Category: Lent

Today’s readings

Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
People often balk at the mere suggestion of being called to personally holiness. Oftentimes, this is wrapped up in a misplaced and false humility, that kind of humility that says that since I’m good for nothing, there is no way I can even come close to being like God. Yet the fact of the matter is that we are made good by our Creator God who designed us to be like himself, perfect in holiness.
And if that seems too lofty to attain, Moses and Jesus spell out the steps to getting there today. Clearly, personal holiness is not merely a matter of saying the right prayers, fasting at the right times, going to Church every Sunday and reading one’s Bible. Those things are key on the journey to holiness, but using them as a façade betrays a lack of real holiness. Because for both Moses and Jesus, personal holiness, being holy as God is holy, consists of engaging in justice so that hesed – right relationship and right order – can be restored in the world.
Every single command we receive from Moses and Jesus today turn us outward in our pursuit of holiness. Our neighbor is to be treated justly, and that neighbor is every person in our path. Robbery, false words, grudges, withholding charity, rendering judgment without justice, not granting forgiveness and bearing grudges are all stumbling blocks to personal holiness. All of these keep us from being like God who is holy. And worse yet, all of these things keep us from God, period.
The law of the Lord is perfect, as the Psalmist says, and the essence of that law consists of love and justice to every person. If we would strive for holiness this Lent, we need to look to the one God puts in our path, and restore right relationship with that person.

Today’s readings

During the Easter Vigil Mass, less than forty days from now, we will be asked three very important questions: Do you reject Satan? And all his works? And all his empty promises? The response to each of these questions, of course, is “I do,” and we are called to answer them so that we can remind ourselves of the promises that were made at our Baptism and to recommit ourselves to the single-mindedness our faith requires. We see in today’s Liturgy of the Word first the consequences of forgetting these promises, and then the dedication that keeping them requires.

The first reading gets to the root of the true nature of sin. The man and the woman, that is, our first parents, have been given everything they could ever need or hope for. All of the creatures of the earth and all of the plants have been given to them as food, except for the one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They are fine and happy and even care-free when they follow God’s command. But, as often happens, eventually everything they could ever hope for is not nearly enough.

Along comes the cunning serpent, the figure who is the foreshadowing of Satan, and he convinces the woman, who convinces the man, that if they eat of the tree, they would know everything. So they eventually decide that they need to know everything more than they need to know God, and they eat of the rotten fruit, and with it come all the consequences of a life of sin. The care-free days are gone, and they need to cover themselves with fig leaves. They fear God’s wrath, and hide from him. They have unleashed the horrible cycle of grasping and hiding: longing for more than they need, they grasp at what they should not have; taking what they cannot handle, they hide from the God who is their creator and maker. They have decided they didn’t need God, but find out when it’s too late that God is the only one who can help them.

Repeat the cycle google millions of times throughout the ages: grasping and hiding, and you have the true nature of original sin. We inherit from our first parents the desire to grasp for more than we need and more than we can handle, then we get from that the fear that comes with receiving what we should not have and we have to hide from the One who is our only hope. All of sin is grasping and hiding.

And so Satan, cunning serpent that he is, tests Jesus in the desert. Jesus submits to the temptation because that is the only way he can be one with all of us tortured and tempted souls. Satan promises Jesus more than he needs and hopes he will grasp for it and end up hiding from God, but Jesus resists to show us that there is a way out of calamitous desperate cycle of grasping and hiding.

Satan tells Jesus he can stop hungering if he would just turn the stones into bread. The Son of God could certainly do so, and then he wouldn’t be hungry any more. He wants Jesus to decide that he doesn’t need God the Father to give him what he hungers for and to grasp at what would fill him up. But Jesus knows that bread alone won’t fill up the hungers of the human heart and turns toward God to give him what he truly needs.

But Satan can quote Scripture too, and he tempts him to throw himself off the parapet of the temple, knowing that God would send angels to take care of him. He wants Jesus to decide that he can be reckless and ignore the consequences of tempting God, and to grasp at eternity in the vain hope of getting there without God. But Jesus knows his Father is trustworthy and does not need to and should never be tested.

