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Today’s readings

“There is something greater than Jonah here.” I had a friend in seminary who used to remark that the people of ancient Israel wandering through the desert had a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. How could they possibly go wrong, he would ask, when they had incredible signs like that? The same sentiment comes down to us in our own day. We have something greater than the pillars of cloud and fire, we have something greater than Jonah, we have Jesus Christ our Savior, who lived a life of servant leadership and died for our sins, putting aside all his own ambitions and glory. You’d think that would be all we needed to avoid a life of sin.

Yet who of us doesn’t struggle with sin at times? Whether they be rude and nagging, or even impure thoughts, or even sin that translates into action, we all have to deal with being tempted by the world and giving in. All this with the greatest sign of all – the sign of the Cross – present in so many ways in our homes and in our Church.

But if the sign of Jonah means anything, it means we have the opportunity to repent. Lent is that time of second chances, of seeing our sin and confessing God’s greatness, of reforming our lives and repenting of our evil thoughts and deeds. We have this beautiful forty day retreat to examine our lives, to turn away from our sins and turn toward our God. The only thing that is really unforgivable is the desire not to turn back to God, and then only because we do not wish to be forgiven.

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin.

Today’s readings

The prophet Isaiah and Jesus speak today about the great power of words. Isaiah speaks specifically of the power of God’s word, a word that will not return empty but will go out and accomplish the purpose for which God sent it. We see the word that the prophets speaks of here, of course as the Word – with a capital “W.” That Word is Jesus Christ who comes to accomplish the salvation of the world, the purpose of God ever since the world’s creation.

And it is that Word Jesus Christ who takes the pagans to task for babbling with many words. Our relationship with God is one to be accomplished with few words, measured words, words with purpose. The prayer that Jesus gives us today, the classic prayer that echoes in our hearts in good times and in bad, is a prayer with a specific purpose in mind. That prayer, if we pray it rightly, puts us right in the presence of God’s mercy. It recognizes that God’s holiness will bring about a Kingdom where his will will be done in all of creation. It begs God’s forgiveness and begs also that we too would become a forgiving and merciful people, just as God is merciful to us. Finally, it asks for help with temptation and evil, something we struggle with every day.

Today’s readings are nothing short of a plea that God’s will would finally be done. That his Word would go forth and accomplish God’s purpose. That his will would be done on earth as in heaven. As we pray those familiar words, they can often go past us without catching our attention. But we are called to pray them today that God’s will would be accomplished in every place, starting with in our own lives.

Because to God belongs the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

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!”