Muddy, bloody and fiery. Muddy, bloody, and fiery is the way to holiness. Often times we think
of holiness as this pure white, and that’s the result, but the way to holiness is muddy, bloody,
and fiery.
First of all, muddy. We hear in the book of the prophet Jeremiah that Jeremiah was in this
cistern, only in mud, and that he “sank into the mud.” In Psalm 40 we hear, “The Lord heard my
cry. He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud of the swamp.” What does it
mean for us to be muddy? Why is that the way to holiness?
I’d like to weave in a little bit of Saint John of the Cross. He is known as being one the great
mystical writers of the church and he has a book called, “The Living Flame of Love,” where he
talks about the dark night of the soul and he weaves throughout these themes of being muddy,
bloody, and fiery.
First of all, how can muddiness be the way to holiness? He begins by saying, “The soul feels
itself to be deep in darkness, unable to advance; it seems that God has abandoned it and left it
sunk in its own misery. Deep in this misery, the soul does not know what to do with themselves.
This is the first step in the depths of the cistern, into the mud of their own weaknesses, where
they remain until God raises them up. We are like being people buried in a pit, seeing no light,
finding no consolation, yet in this very seeming abandonment, God secretly strengthens and
purifies them. For a soul, until it sees itself covered in mud and misery, it will not think that it
needs a savior. God permits the soul to fall, to feel abandoned, every support to fail, so that the
soul may learn the truth about itself: that we are nothing without God, that we can do nothing
without God. And when the soul knows this within the depths of his heart, it is then ready to be
lifted on high. The soul believes that it has thrust itself into darkness, chained helpless,” and I
love this phrase, “noticing this while others advance in God,” thinking ourselves, that we are
not advancing, “and only the hand of God can draw that soul forth. Thus, the soul remains
humbled, waiting on him alone.”
It is not until we find ourselves trapped in a mud pit that we realize that we need a savior. To be
trapped in a pit of mud is to realize our own sinfulness. The wonderful thing about this is, Saint
John of the Cross would say you can’t skip this stuff, there is no way to glory without realizing
our muddiness. The wonderful thing is that when we realize just how powerless we are to
overcome sin in our lives, its then we are on the way to holiness. So, perhaps you may find
yourself muddy, you may find yourself in a pit, you may find yourself stuck in a sin that you just
can’t get out of. You are on the way to holiness. And, you are better off than those who have
never experienced it.
This first stage of sinfulness is to realize our sinfulness, our muddiness, and our need for a
savior. If you find yourself trapped in the mud, unable to free yourself from sin, you are actually
at the beginning of true holiness.
Bloody. What does it mean to be bloody? We hear in the second reading of Hebrews, that he is
saying that, “Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us, and persevere in
running the race, …keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.” What did Jesus experience before the
resurrection? His Passion. The blood. And that’s also something we cannot bypass in our
spiritual life.
Saint Paul says, “In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding
blood.” We all struggle with sin. I don’t know anyone that’s bled yet because they can’t stop
sinning. But we haven’t resisted yet, “to the point of shedding blood.” That’s how difficult it will
be to overcome our sin.
Saint John of the Cross says, “The Road is narrow and steep and rough so few people walk it,
and those who walk it must shed blood, sweat, and tears. They must labor diligently,
renouncing their own will in all things, letting go of every disordered desire, and suffer patiently
the trials of the spirit. Only then can a soul ascend to God. To desire God without suffering is to
see glory without the cross, life without death, light without fire. Strive to deny yourselves in all
things and desire Christ alone. When we experience this crucifixion, when we find ourselves
bloody as we resist sin, it is then that the soul lives for God completely, consumed, broken,
dying, yet this death is not a destruction, it’s a transformation, for in the very act of being slain,
the soul is rising to true love.
The question for ourselves is, have we resisted sin so much so that we have experienced the
shedding of blood? Do we find ourselves afflicted and can we understand that our afflictions
are part of the transformation, part of our redemption? Part of the crucifixion is to surrender
ourselves completely to God. “Into your hands Father, I commend my spirit.” Are we struggling
enough to resist sin to the point of shedding blood?
