Episode Transcript  

One

Paying the Penny

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “Come to terms with your accuser in good time while you are still on the way to the court with him, or he may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. I tell you solemnly, you will not get out till you have paid the last penny.” Matthew 5:25-26

Here Jesus uses an analogy because God does not throw people in prison. We imprison ourselves through pride and every other vice that turns us inward. If we remain in that self-love forever, we freely choose the prison of hell. And what does paying the last penny mean? We don’t owe God money? We owe Him love.

Every disordered attachment must be surrendered. Every disordered love must be purified. Every penny must be paid before perfect union with God. The last penny is every attachment that keeps us from loving God with our whole heart.

Two

Hungering and Thirsting for God

One way to understand this passage is in the context of the fourth beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They shall be satisfied.” Or we could say, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God, for they will be satisfied. If we hunger and thirst for poison or even junk, we will never be healthy and strong physically and the same goes for the spiritual life.

My grandsons are typical little kids. I make a wonderful Sunday Supper. What do my grandsons want? “Hey, Papa,” they say, “Is it time for desert? Can I have ice-cream now?”

And spiritually, we are like little kids. God is offering a full course banquet of Himself and all His divine delights to us, and we prefer the junk to Him. And why? We have trained our souls to crave lesser pleasures, so we no longer recognize the taste for God.

Just like the tastes and preferences of my grandsons need to mature so that hunger for good food that will make them healthy and strong. We need to grow in our hunger and thirst for God so that we can be healthy, strong and satisfied spiritually.

Three

Three Stages

One way to look at things is to consider life as three hungers. First we hunger for sinful pleasures. Then we hunger for created goods. Finally we hunger for God Himself.

At first we seek satisfaction in pleasure, success, approval, power, and every kind of self-indulgence. And that hunger leads us to all kinds of sinful and really destructive pursuits. Hopefully we wake up and realize, “Hey, this is not really making me happy. I am not fully satisfied with this and I need something more.” That often leads to our conversion to a more mature life. God first allows us to discover that sin cannot satisfy us.

Then we hit the second stage where we begin to pursue good things in life in a good way. We pursue an education and a profession. We seek out a husband or wife and start a family and raise our kids. Or maybe you entered the seminary or religious life. We realize we need to take care of our health, eat well, exercise and how important good sleep is. As we mature we recognize the need to grow in knowledge and the experience of real beauty over just mindless entertainment. And most of all we begin to pursue a better relationship with God. Then He teaches us that even created goods cannot fully satisfy us.

Four

Active Purification

This is the stage where we have to really work hard to live a well ordered and balanced life so that we don’t become attached in a disordered way to one of these good things to the neglect or harm of others. We can fall into the trap of trying to create our identity and worth by our professions or winning in our profession. And we do so to the neglect or harm of a deep relationship with God and spouse and kids. Or giving all our time energy and attention to our kids and we neglect our relationship with God our a spouse or our physical heath.

This is where we need to do our part to step back and ask: am I pursuing all the goods in a well ordered and balanced way, God. Marriage or vocation, children, work, health, leisure.

Do I have the right ingredients in the right order and proportion in the recipe of life? We may need to cut back on things we are too attached to and pursue other good things we need that were not as drawn to. This takes a good bit of sacrifice and discipline which is exactly what our souls need to mature and grow in union with God.

Five

Passive Purification  

Finally God draws us beyond every created thing into Himself, because He alone is Infinite Goodness. Whatever good things God has given us...professions, relationships, good health, knowledge, beauty, homes in beautiful places, travel experiences. And little by little these satisfy us less and less.

The temptation is to replace these with some other form of the same, sell a business and build a new one, divorce this spouse and find a better model, buy a house in a new place, travel to more exotic places and have more fun. The problem wasn’t with any of the good things you had. The problem was that they were not God.

Only God can satisfy the desires of your soul for infinite, perfect and lasting goodness. No earthly thing can do that. When we start to lose our desire for the good things we have, that is the moment when God is inviting us to a higher fulfillment, a deeper satisfaction and infinitely better delight in Him.

Let all the boredom, disappointments, loses be seen for what they are, an invitation to love God more and receive more of Him. This is the invitation from God to receive him every day in the Eucharist and to spend more time with him in prayer. There, in the Eucharist and in prayer, God gives us what we have been searching for all along, Himself.

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