So now Satan brings out the heavy artillery. He plays on the very human desire to have it all. Jesus need not wait on God’s providence, Satan himself could give him all the kingdoms of the world. All Jesus has to do is grasp at what he does not need and worship the one who cannot save. And Jesus knows that worshipping anyone other than God is foolishness, and that it’s not worth having everything if you give up your soul to get it.

Grasping and hiding, that’s what the devil wants for us. What God wants for us is giving and trusting. If we give ourselves to him, we can trust in God’s goodness to provide everything that we really need, and way more than we could ever hope for.

But giving and trusting is much harder than grasping. Because we have all sorts of hungers. Hunger for foods we do not need to eat. Hunger for relationships that lead us to bad places and away from God. Hunger for self-worth that causes us to work ourselves to death. Hunger for euphoria that leads us to all sorts of addictions. Maybe we can’t turn stones into bread, but we grasp at things we do not need all the time.

And we have this idea that immortality is ours for the taking. We may not throw ourselves off the parapet of the temple, but we throw ourselves into making poor investments or gambling or get-rich-quick schemes thinking that there will always be a way to get out of the mess tomorrow. We throw ourselves into risky behavior in driving faster than we should, or smoking, or overeating – in so many ways we grasp at eternity thinking we will never die.

But maybe most of all we want all the things we do not have and maybe cannot have. We want the latest gadgets, we want the biggest houses, we want the most money, we want it all. And there are lots of easy ways to get it if we are willing to sell our souls. Maybe we’re not actually worshipping Satan, but we definitely aren’t worshipping God.

At the root of our sinfulness is the thought that we do not need God. That we can get what we want by grasping at things beyond us. And then we end up in just the same place as our first parents, all over again, hiding from God lest he find out we have tried to cheat him out of what he wants to give us anyway.

The antidote to grasping and hiding is letting go – giving what might even seem to be necessary to us, and trusting that God will give us what we need. That can be the treasure of Lent for us. In fasting, we can let go of the idea that we alone can provide what is necessary for our survival. God can feed our hungers much better than we can. In almsgiving, we can let go of the idea that everything is ours if we would just worship the one who cannot give us what we truly need. God gives us what’s really necessary in life, and also life eternal. And in prayer, we can let go of the cycle of grasping and hiding and return to God in trust and love.

David the Psalmist knew that he had sinned greatly in grasping for what he could not have. And so the Psalm he sings today is a model for us of letting go of all that and trusting in God’s grace to give us what we truly need:

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.

Today’s readings

Lent is a time that calls all of us to take on the virtue of humility. Not the kind of humility that says “I’m good for nothing,” because God never made anything that was good for nothing. That isn’t humility at all, really, it’s just self-loathing, and there’s nothing virtuous about that. The kind of humility that Lent calls us to follow is a humility that recognizes that God is God and we are not. This kind of humility says that even our best efforts are only possible because God has chosen to give us grace and to work through us and in us. Humility says we are good people, thanks be to God.

So when we fast, the Gospel tells us, we must fast in humility. We can’t be like John the Baptist’s disciples and the Pharisees who are fasting and looking to make sure every else knows that we are fasting, and look askance at anyone who is not doing so. Our fasting is always between us and God, and no one need know about it. More than that, we don’t need to know if anyone else is fasting or not. Humility starts with minding our own spiritual business.

Humility while fasting does actually direct our thoughts and affections to others, but not to see if they are fasting. Rather, as the first reading tells us, fasting helps us to be aware of the needs of others. Fasting reminds us that other people hunger to be fed, given proper housing, released from captivity, educated, meaningfully employed, and so much more. The hunger we experience from fasting ought to move us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, for a right relationship with others and with God.

It’s easy for us to give up something for Lent and think we’re on track. But today’s Scriptures call us to embrace Lent with humility, remembering that God’s grace is what brings us to salvation. Those holy thoughts should move us to compassion for those in need and to offer our fasting for the greater honor and glory of God. “My sacrifice, O God,” the Psalmist prays, “is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.”

