They said usually 1 to 2 days. That was back in the days when just about everyone in the country was baptized and most were going to church and trying to live the faith. Several years ago, when I first listened to him, he said the average exorcism was about 2 years; just recently I heard him say he talked with a bunch of his exorcist friends, and it’s now taking about 4 years. We don’t have the grace like back then, fewer people are getting baptized, and more and more people are involved in the occult. So, that’s the negative side. Life without grace.

On the positive side, I want to share a story about my wife’s family. For those who don’t know, Joni’s family is Jewish. Her mother, Elaine, came into the Church about 6 months after Joni because she saw how it changed her. Elaine had a cousin who came down here with his wife visiting and I think the occasion might have been Elaine’s funeral; but this I remember: we were up in White Marsh Hall at a little repast and he said to me, you know after your mother-in-law became Catholic, I saw a peace in her that I had never seen before, and that’s a good thing. I thought, wow, this is from a Jewish cousin. It’s beautiful! He saw grace. He saw the effect of grace.

So, brothers and sisters, let us strive, in the Spirit, totally dependent on grace, to live our baptismal promise, truly dying to sin and living to God.  God bless you!