"Many live like angels in the middle of the world. You? Why not you?

"To be pure, to remain pure, can only come at a price. This price is knowing God and loving Him enough to do His will. He will always give us the strength we need to keep purity as
something beautiful for Him.” – Mother Teresa

Scripture Text: (MAL 3:1-4)

Thus says the Lord God:

Lo, I am sending my messenger

to prepare the way before me;

And suddenly there will come to the temple

the LORD whom you seek,

And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.

Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who will endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like the refiner’s fire,

or like the fuller’s lye.

He will sit refining and purifying silver,

and he will purify the sons of Levi,

Refining them like gold or like silver

that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.

Then the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem

will please the LORD,

as in the days of old, as in years gone by.

How many of you have ever seen the show Dirty Jobs? The show is hosted by Mike Rowe and each week he goes and tackles another dirty job. The premise of the show is that Mike Rowe goes and works for one day at a specific job. The only requirement is that it has to be something where the person gets dirty in the process of doing the job. He has done all sorts of jobs Whale Autopsy Technician, cleaning the animal stalls at the San Diego Zoo, assisting in the cleaning of pipe organs and drilling thermal boreholes. Needless to say Mike tends to get into some very dirty occupations.

One of the dirtiest jobs that he had to do was being a part of the Sewer Maintenance Crew. The job was to replace a control valve in one of the holding tanks. At one point the crew had to walk through half a foot of raw sewage to repair the valve. One of the interesting parts of that episode was the process of water purification.

Mike Rowe was given water from one of the interior holding tanks and asked if he thought the water was clean. He answered yes only to find out that the water was only 98% pure. Then he was offered some of the water to drink and he decided he wasn’t thirsty.

How many of you would drink water with two percent sewage in it? When you looked at the water it seemed fine but in reality it still was far from being pure.

God desires for us to remain pure in the midst of a dirty world. Every time that you encounter temptation or flirt with sin; you run the danger of being soiled.

Here’s the good news, as Catholics we are one Sacramental Confession away from returning again to our Baptismal purity. And each time we go to confession, the Lord himself helps us with his grace to overcome our very self and grow in virtue. Why on earth would we reject such a gift?

Do we settle for 98% pure? As the example above illustrates, water with 2% sewage in it is still not drinkable.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8