Today’s readings

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

and sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

and looked down one as far as I could

to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

and having perhaps the better claim

because it was grassy and wanted wear;

though as for that, the passing there

had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

in leaves no feet had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference

This poem, of course, is “The Road Less Traveled,” by Robert Frost, and it was always one of my favorites. Today’s readings speak, more or less, to the same sentiment, but with a more radical and crucial twist. Frost’s opinion is that both roads are equally valid, he just chooses to take the one most people don’t. But the Gospel tells us that there really is only the one valid path, and that certainly is the road less traveled. We commonly call it the Way of the Cross.

Moses makes it clear, he sets before the people life and death, and then begs them to choose life. Choosing life, for the Christian, means going down that less traveled Way of the Cross, a road that is hard and filled with pitfalls. And maybe the real problem is that there is a choice. Wouldn’t it be great if we only had the one way set before us and no matter how hard it would be, that was all we could choose? But God has given us freedom and wants us to follow that Way of the Cross in freedom, because that’s the only way that leads to him.

Our Psalmist says it well today:

Blessed the one who follows not

the counsel of the wicked

Nor walks in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the company of the insolent,

But delights in the law of the LORD

and meditates on his law day and night.

[Okay, when I said I wasn’t posting my homily that’s before the snow made me do the 7:30pm Mass instead of our weekend assistant. So here’s the more adult-oriented homily I gave at that Mass, excerpted and adapted from last year.]

Today’s readings

Behold: now is the acceptable time!
Behold: now is the day of salvation!

We have come here today for all sorts of reasons. Lots of us may still have the remnants of old and bad teaching that you have to come to Church on Ash Wednesday or something horrible will happen to you. When you don’t come to Church on a regular basis, you lose contact with God and the community, and yes, that is pretty horrible, but not in a superstitious kind of way. The real reason we come to Church on this the first day of Lent is for what we celebrate on the day after Lent: the resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. Through the Cross and Resurrection, Jesus has won for us salvation, and we are the grateful beneficiaries of that great gift. All of our Lenten observance, then, is a preparation for the joy of Easter.

Lent calls us to repent, to break our ties with the sinfulness and the entanglements that are keeping us tethered to the world instead of free to live with our God and receive his gift of salvation. Our Church offers us three ways to do that during Lent. First, we can fast. We can give up snacks, or a favorite food, or eat one less meal perhaps one day a week, or we can give up a favorite television program or activity. Fasting helps us to be aware of the ways God works to sustain us when we’re hungry. The lack of television provides us with a silence that can be filled by God’s presence. The whole idea of fasting is that we need to come to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide, and to cut our ties with anything that keeps us from God.

Second, we can pray. We already must pray every day and attend Mass every Sunday. But maybe Lent can be the opportunity to intensify our prayer life, to make it better, to make it more, to draw more life from it. Maybe we are not people who read Scripture every day, and we can work through one of the books of the Bible during Lent. Maybe we can learn a new prayer or take on a new devotion. Maybe we can spend time before the Lord in the Tabernacle or in adoration, especially during our 40 hours devotion we’ll have next month. Maybe we can just carve out some quiet time at the end of the day to give thanks for our blessings, and to ask pardon for our failings. Intensifying our prayer life this Lent can help us to be aware of God’s presence at every moment of our day and in every place we are.

Third, we can give alms or do works of charity. We can save money for Operation Rice Bowl, or perhaps help to provide a meal at Hesed House. Maybe we can devote some time to mentoring a child who needs help with their studies, or volunteer to help in our school or religious education program. Works of charity might be a family project, perhaps volunteering at a soup kitchen together, or shopping together for items to donate to Loaves and Fishes. When we do works of charity, we can learn to see others as God does, and love them the way God loves them and us.
And none of this, as the Gospel reminds us today, is to be done begrudgingly or half-heartedly. None of it is to be done with the express purpose of letting the world see how great we are. It is always to be done with great humility, but also with great joy. Our acts of fasting, prayer, and charity should be a celebration of who God is in our lives, and a beautiful effort to strengthen our relationship with him.
It is my prayer that this Lent can be a forty day retreat that will bring us all closer to God. May we all hear the voice of the prophet Joel from today’s first reading: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart!”

