In order to lighten the boat of our life, the Lord’s voice invites us to throw the cargo of our sins into the sea. Maybe it will be necessary to throw overboard the things that we thought would be the most valuable in our lives, but which have become too heavy and make it more difficult to walk toward holiness. Our pride, our self-sufficiency, a dishonest and corrupt life, our lukewarmness and indifference to the things of God, our casualness about making progress in our understanding of the Christian mysteries. Will it be necessary, perhaps, to throw into the sea a friendship or bad associations that are particularly harmful to our marital or religious commitments? Maybe we will have to throw into the sea “the works of the flesh…: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.” (Galatians 5:19-21)
We are afraid to tear ourselves away from our enslavements, to change our lives and our orientation radically. We are afraid of the revelation of this very simple truth: human beings are made to love God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength, and to love one another as He has loved us.
There is a power of lying and hatred at work in the mass of humanity. The same one that, from the beginning, insinuated into man’s heart mistrust of his Creator, the desire to live his life without Him. “God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself’.”
Only after we have jettisoned our cargo of sin will we be ready to encounter the God of truth and love in prayer and in reading the Word of Life, so as to adore and glorify Him; “For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’” (Deuteronomy 6:13, Luke 4:8)
Adapted, Catechism Of The Spiritual Life, Cardinal Robert Sarah