John 14; 23-29. Fifth Sunday in Easter. May 1st, 2015
The last few weeks we have been speaking about the deepest form of love known to man, that of Agape love. Agape love is a sacrificial love, a human love elevated to the divine. Agape love is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart offers itself in love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith.
Our Gospel today shows us how God loved us first. Our Lord here, is preparing to enter into His passion and death in which he would prove his love for us with the greatest act of agape love the world as ever seen. Jesus in divine love would totally pour Himself out sacrificially for love of each one of us on the Cross-God would die on the cross for us.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man love me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Loving Jesus first and foremost and above all else is the key to the Father’s Love.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through action. After all, love is shown in deeds, not in sweet words. And so as Jesus says, love for Him is shown in obedience to God's Holy Word. Obeying God’s Holy Word means keeping His commandments and living according to His teachings, which come to us through His Holy Catholic Church. It is in and through the Church that we have been promised the Holy Spirit to help us understand this truth and to be our Diving Helper in living it in our lives. If we do our part, the Holy Spirit will help us to learn and understand the Church’s teaching so we can apply them in everyday life.
It is this obedience to the truth in our lives that brings us the peace that the world cannot give. Because the world rejects this truth and refuses to live in obedience to God’s Truth, the world has no peace. Rejection of the truth is ultimately a refusal to love God, by refusing to live one’s life in obedience to the truth that comes from God. The result is a lack of peace. And if there is one thing that defines our world today, it is a lack of peace; not just exterior peace but most especially inner peace, peace of soul.
I think it was Pope VI that once said; “Peace is much more than just a lack of conflict or war.” Many people in the world mistakenly think that all of our advancements in technology are going to give us peace and make us happy. Instead, in the last thirty to forty years the increases in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society have surpassed what many of us ever dreamed possible, not to mention the fear of terrorism and war. Peace is more elusive than ever. And what takes its place is a general feeling of insecurity and outright fear. Everyone deep down knows things are not as they should be, and this leads to an even greater increase of fear, fear of what the future may hold.
As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in agape love to another, especially to God. We see this manifested in fear of making lifelong commitments to one’s vocation, whether in marriage or the religious life; fear of bringing new life into the world; and above all, fear of not being loved. Psychiatrists and other therapist are literally swamped with clients, depression is rampant, and suicide is on the increase, in fact epidemic especially among our youth, who have more material goods than any other generation in history.
And what is the remedy that most turn to in order to alleviate this fear, fear which stems from a lack of peace? Diversion; noise, lots of noise, TV, music, sex, computer games, pornography, drugs- baseless entertainment and amusement, the list is long. Our generation craves diversion, because it lacks peace. What is the solution?
The solution is to turn back to the love of God. This begins by setting the diversions aside, especially the diversion of noise and returning in silence to the One who speaks in silence…the living and true God. In silence, alone with oneself and alone with God, we can hear the voice of God who speaks in the silence to our heart; and we can respond to Him still small voice with ours through intimate prayer, heart speaking to heart; heart giving itself to heart.
A few years ago, you may remember there was an interesting movie that was all about silence before God. It was actually entitled, “Into the Great Silence.” This three-hour movie about the lives of Carthusian monks in the French alps had hardly any spoken words at all, and yet, the movie was a surprise hit. What is it that made this movie about silence so appealing to such a noisy world?
One of the comments about the monks in the movie is that they live in no fear…they live with peace, the peace that they have acquired through the years of silently nurturing their relationship with God. They have deepened their faith that they are indeed sons of a loving Father who loves them, each of them with a unique unfathomable love. If we only knew what it means to be a beloved
son and daughter of God we would have no fear only trust.
In their faith in Jesus Christ and their striving to live in obedience to His words found in Sacred Scripture and interpreted by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church, the monks have found that solace that the human heart looks for, the solace that comes from living the world behind and living for love of God alone. And this is really the test in this life isn't it?; whether we turn to human beings and to the things of this world for our solace, or turn to God…Jesus I trust in you.
I am not suggesting we become Carthusian monks, but we do enter more into silence in the presence of God, and we have to have the living obedient faith of Carthusian monks. In other words, we need show our love for Jesus by obeying His words, His commandments and teachings and trusting in Him alone.
And like the Carthusian monks, we need to come in contact whenever and however much we can with God in silent prayer before God in the Holy Eucharist both at Holy Mass and whenever we can before His physical presence in the tabernacle. The Holy Mass is the Sacrament instituted by Christ in order to bring the world peace because it makes truly present in the Holy Eucharist the One who is the King of Peace, along with His sacrifice of Agape love for us.*(see note below).
