"Earth is crammed with Heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit around and pick the blackberries." This is from a poem by Elizabeth Browning.

Teresa Leisure, the great saint, once said God has only two faults - he is blind and he cannot count. This was her way of speaking of God's infinite love and mercy in our regard. In the light of today's reading, we would add a third fault - a very poor memory. God refuses to remember our sins. "With unfailing love and mercy, God wipes them away and remembers them no more," Isaiah 43. The Lord creates a new path for us in the very desert of our sinfulness, a path that uses even our sins to draw us into the abyss of a divine love. St. Augustine of Hippo put it "Everything, even sin, works together unto good for those who love God."

As you shortly will begin in a couple of days our holy season of Lent, two things come to me about the reading that we heard this morning, the paralyzed man, the men who helped him, the community who brought him to Jesus, and then there are Jesus' words to them. Maybe the third part would be the reaction of those around Jesus. You may ask yourself where would I see myself in that gospel reading? For us Christians, to sometimes  place ourself in the gospel reading and the personalities there, what would be our reaction if we placed ourself back then with Jesus? What would be our reaction? And maybe even today we say what is our reaction now to change, to new things? Human nature is that we really do like routine. Human nature is we really do like saying nus.

Generally speaking, I would think all of you who come here to mass, and I've only been here a few months, but at St. John Vianney, I was there 14 years, and I could always tell where certain parishoners sat. They sat in the same pew, in the same area. It was just routine. Nothing particularly wrong about it, until they got a little possessive and would look at somebody who was a visitor, somebody who does not know that this is Carol's seat, you don't sit in Carol's seat kind of a thing. A couple of times, a parishoner would come up and tell me that and I'd say, I'm sorry, we don't have a pew tax here like maybe back East or somewhere like that. You didn't pay for that pew. It's not yours. In some regards, it is good to go to a different mass at a different time. Once again, this is no indictment against the parishoners. But I've been in this parish 35 years, Father, or 40 years, and I've always come to the 7:00 mass or the 8:00 mass. And other parishoners  have been at other masses, they have been here many years, and they don't know each other -- I didn't know you were a member of Christ The King. I didn't know you were a member of St. John Vianney's -- because they always went to the same mass.

This is where I think our partisan brothers and sisters have it over on us. They don't have so many mass services like we do. They maybe have one or two. And they get to know the whole wider community, the whole church, from people who go to 5:00 mass on Saturday to people who go to the 12:15 mass today on Sunday. They spread themselves out and they go and they sit in different parts of the church. They get a different perspective. You can try it. I don't know if that's really that important. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is, to get a different perspective on change. But, as I say, it's human nature. I like change. I have a routine, you have a routine. Whatever, just admit it that, yes, I do.

There's some exceptions. There's always exceptions. There's always a radical and renegade who doesn't follow the same routine. And thank God for them, thank God for them, for they give us that little bit of spark of life, they give us a little bit of excitement of life. This is what I like about this  reading this morning about the four men. We don't hear too much about them other than to say these men break through the roof of this person's house. Now, I'm sure the homeowner is not too happy about that. But their creativeness, they see all these people around the door of the house, as it says, and they can't get in, the crowd's so big, and people are probably saying get away, you can't get up there, they're not going to let you in front of the line, I want to be close to Jesus and I want this, I want that. One of men probably says let's go up to the roof and break through the roof and we'll lower this paralytic, this crippled man, down in front of Jesus. The creative, the creative, a little destructive, but creative ideas.

I think that's what Jesus calls us to in our lives, creative ideas, as you begin the season of lent. Forget about last year's lent, forget about pre-Vatican II lent when you gave up something or whatever, forget about what you did then. This lent beginning this Wednesday is going to be the first lent of your life. And you think about what am I going to do in this 40 days now coming through that the church offers us that I might get closer to Christ, a little bit closer to Christ? Because we do it all the time. I don't think we really give up, wait for lent or advent or seasons of  the church to draw closer to Christ. Every time you come through the church doors at Christ The King, you get out of bed Sunday morning, you get yourself prepared, you get yourself ready, you get in the car, your action shows you want to become closer to Christ and closer to the community. When you come through the church doors and your action of, I hope you would say, at least, not everyone does, but I would hope you would say good morning to somebody around you or to the priest that says good morning. I know it's early in the morning, but that's no exception, that's no excuse, for that, too, is an action of your desire to know Christ.

So Jesus speaks about and he sees their faith in action. We don't have any words that the paralytic man said to Jesus I want to be healed, I want this and I want that. We don't have any recollect in the gospel of the four men saying, Jesus, here's this man who's paralyzed, he wants to be healed. We don't have any of that in the gospel. Jesus sees their faith. Jesus sees their actions. And I think that is very, very important. It's not only on the words, it's the seeing the action of the person. In your actions, we may think of them unimportant, but they are the actions of when coming through the church doors and preparing, you're saying I want to be like Jesus and I want to be more  like him. So it's in the actions.

So, as we are preparing for this season of lent, let us think about the actions that we will do. And if that is an action that you're going to give up something that you might draw closer to Christ, good, I think that's good. And if the action is going to be something more proactive, I'm going to go volunteer my services here or I'm going to do this for this lady down the street or this man down the street or I'm going to write a note to a person who's been homebound or something or I'm going to forgive somebody in my family who has hurt me and write them a letter of reconciliation or I'm going to do this, it's an action, it's an action that Jesus is calling us to, creative action of where we, once again, draw our closeness to Christ and the community. And if we don't have any action that we want to do, then let us once again use our creative mind to say, well, then, I'm going to give something of myself to the community, to someone else.

For Jesus brings us something new. There's a whole new thing beginning. He has said "Your sins are forgiven, they're wiped out." Listen to the prophet Isaiah, "Your sins are no longer there." Forget about them, don't dwell on them anymore. "You burden me with your sins and worry me with your cryings, I, who will  wipe out for my own sake your offenses. Your sins I remember no more. I will wipe them out for my own sake." And that's the other aspect, Jesus wipes out our sins so that we might do good works. He wipes out our sins so that we no longer worry about them and concern and say I'm unworthy, I'm a terrible sinner, I can't do anything because I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. Jesus says forget about them, they're gone. Now go out and serve me. Go out and do my will. Forget about them.

If you were to read a lot of the history of the great saints throughout the church, the men and women proclaimed and canonized by the church as saints, you would hear their personal lives, and before they became saints they did great things in the name of Christ. They were really difficult people. They were really people of great sinners. They had to take on or they had to experience that transformation of Christ. St. Augustine is a great example of that. St. Paul is a great example of that. I think I was asking Fr. Brian this morning before mass began at 8:00, I think Damien the leper, who is going to be proclaimed a saint in October, be canonized a saint for his service to the lepers in Molokai, in Hawaii, around there, he, too, had a difficult life, personal life, and Jesus used him and uses all of us to do his bidding. He takes away those  sins and those shortcomings. We feel we're unworthy and he says "I make you worthy. Now go, be creative in helping others. Your sins are no more."

So we will think about probably our shortcomings and our sins this coming a little more. We always do when we come to the Eucharist. We always begin with a contrite heart and ask for forgiveness. Every time we begin the Eucharist we do that, but a little more emphasis beginning on Ash Wednesday of next week. Let us, yes, think about them, but let us not wallow in them, let us not burden ourself in them. Let us acknowledge them, ask forgiveness, receive the forgiveness and let us begin anew.

"This earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God." We share in that ministry of Christ. It is Christ who makes us worthy.