Day 15
I have always enjoyed watching surgeries. They fascinate me. When there is a need for surgery, someone is cut into to save their lives or to better their lives. I had surgery to remove my gallbladder just a couple of weeks before I was ordained as a Deacon. I remember asking the surgeon if he could give me a video of the surgery, I really wanted to watch it, regrettably he didn’t have the technology to do it. One surgery seems to stick out the most to me: heart surgery. Why? Because the heart is so vital for our survival. Without the heart pumping the blood with oxygen in it, we are not able to live very long. So we need our heart.
Hearts can become diseased. This disease can cause issues. One disease that the heart has to deal with is plaque from cholesterol. This plaque can build up and cause clogs to happen. This can lead to a heart attack.
We all have spiritual heart disease. It is called sin. It is killing our hearts. Thus, we should hate SIN!!! We should abhor it! Sin should appall us. And we should morn over our sins. Yes, we should truly hate, hate, hate our sin!!! “It is not absolutely necessary to be so holy as to avoid all sin, although it is desirable” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 58). We should want to get rid of sin and we should hate the fact that we sin. Sin is horrible! And sin kills us and makes us spiritually dead. Thus we should do all that we can to help ourselves to get rid of sin.
Still, for most of us we are not at a point where we hate all sin, we secretly desire it and want it. We are not at a place where we want to leave all sin behind. So we should ask Our Lady, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, to intercede for us. What we truly want to do is this: “You must perform these good works solely to obtain from God, through the intercession of our Lady, the grace to regret your sins, obtain pardon for them and overcome your evil habits, and not to live complacently in the state of sin, disregarding the warning voice of conscience, the example of our Lord and the saints and the teaching of the holy gospel” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 58). So turn to those things that will help us to get rid of the cholesterol (sin) and help us to have a clean & pure heart. This is what God and Our Lady truly desire for us. As we say in Psalm 51, “Create a clean heart in me O God.”