In reality, the more that faith in the Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass and the Eucharist is ignored or treated as a time for feel good noisy entertainment, instead of a time for a silent intimate reverential encounter with the living God in adoration and worship, the more we will lack peace and live in fear. This is why the Church has reminded us over and over again to make ample time for periods of sacred silence during Mass. But so sadly us moderns often try to fill every moment of the Mass with noise.
Thomas Merton summed this all up nicely when he wrote, “Silence is not a virtue, noise is not a sin, it is true, but the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expressions of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter is a world without anything to live for…Mass becomes racket and confusion; prayers—an exterior or interior noise” (Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas).
Therefore if you want truly peace and to live without fear, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there. It’s hard for us to do this because of the silence. The Eucharist makes no earthly noise, it is true, but it is in that sacred silence before the living God truly present in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the peace that we are looking for, the peace that the world cannot give because it is in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the strength to love God with deeds, in obedience to His truth. And then, then we will be able to love Him with an agape love and love others with a agape love for love of Him, for He will come and make His Home in us, and place His own love alive in our souls and in our hearts; then and only then will we truly have peace.
I want to end with a saying from Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She learned agape love in adoration, in silent contemplation before the Eucharist. There she learned to see the true face of God in every suffering human being and showed her love for God by obedience to His word which resulted in her life of peace, lived in service to God and neighbor. Mother of Theresa said…
The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
And I would dare to add, the fruit of peace is complete trust in and abandonment to God and His Holy Will without fear!!
********************************************************************************************************************************
*By the way, this is what is meant at the sign of peace during the Mass. The sign of peace is not just about us sharing our peace with one another…it is about receiving Christ’s peace. The priest looks down at Jesus truly present in the Eucharist (or at least he should) as he says, “Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, I leave you peace my peace I give you…and then the priest receives it from the Eucharist and offers it to the people whose hearts are open to receive it, by saying, "the Peace of Christ be with you…(literally)". He then invites those present to share Jesus' peace (they have just received) with one other.
The Holy Father once reminded us that this action is not meant to be a free for all…first and foremost we are sharing Jesus peace with one another, not our own peace. For this reason the sharing of the peace of Christ is to be done in a subdued manner with person next to you, who passes it on…it is not suppose to be an attempt to shake every single person’s hand around you. It’s not about us, it’s about Christ; the peace comes from Christ, not from each other and so our attention should stay on the Eucharist, not on each other.
The peace of Christ that comes to us is an assurance of spiritual, saving strength that goes beyond a simple gesture or simple words. The peace of the Lord is not given as the world gives peace. Christ’s peace is not an absence of conflict or suffering. It is a peace that comes from knowing that we are God’s children who depend totally on Him for everything-everything and that we will never have true peace until we turn to him for everything and love him above everything, above everything this world has to offer. It is a peace that comes from loving God and showing this love by living in obedience to his commandments and His Catholic Church.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Saturday, April 16, 2016
If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist.
Fourth Sunday in Easter-Good Shepherd Sunday.
Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. Without doubt one of the most popular images of Jesus Christ is that of the Good Shepherd. It is an image that is easy for us to understand especially when we are depressed and sad. It is an image that is very consoling especially when it feels like God has abandoned us. And for some of us, it was a consoling image when we ourselves had strayed away from God. A God that actually leaves the other sheep for the sake of “one,” is a God that is not so frightening, but very compassionate, very merciful to the sheep who but turns to Him for forgiveness and confesses its sins. Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image of God that makes the person who has strayed, actually want to be found.
Jesus is indeed the Good Shepherd who freely chooses to lay down his life for his sheep.” Jesus has laid down his life for His sheep. And it is only because of Jesus’ own suffering and death that we can be saved. His sacrifice is how He saved us when we were lost sheep. His sacrifice is how we are still being saved and protected while we are in the unsafe pastures of this world. And His Sacrifice is our hope of final salvation in order to reach the eternal pastures of heaven.
And His once-and-for-all Sacrifice is being re-presented, that is made truly present, at this and every Holy Mass in order to continue to save and protect us. This means that the Holy Mass is the very same Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary made present in our midst and in our time, alone with Its saving power. This brings us to the deepest meaning of Christ the Good Shepherd, one that many may not have heard before.
The very idea of shepherd in the Old Testament and the New was always connected to priestly service. In other words, shepherding in the biblical understanding was priestly work. The priest is one who offers Sacrifice and worship on behalf of the people, interceding to God for the sake of the people.
