The last line from todays second mass reading stuck me as very important in the armoury of spiritual warefare. I hadn't noticed it before. "You too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus". (Rom 6:11). Why would St Paul entreat us to consider ourselves dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus? when, in fact, we do sin and struggle to live in the light? Most of us, at least, apart from those who are in the state of transforming union of close to it - and even they consider themselves the greatest sinners from the depths of humility.

The reason is because we become what we focus on. God being outside of time is already looking at what we have become at the end of our journey, and yet we must choose that now in freedom, living in this "already but not yet" dynamic. The voice of the Spirit whsipers to us "live like you have already achieved the prize and it will be so. What you desire now will come to be". "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt: 5:48). The demon shouts "your doing well enough - take care of those other details tomorrow (which never comes). Some vague grace will appear later in life and fix it for you without needing your cooperation now.

Sanctity, Divie union, divinization, theosis, whatever we call it can't be fully realized in this life but it's the orientation that is so important . There is no such thing as a saint, fully, in this life. It's what we become in the next.  The awesome realization has begun to dawn on me that we don't somehow finish out this life and become something entirely different in the next. What be become in this life is amplified in the next, to thed power of infinity, like a two dimensional shadow being project into the greater reality of a three dimensional form. How important it is then, to get the pattern right here. It starts with orientation and choice in brutal honesty.

Two persons on two escalators. stretching from the heavens to the abyss going in opposite directions. The first is very high up on the downward one - for all appearances the most saintly of people - very religious, a pillar of the church. The second is vey low on the escalator going up -  close to the abyss, and on a cursory look is the most depraved of people full of sin and brokeness. The first ends in hell the second in heaven. It's about orientation and choice.

Lord Jesus, reveal those dark rooms where we have yet to choose you fully in the light so that we may be fully oriented towards heaven and live as children of the light, in the eternal NOW of God, destined to see the light of your face. Have mercy on us Lord, on me. We are not yet fully transparent with ourselves so that we live as if we were dead to sin. We don't live the Shema, loving you with all out heart mind and strength. Help us Lord so that we may direct all our energies to you. Give us your Spirit Lord for without you we can do nothing. Give us your Spirit so that we can live fully our identity as chilren of light even though we have not become fully what we are created to be. Give us your Spirit Lord Jesus so that at the time of our death the pattern of our lives will be ready to be glorified after the pattern of Your glorification.