Today’s readings

Generally speaking, we just hate to look at people suffering. Many people just can’t bring themselves to go to visit a loved one in the hospital or a nursing home, because they are so uncomfortable with the pain of others. Sometimes in our daily travels we may see a person who is disfigured or who has some sort of handicap, and we immediately look away, not wanting to stare, but even more, not wanting to come to terms with the burden they bear. This is the way the suffering servant is portrayed in today’s first reading. The suffering servant is one who is completely unremarkable in appearance. We wouldn’t even notice him walking down the street if we saw him. Yet this is the Messiah. Even more though, he takes upon himself every form of suffering: public scorn, harsh treatment, bodily affliction, oppression, sin and infirmity. Now we would not only not notice him, but we’d actually prefer to avoid him at all costs.

What kind of Savior is this? Well, this is the kind of Savior who would go willingly to the Cross, knowing its pain, taking its burden, forsaking all for the glory of God. This is the kind of Savior who reached out to everyone who came to him on the way of the Cross, because he was committed to the mission of reaching out to all the lost. This is the kind of Savior who could look down from the Cross, in the midst of agony and among his last breaths, and take care of a grieving mother and a weeping friend. This Savior knows our pains and knows our sufferings and is not embarrassed to look upon them, and even to take them on himself for our salvation.

We have a Savior who is well acquainted with our weakness. This Savior sits next to you when you sit at the bedside of a dying family member. This Savior agonizes with you when your children make wrong choices. This Savior weeps with you when someone important to you is taken from your life much too soon. This Savior weeps with you, and embraces you and takes your suffering upon himself. It might be hard to look at the Cross today, but we venerate that Cross because we have been loved from it and we have been redeemed by it.

Today's readings

Washing the feet of guests was a common practice in Jesus' time. In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration. And they would travel that distance, not by car or train or even by beast of burden, but most often on foot. The travelers' feet would then become not only dirty from the dusty roads, but also hot and tired from the long journey. It was a gesture of hospitality to wash the guests' feet, but it was a gesture that was supplied not by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, usually a servant or slave. But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who wraps a towel around himself, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends. This, to me, is a great example of what Scripture scholars call kenosis.

I had a Scripture teacher who always used to talk about kenosis. During my seminary days, we went through some pretty rough times with the Church. Just two weeks after we started, we had the tragedy of 9/11. Along with the rest of the country, we all felt like the bottom had dropped out and nothing was really certain any more. Then, the following spring, the sexual abuse scandal broke wide open, and so many of us wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Many of us had personal tragedies as well, me included when both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer just one month apart from each other. We ended our time in seminary with the tragic death of two of our brother seminarians in a car crash on the school grounds. Life is like that, we all have things that we go through and we wonder why we go on, why we even try to live as disciples. And I remember whenever we would express that, one of my Scripture teachers would always look at us and say, "It's all about kenosis."

At first when we heard that we looked at him like most of you are looking at me right now. But we came to know what kenosis meant. It is a New Testament Greek word that basically means "self-emptying." It comes from the root word kenos which is used to describe places or vessels that are empty, or to describe people who are empty handed or arrive without a gift. Kenosis in the New Testament sense is used to describe Jesus Christ, who as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." Christ emptied himself of the honor that was rightfully his as our God and took our own human form. That's kenosis.

So this evening's Gospel is not a simple call to show more hospitality to our guests, but instead a call to kenosis. It's a call to get over ourselves, to empty out all the glory we think we deserve, so that we can be empty vessels to be filled up with Christ. That's an easy thing to say, but I know first-hand that it's hard to do. Being the person up here leading worship can be a very ego-boosting experience. But I also know that it's when I remember that it's not about me that I find worship most prayerful, and, from your comments, you find it most prayerful then too. And I have to struggle to remember that it's not about me: that it's not my Mass, or my ministry, or even my life. And even though I know I have good days and bad days on that score, the day I stop at least struggling with it is the day I know I will have stopped being a priest, and stopped being a disciple. Because it is only through kenosis in my own life, by emptying myself out, that Christ can work in me.