Jesus was and is the true priest who offers the perfect sacrifice and so perfect worship and adoration on behalf of the people. It is perfect because Jesus is God who offers Himself to God—God adores God. Jesus offers Himself on our behalf to the Father, in order to take away our sins and to provide for us the grace needed to union with God now and in the life to come.
Jesus is also the perfect priest as the One who offers and at the same time the perfect victim, the One Who is being offered. Only through His perfect offering of Himself to the Father on our behalf can we or anyone be saved. In the Holy Mass, Jesus the God-Man offers to God the Father the one perfect and so acceptable act of adoration for the salvation of the world, the self-same act on the cross. The Holy Mass is then the source of all the grace, ALL GRACE, that comes into this world.
Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to carry out His saving work as the Good Shepherd in the Sacred Liturgy. Therefore, the work of the Liturgy is first and foremost the work of the Good Shepherd (It is only secondarily our work. In fact, we can only do our work of adoration and worship in union with the perfect worship and adoration of the Son present at every Holy Mass). We must always remember that it is really Jesus Christ who offers the Holy Mass in the person of the priest. Jesus in other words, carries out his shepherding in and through the Sacred Liturgy, which includes the Holy Mass and all the other sacraments, which flow from It.
This means then that Jesus the High priest carries out His priestly work of Shepherding through the Church and it's Sacred Priesthood. When the Sacraments are offered it is really and truly Jesus Himself who baptizes, forgives, confirms, heals, marries, ordains and as I said, offers priestly sacrifice. To carry out His saving priestly work, Jesus the Good Shepherd actually depends on other shepherds who He has given a share in His priestly office. And they for their part, place their voice, their hands, their bodies, themselves at the disposable of the Good Shepherd. Through the Church, they are to shepherd God’s people in Christ's name and with His own Divine Power by offering sacrifice; and so, they shepherd in Christ stead, by sanctifying, teaching and by governing the sheep all with the divine authority of the Head, Jesus, in whose Name they have been called and ordained.
Through the ordained priesthood, Jesus the Good Shepherd is always with us, as close as any Catholic Church, were he waits on our sacred altars and in our tabernacles night and day for any lost sheep who but calls out for him. He gives us His Holy Church led by His Pastors, a Church whose teachings are the very voice of the Good Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give them eternal life...”all through the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus’ love for his sheep is a sacrifice of love; it is agape love to the ultimate extreme. And so, we learn from Jesus what love really means; love ultimately means sacrifice laying down ones life for one’s friend; and Jesus has laid down His life for His friends, you and me, and literally continues to do so at the Holy Mass, to provide us with the means to love like Him.
Jesus continues to shepherd us through the priesthood of His Church that he founded and through which he continues to bring his work of redemption into every age including our own. Jesus shepherds us through His shepherds the priests, in whose person HE continues to lay down His life for us through them. In the Holy Eucharist made present by the Priest and the Holy Spirit working through the priest, Jesus give us, offers us His own divine Love and Life in the Eucharist so that we can love with his own heart, that is so we can love with the very love of God, a divine love know as Charity. But for our part we must open our heart to His; that is, offer our heart in response to the offering of His. The Holy Mass is truly meant to be the place on earth where not only heart speaks to Heart, but where heart offers to Heart.
“If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist. Through the Holy Eucharist, Who is the Good Shepherd in our midst, let us enter into His Love so that we may by the Power of the Holy Spirit, take on in our self, in our lives and for our world the image of the same Good Shepherd, being used by Him to seek out the lost and becoming united to Him, and through Him with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit along with all the angels and saints, forever and ever. Amen.
Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. Without doubt one of the most popular images of Jesus Christ is that of the Good Shepherd. It is an image that is easy for us to understand especially when we are depressed and sad. It is an image that is very consoling especially when it feels like God has abandoned us. And for some of us, it was a consoling image when we ourselves had strayed away from God. A God that actually leaves the other sheep for the sake of “one,” is a God that is not so frightening, but very compassionate, very merciful to the sheep who but turns to Him for forgiveness and confesses its sins. Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image of God that makes the person who has strayed, actually want to be found.
Jesus is indeed the Good Shepherd who freely chooses to lay down his life for his sheep.” Jesus has laid down his life for His sheep. And it is only because of Jesus’ own suffering and death that we can be saved. His sacrifice is how He saved us when we were lost sheep. His sacrifice is how we are still being saved and protected while we are in the unsafe pastures of this world. And His Sacrifice is our hope of final salvation in order to reach the eternal pastures of heaven.
