You find yourself in a vast wilderness of meadow and forest. Two rabbits frolic before you. Suddenly, you realize that you are hungry, starving actually. You grab a rock and set your sights on the first rabbit, which is plump and slow. It almost seems to wander into your grasp as it ambles through the grass. You quickly dispatch the unsuspecting critter and prepare a fire. Your mouth waters as you catch a scent of the roasting hare. As you begin to feast on your prize, an overwhelming sense of contentment washes over you. This is perhaps the best meal that you've ever eaten. However, your satisfaction lasts only for a few moments. Soon you're left with a stale aftertaste. Eager to experience the euphoria of that first bite, you take a second, then a third, and a fourth. Soon you're shoveling bite after bite into your mouth as your senses gyrate between overwhelming pleasure and cruel emptiness. Despite this see saw of experience, you don't stop but rather continue to consume the meat at a more vigorous pace. Teeth gnash bone, fat, and cartilage. Your teeth crack as you swallow bony splinters between gulps of your own blood. Yet you continue to consume all the more. Eventually, you feel a sharp pain in your stomach. Like a lightning bolt illuminating a dark horizon, you are shocked by the realization that you have made a horrible mistake. You must find help, or surely you will die an agonizing and lonely death.
Let's rewind and return to the meadow. Perhaps you're aware of the pitfalls of eating the plump rabbit and knowing the awful fate of those who consume its flesh, you decide to go after the other hare. With vigor and conviction, you pick up a stone and take off after the second rabbit. However, this animal is much more agile than the first. Every attempt to subdue this lively creature ends with the rabbit just outside of your grasp. As if on cue, the plump rabbit gingerly hops across your path. Despite your ravenous hunger and fatigue, the fate of those who eat the fat rabbit is fresh in your mind. You turn from these grotesque and terrifying images and set your sights on the second rabbit. All that you can see is a small, puffy white tail darting about far in the distance. Exhaustion replaces fatigue as you decide to rest for a while. After all, a few moments of rest will help you to summon the energy to hunt this vigorous creature. As you begin to sit down on the ground, your body is pulled to the soft grass. With heavy limbs and ragged breath, you settle into the warm grass and consider the prospect of chasing the second rabbit. Daunted by the prospect of pursuing such robust prey, you decide to rest a while longer. Evening begins to fade into twilight as your hunger wanes to starvation. In what seems to be a miracle, the second rabbit reappears just a few yards away. You grasp a stone and ready yourself to cast it. The stone is heavy in your hand. As you consider the weight of the stone something brushes up against your leg, the first rabbit, plump and begging to be eaten. You look up to reacquire your initial target but now the second rabbit is out of your range. Overcome with exhaustion, you fall to the ground. Perhaps a few more minutes of rest will give you the strength that you need to renew your pursuit of the second rabbit. A return of strength is what you expected, but a profound weariness overtakes you. The second rabbit disappears in the thick meadow as the last light fades. The second rabbit slowly plods to its burrow as your breaths become shallower and further apart. Fear and loneliness overtake you as your vision fades into the blackness of the empty wilderness.
Back to the meadow. Recognizing the fate of those who eat the first rabbit and the fact that if you don't eat you will die, you firmly resolve to capture the second rabbit. However, this rabbit is lean and agile, darting from brush to bramble, seeming to escape every attempt at capture. You spend hours chasing after your prize but after nearly an entire day, your stone makes its mark and the second rabbit is delivered into your grasp. As you prepare a fire you are filled with a sense of accomplishment and joy. You begin to eat the rabbit and are amazed at the tenderness and flavor of the meat. Surprise sets in as you realize that this meal is unlike any that you've ever eaten. You savor every last bite as you look with satisfaction upon the struggle, the great adventure that you underwent to procure this meal. Sustained, you extinguish the fire and begin to make your way back to civilization. Despite a long journey, you find that you are not tired. Days pass to weeks, months, then years. Yet, the contentment of the second rabbit remains. The feeling of gratification flourishes and grows stronger. The burgeoning joy of this simple meal grows as contentment give way to ecstasy. "But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him" (1).
We pursue three possible states in life: sin, lukewarmness, or communion with God. The promise of life lived in relationship with God is happiness on earth and eternal joy in heaven. Holy Mother Church clearly proclaims that our purpose in life is to "know, love, and serve God"(2). Our primary goal during this short time on earth is to develop a relationship with God. This relationship is designed to be free and filled with joy. "God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life" (3). This life is a free gift from a loving God and is designed to bring us to the fulfillment of all our desires, complete union with the life of God. Through prayer as well as acts of mercy and sacrifice we can begin to achieve this purpose of ours. Our job in life is to grow in our love for God and to will the good of others out of our love for God. If we are successful at this one task, we are promised a life filled with inner peace and an eternity of joy beyond our wildest imagination.
