“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24
The story of the cuckoo and thrush is a powerful example of how evil and worldly ways drain and kill Godly virtues.
The cuckoo never builds its own nest. When it feels an egg coming on, it finds another nest with eggs and no parent bird present. The trush, a smaller bird will build its nest in a hedge. The mother will fly away to find food. The cuckoo sees the nest, land hurriedly, lay its egg, and take off again. That’s all the cuckoo does in terms of parenting.
The mother thrush will return and care for her eggs, without realizing it is also caring for the larger cuckoo egg as well. In time, the eggs hatch. When the mother returns with food for her babies, being several times larger than the others, the cuckoo gets all the food. The cuckoo gets bigger and bigger while the thrush get smaller and weaker. Before long the baby thrushes die and are thrown from the nest by the cuckoo.
God gives every soul a nest full of virtues and gifts. We all have a strong sense for sanctity and virtue, but, within each heart lies an alien spirit that desires to consume all that it can and kill off the great and holy desires within. Like the cuckoo, this sense may be larger and louder than the others in the nest. It definitely is voracious and looks to consume and grow at the cost of everything else.
If we feed these parasitic desires, they will destroy the holiness and good virtues. The seven cardinal sins are pride, gluttony, lust, hate, greed, sloth, and envy. Feed any of these and watch them grow fat and strong as they strangle out all the good within a heart. Yes, this may begin innocently, like that cuckoo egg. But, as they are fed, each can separately grow and take over the heart. But, worse than the cuckoo in the nest, these seven sins not only grow but spawn the other cardinal sins. Soon, the heart finds itself dealing with not a single ‘mouth to feed’ but many gluttonous mouths.
We all have these parasitic spirits within us, left behind by concupiscence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offence, inclines man to commit sins” (No. 2515)
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:14
The more we feed these bad demons, the more they will take and demand of our soul until it brings our soul to a point of total desolation. These demons seek to destroy all that is holy within the temple that is our soul. Death in sin is something to really fear.
Starve these evil spirits by living and growing the virtues. Feed these holy virtues – prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and charity.
As we nurture the virtues, they grow within our souls. The virtues then take wing and fly.
The deadly sins will squeak loudly in our ears but the “still small voice” of God is what we need to be attentive to. We need to strike forth boldly, casting off the one we used to be, renewed in the spirit of our minds, and to be clothed with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
God calls us to a virtuous life, a life of total sanctity. With help from the Holy Spirit, we can strengthen the virtues within our souls that they become an armor of God to defend us against the wiles of the evil one. As the light of these virtues grows, it becomes brighter and hotter, casting out all the darkness in which sin tries to hide.
“If souls would put themselves completely in My care, I Myself would undertake the task of sanctifying them, and I would lavish even greater graces on them.” Divine Mercy in my soul # 1682