Homilies

A single desire pulses beneath every distraction, every ambition, every fear: to be loved and to love in return. God did not fashion us because he lacked company; the Trinity is eternal communion. He wanted creatures who could share the joy he is. We were made for love—real, infinite, unexhausted.

Yet reaching for that desire is not easy. Sin crowds the heart. Pride distorts. Greed narrows. Selfishness turns us in on ourselves until we confuse appetite for love. Seeing this, the Father sent the Son to reopen the way home. Jesus shows that love is not a feeling we hoard but a life we receive and learn to give. He conquers the very sins that steal what we most long for and offers grace so we can begin again and again. Holiness, for most of us, is not a clean sprint; it is a long walk with stumbles, hand in hand with mercy.

Sometimes we can become too focused on sin. That might sound surprising, because it seems like the world around us is not focused on sin at all—and there’s truth in that. Yet even within the Church, we can fall into the opposite error: we can make sin and morality the entire focus of our faith, reducing Christianity to a system of rules.

Faith, however, is far more than moralism. Even if we somehow managed to live our entire lives without committing a single sin, that alone would not make us perfect. It would not make us true imitators of Christ. Christ did not simply avoid sin—he went far beyond that. He lived a life of perfect charity, of complete self-giving love. He lived as those in heaven live, fully united to the love of God.

There is a certain comedy to the Pharisee’s prayer. He speaks as if heaven should applaud his résumé, as if the problem with the world is everyone else. We know that swagger. We have seen it, maybe even felt it tug at us. Yet Jesus does not waste time telling us simply not to be that person; he turns our gaze to the other figure in the doorway—the man who cannot raise his eyes.