Finally, fiery. Jesus said to his disciples, “I have come to set a fire upon this earth and how I wish
it were already blazing. There is a baptism with which I must be baptized and how great is my
anguish until it is accomplished.” What is this fire? What is the baptism that Jesus is talking
about? It’s his passion. It’s the whole Pascal Mystery, his suffering, his dying, his rising,
ascending into heaven, and bringing forth the Pentecost, giving us the fire of the Holy Spirit so
that we can become Jesus in the world, suffering and dying and rising.
Saint John of the Cross says, “When fire touches iron in the beginning, the iron first looks black,
loses its brightness and starts to become disfigured. In the same way, the soul, when it touches
the living flame of God, first appears worse than before. It’s rust and stains come to the surface
and it seems fouler than ever, but as the fire continues the iron grows red and finally the iron
becomes one with the fire. This flame causes the soul to be alive on fire and it no longer lives
for itself but for God. And in this fire, it experiences the foretaste of eternal life.”
We are called to experience this eternal life here on earth.
“The enkindling flame is a great, awesome thing for it causes, in the soul, such glory that it feels
eternal life in every part of its being.”
This is the neat part. “After the soul is completely consumed by fire, and living in that fire, from
a spark can leap a great flame and set many hearts on fire. The flame of the soul becomes like a
torch, though small, it gives light and heat and it never rests until it begins to blaze forth. So,
the soul that is touched with this divine fire cannot be still. It’s longing to burn more, to
enkindle others, to cast sparks abroad that everything may be set aflame. It leaps and blazes
and cannot be contained to the soul. And one fire is enough to inflame a thousand more.”
That’s what it means to be on fire.
The way to holiness is muddy, bloody, and fiery. I often hear people say, ‘Father, I don’t know
what I can do to get my loved ones back to the church, my friends, my family, my children, my
grandchildren; I don’t know how to bring them back.’ Well, the truth is by ourselves, we can’t.
But when we become muddy, bloody and fiery, He will.
Saint John of the Cross gives us three ways that we can remain on fire. The first he says, “The
soul that is inflamed with the love of God, longs for God in everything, but above all in the
Blessed Sacrament, where he is truly present. There the soul rests and burns with greater
ardor, for the fire is there.” So, the first step that he gives is spending time in Eucharistic
Adoration, spending time in our chapel before the Lord. The saints call that a holy hour. We are
trying to get, on Thursday evening and Saturday morning, people to come and spend a holy
hour before the Lord.
Sometimes people don’t know what to do. They say, ‘Father, what do I do in silence before the
Lord?’ I look at as being before a bonfire. You don’t have to do anything by a bonfire, you just
sit there. You look at it, you feel it’s heat. As we sit with the Blessed Sacrament, we look at Him,
we feel his heat and He begins to set us on fire.
The second way he (Saint John) says, “That flame, that flame of love is nourished by the
Eucharist. When we receive the Eucharist, it’s like an ember in our bodies, so that when we go
forth from the mass, that flame of Christ can’t help but fly out of us.”
And finally, prayer. He says, “When the flame touches the soul it leaves it wholly inflamed like a
log of wood that has caught fire, the more it burns, the more it is prepared for greater union
until it becomes fire itself.”
Jesus longs to set fire upon the earth. The question is where am I in this stage? Am I muddy?
Am I bloody? Am I fiery? There is only redemption through this, only holiness when we go
about this Passion. As Jesus walked along carrying the cross, he fell three times, His face was
covered in mud and blood and His heart was on fire.
Can we allow ourselves to be saved by God? Can we realize, indeed, that we are trapped in the
mud and need a savior? Can we allow ourselves to resist sin so much to the point that we may
shed blood? Can we become set afire? Hopefully before the end of our lives, if not sooner in
our lives, we all find ourselves muddy, bloody and fiery.
