The American country music singer, songwriter and actor who aided country music in becoming a worldwide phenomenon, Billy Ray Cyrus, said: “A lot of people think Christianity is about always being perfect. It’s actually the opposite of that. It’s realising that we’re all humans, and that’s why God sent his Son to this earth – to save people”. Some weeks ago I realised the truth of Cyrus’ statement. In his daily evangelising TV programme, Edward Spiteri likened the human soul with an automobile.
Jokingly, Erma Louise Bomeck, an American humorist, said that “car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments”. It seems that God the Father must have taken seriously what Bomeck said by manufacturing a car that outlasts physical death and continues to live on forever.
Due to sin, the spiritual automobile fatally broke down. It needed an auto mechanic expert to repair its faults. In “the fullness of time” (Eph 1, 10), God the Father, the Automobile Manufacturer, sent his Son Jesus, the Auto Mechanic, to perpetually repair its inherent damage caused by sin. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3, 16-17).
Yet, what’s the use of having a perfectly functioning automobile without fuel? Likewise, can the human soul work effectively if it is not permeated by the Holy Spirit? Certainly not. In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle of the Gentiles highly exhorts us: “But I say, walk by the Spirit… If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5, 16. 25).
Every now and then the automobile needs to undergo a complete service so as to function properly. Similarly, the human soul needs to have a spiritual service from time to time. The confessional is the service garage which fixes and equips the soul to work as it should.
Pope John Paul II reiterated this point in his Easter Mass Homily for the University Students of Rome. “Sacramental Confession is not a repression but a liberation; it does not restore feelings of guilt, but cancels the guilt, dissolves the evil done, and bestows the grace of forgiveness”.
An automobile will last a long time if is very well taken care of. Are you ready to care for your spiritual automobile? Don’t you consider that if you choose to neglect it, you will end up in the eternal infernal scrap yard, where “there you will weep and gnash your teeth” (Lk 13, 28)? Your decisive choice will determine your everlasting fate. Think it twice before it is too late!
■ Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap