Reflections from the Heart – June 23, 2024

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” God is the master artist. All his works are originals. Original thoughts, original concepts, original drawings. No one inspires God for no one or anything existed before him. However, God’s own creation moves and inspires him to continue painting, creating, sculpting, for in his masterpieces he sees the image reflection of himself. The beauty of the colors and hues he produced. The intrinsic truth his creation portrays. The goodness and wholesomeness depicted in the drawings he creates. The purity and innocence in his works and in his pieces. God sees the beauty, goodness, purity, innocence and truth of himself. Creation is simply a self-portrait of the face of God carved into every mountainside, depicted in every cloud rendering and captured in every sunrise and sunset. Creation reveals the portrait of God. Unfortunately, sin opposes beauty, goodness, purity, innocence and truth. Sin opposes God. Sin opposes you. Sin disfigures beauty, it confuses goodness, and it distorts the truth. Sin seeks to destroy purity and attempts to rob us of our inner innocence. Sin is ugly, evil, dirty, corrupt and deceitful. It tries to cover up true beauty with appearances, fake personas and false identities. Sin tries to tarnish wholesomeness and goodness with evil and bad intentions, malicious speech, gossip and slander. Sin attempts to wash away the truth by hiding it, covering it up in darkness, avoiding truth through distractions, confusion, and questioning God’s authority. Thankful that God is also the best in restoring an image to its original form and essence. Recreation is God’s master restoration project making all things new again. God touches up the original images with his grace and mercy and tender care. It is a slow process done over time but God has perfected restoring creation to its original beauty with amazing precision and an eternal patience that knows how to wait a lifetime and not rush or be impatient. God washes away any dirty, filthy, grimy sin stains through the cleansing waters of baptism. For those deep, hard to get sin stains, God dry-cleans them away in a warm gentle rinse cycle of penance and the loving sacrament of reconciliation that burns all sins away. God makes all things new. When was the last time you felt clean, beautiful, good and innocent? Do not try to hide or fake your sin stains away. If you are dirty, go to the confessional and reveal the stain and God will make you new again.