I have been packing a suitcase this week to head up to Seattle for a few days for the wedding of my niece Sarah to her soon-to-be husband John. As I was going through my closet choosing the “civilian clothes” I will need for the traveling and non-wedding time I noticed how full my closet has become…again. When I was assigned to St. Lucy Parish three years ago I did a pretty good job at culling much of the accumulation of clothes, books and other things that seem to gather unnoticed during the years. How did my closet get so full again?
I’m not a hoarder nor am I a clothes hound who wears a different outfit all the time and yet my closet is full again. Venerable Fulton J. Sheen in his book “The Seven Capital Sins” talks about the deadly sin of covetousness in this way, “Covetousness is an inordinate love of the things of this world. Such love becomes in hindrance if one is not guided by a reasonable end, such as suitable provisions for one’s family or the future, or one is too solicitous in amassing wealth or two parsimonious and dispensing it.” (p 81)
Surely we can agree my excess clothing in the closet is not a “solicitous amassing of wealth” nor would we consider it the “parsimonious dispensing” of the abundance…but we could agree a little spring cleaning is in order on a regular basis. It may seem silly and perhaps it may not be a deadly/capital sin and yet we could see the beginning of the sin taking hold in the heart of a person.
Where should we begin, maybe in the sweater area. I recently purchased two WWME 50th Anniversary sweaters and these went next to the 6 black and one blue pullover sweaters already in my closet, in addition to two cardigans, 4 sweater vests and the two zipper sweaters. Let’s do the math 2+6+1+2+4+2=17. Do I really need 17 sweaters? I certainly could rationalize having them all. Different styles. Different weight of cloth. Different needs for different days. Yes, all of this is true and added to this reasoning I have worn each sweater during this past winter. And yet, do I need 17 sweaters? No. So what am I to do? Simply put, to weed out the excess to begin to dispense of the amassing.
And while this may be a trivial beginning it is a spiritual exercise in so many different ways. When we begin to desire the things rather than use them for what they were intended, to be worn not to hang in a closet, we then we begin to fall into the sin of covetousness. And this can have very damaging effects on our spiritual and emotional life in living as a son/daughter of God.
Bishop Sheen continues with this powerful indictment of the sin, “The tragedy of our modern life is that so many put their pleasures in “desires” rather than in “discovery”. Having lost the one purpose of human living, namely God, they seek substitutes in the petty things of earth. After repeated disappointments, they begin to put their happiness not in a pleasure, but in the hunt for it, in butterfly existences that never rest long enough at any one moment to know their inner desires; running races hoping they will never end; turning pages but never discovering the plot; knocking at doors of truth and then dashing away lest its portholes be opened and they be invited in. Existence becomes a flight from peace, rather than an advance; a momentary escape from frustrations instead of its sublimation in victory.” (p 92)
Bishop Sheen’s reflection on these capital sins was written in 1939 and the truth of his words echoes through time because our sins remain the same. The true victory is turning over to God what is God’s and seeking his healing grace in the struggle to be free of the chains binding us to the objects around us and being able to hold gently the love which invites us into a greater joy, a greater peace, a greater life. Find a closet, whether it is in your home or in your heart and begin to dispense of the extras holding you back from God and find in this letting go a space to breath and break free.
God Bless
Fr. Mark