And His once-and-for-all Sacrifice is being re-presented, that is made truly present, at this and every Holy Mass in order to continue to save and protect us. This means that the Holy Mass is the very same Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary made present in our midst and in our time, alone with Its saving power. This brings us to the deepest meaning of Christ the Good Shepherd, one that many may not have heard before.
The very idea of shepherd in the Old Testament and the New was always connected to priestly service. In other words, shepherding in the biblical understanding was priestly work. The priest is one who offers Sacrifice and worship on behalf of the people, interceding to God for the sake of the people.
Jesus was and is the true priest who offers the perfect sacrifice and so perfect worship and adoration on behalf of the people. It is perfect because Jesus is God who offers Himself to God—God adores God. Jesus offers Himself on our behalf to the Father, in order to take away our sins and to provide for us the grace needed to union with God now and in the life to come.
Jesus is also the perfect priest as the One who offers and at the same time the perfect victim, the One Who is being offered. Only through His perfect offering of Himself to the Father on our behalf can we or anyone be saved. In the Holy Mass, Jesus the God-Man offers to God the Father the one perfect and so acceptable act of adoration for the salvation of the world, the self-same act on the cross. The Holy Mass is then the source of all the grace, ALL GRACE, that comes into this world.
Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to carry out His saving work as the Good Shepherd in the Sacred Liturgy. Therefore, the work of the Liturgy is first and foremost the work of the Good Shepherd (It is only secondarily our work. In fact, we can only do our work of adoration and worship in union with the perfect worship and adoration of the Son present at every Holy Mass). We must always remember that it is really Jesus Christ who offers the Holy Mass in the person of the priest. Jesus in other words, carries out his shepherding in and through the Sacred Liturgy, which includes the Holy Mass and all the other sacraments, which flow from It.
This means then that Jesus the High priest carries out His priestly work of Shepherding through the Church and it's Sacred Priesthood. When the Sacraments are offered it is really and truly Jesus Himself who baptizes, forgives, confirms, heals, marries, ordains and as I said, offers priestly sacrifice. To carry out His saving priestly work, Jesus the Good Shepherd actually depends on other shepherds who He has given a share in His priestly office. And they for their part, place their voice, their hands, their bodies, themselves at the disposable of the Good Shepherd. Through the Church, they are to shepherd God’s people in Christ's name and with His own Divine Power by offering sacrifice; and so, they shepherd in Christ stead, by sanctifying, teaching and by governing the sheep all with the divine authority of the Head, Jesus, in whose Name they have been called and ordained.
Through the ordained priesthood, Jesus the Good Shepherd is always with us, as close as any Catholic Church, were he waits on our sacred altars and in our tabernacles night and day for any lost sheep who but calls out for him. He gives us His Holy Church led by His Pastors, a Church whose teachings are the very voice of the Good Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give them eternal life...”all through the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus’ love for his sheep is a sacrifice of love; it is agape love to the ultimate extreme. And so, we learn from Jesus what love really means; love ultimately means sacrifice laying down ones life for one’s friend; and Jesus has laid down His life for His friends, you and me, and literally continues to do so at the Holy Mass, to provide us with the means to love like Him.
Jesus continues to shepherd us through the priesthood of His Church that he founded and through which he continues to bring his work of redemption into every age including our own. Jesus shepherds us through His shepherds the priests, in whose person HE continues to lay down His life for us through them. In the Holy Eucharist made present by the Priest and the Holy Spirit working through the priest, Jesus give us, offers us His own divine Love and Life in the Eucharist so that we can love with his own heart, that is so we can love with the very love of God, a divine love know as Charity. But for our part we must open our heart to His; that is, offer our heart in response to the offering of His. The Holy Mass is truly meant to be the place on earth where not only heart speaks to Heart, but where heart offers to Heart.
“If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist. Through the Holy Eucharist, Who is the Good Shepherd in our midst, let us enter into His Love so that we may by the Power of the Holy Spirit, take on in our self, in our lives and for our world the image of the same Good Shepherd, being used by Him to seek out the lost and becoming united to Him, and through Him with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit along with all the angels and saints, forever and ever. Amen.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
We have to love what the Son loves, we have to love the Virgin, she will help us to Love her Son by giving our selves more fully and completely to Him.
