SIN SPEAKS IN THE HEART OF SINNERS

Friday, Fourth week of Lent/2024
Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Theme: Sin speaks in the hearts of Sinners

According to Psalm 36, “Sin is the oracle of the wicked in the depth of his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.” The reason sin speaks to the wicked and through them is because they have not kept the word of God. In place of keeping the word of God in their hearts, they have rather kept a database of sins in their hearts. Now when the scripture says sin speaks, the reference is of course to the father of sin, the evil one. Just as God begets his word, and his word is life, evil begets sin, and sin brings about death. God operates through his word, for all things are given existence by the word of God. There is a similar operation of evil through sin; for wherever sin abides there also is evil, and death is brought about by the operation of evil through sin. Thus, the lack of fear of God, which makes us keep the word of God in our hearts, makes the wicked drop the word of God and keep evil instead. This makes the unbeliever (or non-keeper of the word of God) a worker of evil and death. A typical thought of the wicked is given in the first reading from Wisdom. “Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing. He claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord.” What is evident here is the identification of the wicked with evil, and the righteous with the word of God. The righteous man is fittingly called a son of God, for that is what we become by virtue of drawing our life from the word of God stored in our heart. Similarly, the wicked are fittingly called false or liars as coming from the father of lies. 

The particular struggle between a righteous person and a wicked person is an instantiation of the general and enduring struggle between the light of the word of God and darkness of sin and death. The chief of these instances of the struggle between light and darkness is what is given in the gospel. The Son of Man who is our Light counters the Jewish religious leaders who abandoned the word of God for their own human tradition. Thus, they desired to kill him. “Jesus stayed in Galilee; he could not stay in Judea, because the Jews were out to kill him.” Though the desire of the wicked is to eliminate the righteous, they are unable to bring this about because the righteous draws his life from the word of God, and therefore, his life is hidden in God. The wicked are ignorant of this fact as Jesus stated in the gospel. “Yes, you know me and you know where I come from. Yet I have not come of myself: no, there is one who sent me and I really come from him, and you do not know him, but I know him because I have come from him and it was he who sent me.” Everyone who lives by the word of God has his being in God and comes and goes at God’s bidding. The store of the word of God in a righteous soul makes God speak regularly in a righteous soul. Hence, if we remain in a state of grace, and fill our minds, hearts, memories with the word of God, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will dwell in us; and we shall live the divine life.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, a deep love for your word, that we may truly live a divine life in your Son Jesus Christ.

 

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