How could we possibly pass up this invitation to live how we were meant to live? Every moment of every day the world, the flesh, and the devil wage war against us. The world laughs at us for wasting time in prayer when we should be working, providing security for our family, and building up an admirable reputation for ourselves. The flesh demands that we have another drink when we know that it will lead to drunkenness. Satan and his demons whisper quietly in depths of our soul, convincing us that we are hopeless sinners so why even bother trying to live a more perfect life. In short, we are constantly tempted to sin.
If the summit of our happiness is life in God, then the lowest depth of our misery is life apart from Him. Sin is "humanity's rejection of God and opposition to him'' (4). We make a statement when we sin; we take a firm stand that we want nothing to do with God. Rather, through sin we boldly proclaim that we are better off without God and we choose our ways over His ways. How could this be though? Take drunkenness, for example: how could I be turning from God if getting drunk brings me pleasure and contentment? If I'm not hurting anyone, then what is the harm in pursuing pleasure?
It's true, we can enjoy pleasure so long as we do so in an ordered way. Intoxication, for example, is disordered because it removes our ability to reason, and elevates the sensation of pleasure to the extent that we cannot focus on anything else. Like a fly hopelessly attracted toward light, we grasp the comfort and pleasure of sin and tighten our grip more and more. In the moment of sin, especially grave sin, we become incapable of loving God because we have consumed ourselves with the love of something else: the feeling of adrenaline that comes from using drugs, the surge of pleasure that comes with sex, or the numbing comfort brought by drunkenness. Our sins create attachments, which in turn become idols. These false gods demand more and more from us in this life until we are utterly consumed by their commands. The sweet savory flesh of pleasure rots and grows putrid, yet we cannot stop ourselves from consuming it. Satan, the destroyer, continues to whisper to us and to lead us from God into a state of misery on earth. If we die in this state of separation, God allows us to seek after these pleasures in the afterlife. However, instead of comfort, we are given the fruits of our sin: utter nothingness and pain. The great gods that were our pleasures in life take off their masks and we see them for what they are: the monstrous demons who torment us day and night, every second of every day, over and over again for eternity. Utterly alone, we are greeted with reoccurring deaths, each more horrific, more terrifying, and more painful than the last.
Could there be anything worse than the fate of sin? No, but there is a state on earth that is perhaps more perilous because it fools us into thinking that we are living with God without really seeking Him and avoiding sin without outright rejecting it. Lukewarmness is this state that neither pursues God nor turns fully away from sin. Instead, the lukewarm hover between a state of grace and one of separation, unaware of the peril in which they find themselves. When we sin, there is hope that we can feel the bitter pain of our turning from God and that we can renew our relationship with Him through the sacrament of Reconciliation. However, when we are lukewarm there is no such alarm; we are not great sinners so we think that we are in God's favor, but we are also not pursuing holiness so we are listless and stuck in a state that is neither one of grave sin nor of communion with God.
Before we can fully understand the danger of lukewarmness, we need to define it. Lukewarmness is "hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love, it can imply a refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity" (5). God reveals His sentiment towards lukewarmness in the book of Revelation: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth " (6). Not to choose sin or God is still a choice. It may even be a more dangerous choice than sin because it gives us a false sense of security. Yet, lukewarmness ultimately leads to the same fate as sin: to be separated from God. In this perilous in-between state we fail to notice our hunger for God and the poison of sin as we live lives of restlessness and discontent.
Every day brings with it a choice: will we seek God, turn from Him, or stand still? We can seek God, finding hard-earned happiness in this life and unimaginable fulfillment in the next. We can turn from God, exhausting ourselves in a miserable struggle to fulfill the unquenchable desire of pleasure on earth, condemning ourselves to utter isolation and agony in hell. Finally, we could do nothing, neither progressing nor regressing, bringing an empty restlessness during this life and a starvation that consumes our entire being as we are slowly pulled into hell "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished" (7). Which path are you seeking?
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References:
(1) 1 Corinthians 2:9-10.
(2) The Baltimore Catechism, Q.126., obtained via http://www.baltimore-catechism.com/lesson1.htm.
(3) Catechism of the Catholic Church: With modifications from the Editio Typica. (2003). New York: Doubleday. Paragraph 1.
(4) Catechism of the Catholic Church: With modifications from the Editio Typica. (2003). New York: Doubleday. Paragraph 386.
(5) Catechism of the Catholic Church: With modifications from the Editio Typica. (2003). New York: Doubleday. Paragraph 2094.
(6) Revelation 3:15-16.
(7) Mark 9:48.
Image:
(1) Two Rabbits by David D. Coninck. Obtained via https://fineartamerica.com/featured/two-rabbits-david-de-coninck.html.
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