Third Sunday in Easter. John 21; 1-19. April 10th, 2016
Today we read the wonderful account of Jesus’ appearance to the apostles at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This account is a real turning point in the apostles’ love for Jesus. Even though they had seen the risen Jesus twice, they still didn’t seem to get it; and so as result, they return home to Galilee. Eventually, they would get it, and so come to understand fully their vocation or mission; however, this would come later on the day of Pentecost. But for now, in the mean time, they would go back to what was natural to them; in other words, they go fishing…sounds good to me???
Surprisingly though, in today’s Gospel we hear how these experienced fishermen after spending all night, didn’t catch a thing. There is an important message here that goes beyond their fishing ability. First they couldn’t really go back to a normal life after their true encounter with the Risen Jesus; they just were not the same men as they were before.
But an even more important message is that in their new mission, their natural abilities would just not be enough. If they needed Jesus to succeed even on a natural level of catching fish, how much more did they need Him to catch fish on a supernatural level, that is to catch the souls of men in order to lead them to love of Jesus and so salvation.
At dawn, we are told, Jesus appears on the shore, but interestingly the apostles do not notice him. They are in the midst of their ordinary routine and so don’t expect the Risen Christ to appear in the ordinary. Unrecognized, Jesus asks them if they had caught anything- even though proud fisherman, they have to admit their failure honestly- “No,” they yell back. And so, Jesus calls them to cast their nets off the right side of the boat. Naturally, they were unable to catch fish, but now at the command of Jesus, the apostles cast their nets into the deep. Perhaps they thought they had nothing to loose- but the power of God working through them, suddenly put 153 fish in the nets. With their success, the disciples began to learn that they had to rely on Jesus in everything, rather than merely on their own power.
Because he loves Jesus with a purer love it is St. John, who recognizes Jesus first. And so it is he who tells Peter, “It is the Lord.” At these words, Peter recognizes Jesus as well; and in great abandonment, jumps into the water and swims to Jesus.
Once on shore after finishing the breakfast Jesus had prepared for them, Jesus still next to the fire begins to question Peter, and in a way reminiscent to how Peter was questioned in Jerusalem when before another fire he denied Jesus. A three-fold denial at night, is now to be atoned for by a three fold profession of love in the day. There is even more going on here however, than meets the eye.
Our English translation of the Bible has missed an important element in this passage. If we could read it in the original Greek it would be much clearer. In Greek there are four different words for love. Two of these words are used here. The first word is philia, which is a brotherly love, or a natural human love. The second word is agape. Agape is more than natural human love, it is a sacrificial love, in which a man, is not only willing, by lays down his life for his brother or friend. The New Testament writers borrowed the Greek Agape in order to try and describe a natural human love, which in, through and with Jesus and His grace, is elevated to a Supernatural level.
With an agape love a man can actually love his brother and his God not merely with a human love, but also with the very love of God alive in his heart; in other words, with a divine love. Agape is human love infused, elevated and united to the supernatural level or to the divine level; this is known as Charity and it is the deepest longing of the human heart. Charity is to love God and to love one’s brother with both a human and a divine love...it is to love one’s friend not only for Love of Jesus but with the Love of Jesus, united to Jesus.
And so Jesus begins. “Peter, son of John, do you agape love me, do you love me with a supernatural divine love, in which your give me your all, even your life?” Now Peter, perhaps still with the image in his mind of that penetrating gaze of Jesus given to him after denying Jesus, was not about to make the same mistake twice. Remember Peter at the Last Supper impetuously said, “Lord I will follow you even to the death. And yet when it came down to it, Peter failed to even admit he knew Jesus (the other disciples didn’t do much better, they all ran in the Garden, only St. John returned to the foot of the cross—because when he ran, he ran to Mary). In his denial, Peter had learned the hard way that alone He could not love Jesus with an agape love. And so Peter responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philia love you, that is I love you with merely a natural human kind of love.”
And so Jesus asks Him again, “Peter son of John do you agape, love me?” Again Peter, again responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord you know that I philia, Love you.” And finally Jesus asks Peter, “Peter, Son of John, do you philia love me?” Do you even love me with a natural human love?” Peter was of course distressed, some translations say, “cut to the quick” because Jesus questions whether Peter even loved him with a natural human kind of love.
With this question Peter realizes that without Jesus, not only is it impossible for him to agape, that is to love supernaturally—divinely, but it is also impossible for him even to love with a natural human love. In other words, Peter learned that we need Jesus to help us love authentically, to love as we have been created to love.
