Our giving up something during Lent is meant to make us realize we crave something much greater than this world can give us.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. February 14th, 2010

In just a few days, we will begin the Season of Lent. To prepare us, today we hear the great Sermon on the Plain in St. Luke’s Gospel, which is very similar to the Sermon on the Mount as found in St. Matthew’s Gospel. This great sermon is a true compendium of the main teachings of Jesus. It is in these sermons that Jesus lays out His unique teachings. Jesus takes the Ten Commandments of the Old Law and raises them up to never image level, a supernatural Level--Beatitude.
Jesus today calls us to true Happiness. But the key here is that it is a call to not merely earthly happiness, a happiness on the natural level, which we can reach if we obey and follow the Ten Commandments, but Jesus calls us to a out of this world happiness. This is a heavenly happiness, an infinite supernatural happiness which is not possible to attain by merely keeping the Commandments or by merely “being good".
In giving us the Beatitudes, Jesus seems to speak in a way that does not make sense. Jesus speaks in a paradox-they seem to contradict not only nature, but also Jesus own teaching. For example, would anyone naturally say that the poor are blessed, or the hungry blessed or those who morn blessed? We would, and rightly so, consider these people in need. Nor would we say naturally that people who are rich, who have plenty to eat or who are laughing, that these people are in grave difficulty. We are more inclined to envy those who have more than us and in fact we might even think that God has blessed them more than us.
The Beatitudes then go much deeper than the surface; Jesus is leading us from a merely material understanding of reality to a deeper spiritual understanding, from the natural level to the supernatural. St. Augustine points this out clearly by using the example of the rich man and Lazarus. Augustine points out that Lazarus was not holy because he lack for material goods, no was the rich man evil merely because He was rich. St Augustine is teaching us that Poverty of spirit does not consist in something purely external, having or not having material goods, but it consist in something that goes much deeper, affecting a person’s heart and soul; it consists in having a humble attitude toward God, in being devout, in having total faith, cling to and loving God above all else.
St Augustine reminds us that Lazarus goes to the Bosom of Abraham; and who was Abraham, a man who was on earth, a very materially rich person who had an abundance of money, a large family, flocks and land. Yet Abraham was poor because he was humble, He believed in God, and allowed that faith to permeate all he said and did and so was found acceptable to God; In other words, Abraham's heart belong to God alone and not to earthly riches even though he had them.
By telling us to be poor in spirit, Jesus is reminding us as well that we must recognize our poverty before the Lord. Without the Lord we are nothing, we have nothing. And so Jesus wants us to learn to be poor beggars before the Father, not in a derogatory way. Jesus wants us to see the truth of our situation, for indeed we are all truly poor beggars before the Lord, we have nothing that comes from us, we depend on the Father for everything, whether we want to admit it or not. The Father demands that we recognize our true poverty because it is only then that He can fill us, because we let Him, with the riches of His grace and love and so lead us to the true happiness known as Beatitude.
This is one of the main problems with our consumeristic, materialistic society; Consumerism has blinded many to no longer think that they are totally dependant on God; they are rich and fat with earthly goods, full with earthly comforts and laugh with earthly entertainment and pleasures, and so they are abandoning their faith in God and in His Catholic Church, that Church which through her Sacramental life gives us the grace we absolutely need to live a life of Beatitude. In this, they start to become rich in the bad sense, they cling to their own opinions, they create their own truth and even their own Church, they live by their own set of rules and values, refusing to submit their minds and wills to the truth, the truth that comes only from God and from His Church, the truth they need to reach Beatitude. In this, they cling to the things of this world and so their heart belongs to the world and not to God.
Through His Church, this Lent, the Father desires to give us all the Sacramental graces we need to follow the commandments, on a supernatural level, a level of perfection, in other words to live our life in Imitation of Christ, denying ourselves, losing our lives out of love for the salvation of souls, ours and others…For who ever loses his life for Christ sake, will find it and inherit eternal BEATITUDE. Jesus knows full well, and he wants us to know full well that we are unable to live the Beatitudes out in our lives on own. It is our own desire and our humbleness, that is the recognition of our poverty, our need for God’s help and grace, that really determines how much the Father will and can give us.
And how much does the Father want to give us, He wants to give us His everything, all of His riches, even a share in His Divinity. He offers us this at every Holy Mass, when He gives us a chance to receive His Divine Son in the Holy Eucharist who is the fullness of the Father’s wealth. But we must be poor in order to receive the benefits from this heavenly food, only those who are poor in heart can see that the Eucharist is God and so only these can receive Him worthily so that when their live on earth is over they may see the Eucharist unveiled, which is the fullness of Beatitude, and so is know as the Beatific vision, the Vision of Eternal Happiness.
Lent is so much more than just a time of giving up something. Our giving up something during Lent is meant to make us realize we crave something much greater than this world can give us. We crave Beatitude, which comes from deep intimate friendship with God which leads to union with Him. Lent is much more than just a time of turning away from sin; it is a time of turning toward the Lord, better yet a time of running toward Him and throwing ourselves into His loving embrace. Only then can we be truly happy in this live and in the life to come. Let us ask our dear Blessed Mother to help us have a "successful" Lent, not successful in the sense that we succeed in giving up Chocolate or coffee but that our Lenten disciplines lead us to a true change of heart, and change in which our heart leaves its attachments to what this world has to offer and instead attaches God Himself.