And that's true of you too. All of us disciples are called to abandon themselves. Whatever your vocation in life, you will do it best when you let Christ work in you. Because the parent who puts himself or herself first will be completely unsuccessful – you know that. And the spouse who puts self first will never have a relationship with the other. Single people's lives are beautiful when they are lived as an outreach to others. And those who work in any kind of business are most successful when they help others to succeed. But before we get caught up in some kind of misguided new-age "pay it forward" mentality, let's also remember that for the Christian disciple, this self-emptying is not about us feeling better about ourselves because we've done nice things for others. Real Christian kenosis means that sometimes this kind of self-emptying will feel lousy, and won't be appreciated, and won't bring any hope of immediate reward. But we pour ourselves out anyway, because that is what our Christ asked us to do, and because that is how our God will be glorified.

Another aspect of our own call to kenosis is that sometimes we have to empty out the part of us that desperately wants to do everything for ourselves, and to let someone else minister to us in our need. I told you about my parents both being sick when I was in seminary. That was such a hard time for me, mostly because I was still really convinced that I could get through anything life threw at me on my own. But I had to learn that sometimes I need to let my friends pick me up and carry me to Jesus when I couldn't get there on my own. I'm bad at that. I'm like Peter – no one's going to wash my feet. But I learned that I have to get over that if I'm ever going to be empty enough for Christ to fill me up. It's not about me – and it can't be about any of us, we who would take up our crosses to follow our Lord.

There's another part of this Gospel that really strikes me. You heard me tell you about the practice of washing the feet of guests in Jesus' day. When do you think their feet would be washed? Immediately upon arriving, of course. But that's not what happens here. The Gospel reading says that during the supper, Jesus rose, changed his clothes, and washed their feet. That's a detail that would really stick out to those hearing the story in that day. And Jesus didn't wash their feet at that time because he forgot before, or just noticed how dirty their feet were. He had a very specific reason for washing their feet during the meal. Because now that great act of kenosis would be forever intimately tied to the celebration of the Eucharist. Because of the very precise timing of this act of service, we who receive the Eucharist now know that we are called to follow Jesus' example and to pour ourselves out in service to our brothers and sisters. Every time we are fed by our Lord, we must always remember that we are called by our Lord to empty ourselves and become the presence of Christ for those who share life with us.

On this great night, as we begin the great three-day feast of our Savior's triumph over sin and death, we come together to share a meal – the same meal he shared with his friends on that night so long ago. And because we Catholics don't remember this night with mere fond recollections, but by entering into the experience in all its fullness yet again, we have to hear the same commandment Jesus gave his disciples: "If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." As we gather and come forward to do this in remembrance of Christ, may we also pour ourselves out each day for our brothers and sisters, lovingly washing their feet just as ours have been washed by our Saving Lord.

Today’s readings

The time draws near. Everything is in place. Jesus celebrates the Passover one last time with his disciples, and in the course of it, gives them his own Body and Blood as an everlasting remembrance of him, a sacramental offering that will draw people to Christ until the end of time. Today is the last full day of Lent. Tomorrow we will enter the Paschal Triduum, that great three-day day that gives thanks for the Lord’s Body and Blood poured out for us, that remembers his Passion and death, and that keeps vigil for his resurrection. This day will bring untold activity for all of us, I know that. But as the day ends, I invite you all, along with me, to take time to quiet ourselves to give thanks, and to remember, and to keep vigil. The time draws near.

Today’s readings

Four words in today’s Gospel absolutely gave me chills as I read them. Those words are, “And it was night.” We hear those right after Judas takes the morsel of bread and heads out to do what he must do. Satan has entered him. The death of our Lord approaches. And it was night. The night was not just physical darkness or even the hour of the day. The night is the time when all of the sins of the world have converged upon Jesus Christ and he will take them to the Cross. The darkness of all of the sins of the world have made it a very dark night indeed. In these Holy days, we see the darkness that our Savior had to endure for our salvation. May we find courage in the way he triumphed over this fearful night.