We are the Aroma of Christ

This birdbath is of the St. Pio Chapel in Libis. It's interesting to know that birds do "take-a-bath." They take the time to cleanse and refresh themselves. Since the birdbath is located within the chapel compound, I can't help but make a connection about it to our own spiritual lives. We too get a "spiritual bathing" to cleanse and refresh ourselves when we visit Church. Yes, we are able to pray anywhere and at anytime -- but within the hallowed walls of the Church, we are powerfully pointed to the God.  More so, in Church we receive God's grace through the Sacraments.

When a person literally does not take a bath for a considerably long time, he starts to reek and feels itchiness all over the body.  More so, others are repelled from him and come to highly question the person's hygiene habits. In the same way, if we don't approach Jesus through the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation for a really long time, there's a good tendency that the sinfulness in us – the stench of the evil one – will reek; through our words, actions, and especially our thoughts -- from subtle to obvious to devastating.  We need the grace of forgiveness, for our conversion, to be brought back to wearing the heavenly scent of Christ. Forgiveness cannot be earned, we need to humbly ask of it as a purifying gift; to cleanse us, heal us, and refresh us. 

"This endeavor of conversion is not just a human work. It is the movement of a "contrite heart," drawn and moved by grace to respond to the merciful love of God who loved us first (CCC 1428)."

By the act of confessing our sins and through the absolution of the priest, we are granted that undeserved grace. Like the birdbath, it's open and it's free.  One of the reasons why many of us find it hard to confess our sins is that our hearts have become calloused with pride; we justify every wrongdoing; we have the fear of the humiliation of admitting our faults and failures. In a very deceiving way of the devil, we have found comfort and "getting-used-to" in the state of "itchiness and filth." Just like the complaint of the Israelites when they were grumbling of hunger in the desert: "Would that we had died at the LORD'S hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!" (Exodus 16:3).  Despite of them knowing the Lord's promise of a land of freedom for their own people, even "flowing with milk and honey," they looked back and would have rather suffered slavery; eating "comfortably" a slave's food ration instead of the abundant life ahead.

The devil's goal is to make us "insane with sin." In the Philippines, we have the "taong grasa" or street vagrants who are oily and dirty; mentally affected by the harshness of the experiences of their own lives or may be inborn -- may God heal and restore them. Our hearts can become "pusong grasa," emotionally feeding off from the filth of sin and mentally affected by the whispers of pride and insatiable ambition by the evil one. Yet, Romans 5:20 powerfully reveals the truth that "where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more."  There is hope for a "spiritual bathing" and a restoration of our dignity in Christ! No matter how filthy our souls have become, there is a time for cleansing! Go ahead, take a spiritual bath, and smell like Christ!

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the odor of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are the aroma of Christ for God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the latter an odor of death that leads to death, to the former an odor of life that leads to life..." (2 Corinthians 2: 14-16)