A Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

+ In the very beautiful rite of the clothing of a new novice (which it was our joy to celebrate one week ago) the postulant’s worldly clothes are removed from him with the words “May the Lord strip off from you the old man and his acts,” before, during the singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus, he is clothed with the scapular with the words: “May the Lord put on you the new man, who was created according to God, in justice and holiness of life.” These rituals go to the heart of the monastic vocation—the leaving behind of the world and its ways, and all that its has done to us, and the coming to life of the new man according to the providential plan of Almighty God.

So too they echo the Epistle of this Holy Mass: “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death,” St Paul teaches us. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life,” he insists. “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” St Paul exhorts us.
 
The parallels are all too clear. Indeed, monastic profession has since ancient times been regarded as a “second baptism,” where the monk commits himself to the discipline of living the Christian life with renewed resolve according to the discipline of the monastery in which he makes his profession. Monastic history is full of men and women who have fled the world to leave behind “the old man and his acts” in order to become “the new man, who was created according to God, in justice and holiness of life,” who was in fact thus created through the grace of the sacrament of Holy Baptism.
 
That is to say, to seek the monastic life is to seek the Christian life that is our baptismal duty: nothing more. To be sure, the organisation of monastic life, particularly according to the Rule of Our Holy Father St Benedict, is a grace and a discipline that many of we weaker creatures need in order to persevere in living the Christian life, but a life of prayer and the adoration of Almighty God, a life of work and a life of persevering in fraternal charity is nothing other than what the dignity of Baptism demands of every Christian—allowing, certainly, that the circumstances and the proportion of prayer and work will differ according to our particular vocation: a monk will be in his choir stall whilst a mother is caring for her children and a father is hard at work providing for them. Nevertheless, we are all duty-bound to be present together at Sunday Mass, to pray each day, and to conform our daily life—be it in the cloister, the home or the workplace—to Christ.
 
Hence St Paul teaches that each of us must recognise that in Baptism “our old self was crucified with [Christ] so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” and that we “must consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
 
We know only too well, of course—be we inside or outside the cloister—that our old selves do not want to die and that sin can take root very deeply in us. At times we can feel more alive to sin than we are to God in Christ Jesus! Our wounded human nature, even with the best of motivations, is weak and we fall back into the ways and acts of the old man all too easily. Even as we try our best to grow in virtue, the demon of subtle despair tempts us to believe that progress is impossible. “We shall never improve,” it suggests. “Sin is only human, after all,” it lies to us. “How can I ever escape the clutches of sin and vice in this Godless world?” we cry out in anguish.
 
“How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” the disciples ask Our Lord in the Gospel this morning. The answer to both of these questions is that we cannot. It is impossible for us. But the Lord’s answer is that He can, and that if we cooperate with Him, if we follow His instructions, if we respond daily to His call to conversion of life, all that is desired can be accomplished and much more besides.

Am I parched by sin in the desert of the world? Miraculous refreshment and recreation are available to me—indeed the restoration of my baptismal innocence—in the Sacrament of Penance, at the price of a humble, honest and integral confession. Am I faltering under the burdens of living out my Christian vocation in the world? Nourishment aplenty is freely available in the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist worthily received. (The other sacraments included) we can ask for no more, for we need nothing more.
 
Let us pray, then, in this Holy Mass, for the grace to allow the Lord to strip off from each of us the old man and his acts so that he may put on us the new man, who was created according to God, in justice and holiness of life. He can do this, and He shall, but if only we are willing to listen to His call and to follow His commands. +