St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

St. Paul expresses this with a wonderful phrase: "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold new things have come." The grace God has given us isn't like a new set of clothes that just changes us on the outside. It changes us on the inside. It makes us into new creations, sturdy and strong, capable of living a lastingly joyful life in the midst of this world's changes and troubles.

 

Andrea Palladio was Venice's greatest Renaissance architect. His most famous building is the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. It is located on an island in the Venetian lagoon, facing the magnificent center of the ancient city, in St Mark's Square. From the mouth of the Grand Canal, looking out into the ocean, you see rising before you the gleaming white limestone facade of Palladio's church. The interesting thing about this facade is how it changes colors with the seasons, the weather, and the times of day.

 

It is angled just right, so that it is almost always catching the rays of the sun. It rests right on the edge of the island, so the shimmering surface of the water reflects another source of light onto the facade. The pure white limestone, therefore, takes on many different hues. Sometimes it radiates a light blue, almost silver tint.

 

Other times it gleams with an early morning pink or lavender sheen. Sometimes it shines brightly with the deep red of a Mediterranean sunset. But no matter the weather, no matter the color of the light, the strong, elegant lines of the Church are always the same, consistently communicating the message of beauty, goodness, and hope in whatever hue the light happens to paint it.

 

That's what Christian joy is like. The troubles of the world shine their light on us, but our friendship with Christ, firm and unshaken, turns them into something beautiful. We are new creations, living temples of Christ whose joy comes not from the outside, but from the inside.

 

Today God is inviting each one of us to renew this experience of Christian joy. Most of us, if we're honest, have to admit that often life's troubles seem to obscure our joy instead of giving it a chance to shine. If that's the case, we need to refresh our friendship with Christ, the source of Christian joy. We need to face up to the uncomfortable fact that we have not always been his faithful friend - ask forgiveness and renew our commitment to be more faithful in the future.

 

Since Christ's love for us is personal and total, even our small infidelities sadden Him. Whenever we ignore the teaching of His Church, whenever we ignore the voice of conscience, whenever we fail to forgive, whenever we fail to love our neighbor as ourself, we sadden our Friend, Christ, who only wants the best for us. We put distance between Him and us. That distance stifles our experience of Christian joy.

 

There is an easy way to take that distance away and make a fresh start in our friendship with Christ. We can go to Him in the sacrament of confession, the sacrament of rediscovered joy. If you have already gone to confession this Lent, that's good. You can claim Christ's friendship and live in it with perfect confidence. But don't be afraid to come frequently. The more we love Christ, the more sensitive we become to whatever saddens Him, and we want to confess even our small failings. If you haven't come to confession yet, why wait? The Lord is thinking of you, hoping you will return to Him, so He can reconstruct his joy-giving temple in your soul.

 

Let's each of us renew our friendship with Christ. Let's see Him paying attention to us. Let's ask Him to give us a new experience of His joy, and let's also ask Him to give courage to those friends of His who need to come back home but are afraid to go to confession.