We are made to be fully human, and to be fully human means to love not only with a natural human love alone, a philia love, but to love with an agape love, that is to love with God’s own love alive in us. We have been created for Divine love and to love divinely is to love fully human, to love the way for which we have been made. And so if we don’t love with God’s divine love alive in us, not only can we not love divinely, we cannot even love with a true human love, we cannot love fully human.
Our world thinks that it can somehow be fully human without Jesus Christ; it is sadly mistaken. We all have a fallen human nature and have lost the ability to love, as we ought, as we were created to love. And as a consequence, the more we turn from God, from His Church and from His commandments of love, the more we become less than human, and so the more we no longer love fully human. As a result, the more we become a culture of death. The more our society turns from God’s love the more we act inhumanly, the more we stop living authentically human lives.
Today in our Easter joy, let us be encouraged by Peter. Peter, who had once in darkness failed so miserably to love, now by his repentance and confession, opened his heart to receive the very light and love of Christ and it slowly transformed him. Remember today’s Gospel ends with the prophecy of Peter’s martyrdom. In the end, Peter indeed would fully agape love Jesus- he would receive the grace to give his life in a sacrificial offering, in imitation of Jesus, truly becoming a fisher of men.
We too, like Peter are so weak. We fail so often in love. We are afraid to give Jesus everything. Nevertheless, like Peter, we have to tell Jesus we love Him, we have to confess the darkness; that is our failure to love Him totally. And we must confess our sins in the darkness of the confessional in the Sacrament of confession. But confess them in order to come into the light of Christ’s mercy and open our hearts more fully to Jesus and His unfathomable love for us.
The Easter season is here to say our failures do not have to have the last word; if we only repent and confess, Christ’s victorious love will have the last word in our lives. At Holy Mass we can literally receive this victorious love of the Risen Jesus who is truly present in the holy Eucharist, Body Blood Soul and Divinity; it is He who turns our darkness into day—it is He who can transform us as He did with Peter. The Holy Eucharist contains the depths of the very Love of God, for it is truly the God who is Love. With the Holy Eucharist, that is with Jesus we can do all things, provided we truly believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Risen Jesus, adore Him there as the true and living God, trust in Him completely in order to love Him enough to offering ourselves totally to Him.
With the Eucharist, and only with the Eucharist, we can agape love Jesus and others. The Eucharist is the means, the source for us to love fully human, to love with our love elevated and united to Jesus’ divine love, in order to be able to bring others to Jesus, so that they may be saved along with us. But we have to, like Peter, trust more and jump out of the boat and swim to our Risen Lord who waiting for us on the shore…that is to Jesus who is waiting for us at the sacred agape meal of the Holy Mass and in the tabernacle in order to transform us as He transformed Peter. Let us turn to the Blessed Mother for help, she was always faithful. We have to love what the Son loves, we have to love the Virgin, she will help us to Love her Son by giving our selves more fully and completely to Him.
Today we read the wonderful account of Jesus’ appearance to the apostles at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This account is a real turning point in the apostles’ love for Jesus. Even though they had seen the risen Jesus twice, they still didn’t seem to get it; and so as result, they return home to Galilee. Eventually, they would get it, and so come to understand fully their vocation or mission; however, this would come later on the day of Pentecost. But for now, in the mean time, they would go back to what was natural to them; in other words, they go fishing…sounds good to me???
Surprisingly though, in today’s Gospel we hear how these experienced fishermen after spending all night, didn’t catch a thing. There is an important message here that goes beyond their fishing ability. First they couldn’t really go back to a normal life after their true encounter with the Risen Jesus; they just were not the same men as they were before.
But an even more important message is that in their new mission, their natural abilities would just not be enough. If they needed Jesus to succeed even on a natural level of catching fish, how much more did they need Him to catch fish on a supernatural level, that is to catch the souls of men in order to lead them to love of Jesus and so salvation.
At dawn, we are told, Jesus appears on the shore, but interestingly the apostles do not notice him. They are in the midst of their ordinary routine and so don’t expect the Risen Christ to appear in the ordinary. Unrecognized, Jesus asks them if they had caught anything- even though proud fisherman, they have to admit their failure honestly- “No,” they yell back. And so, Jesus calls them to cast their nets off the right side of the boat. Naturally, they were unable to catch fish, but now at the command of Jesus, the apostles cast their nets into the deep. Perhaps they thought they had nothing to loose- but the power of God working through them, suddenly put 153 fish in the nets. With their success, the disciples began to learn that they had to rely on Jesus in everything, rather than merely on their own power.
Because he loves Jesus with a purer love it is St. John, who recognizes Jesus first. And so it is he who tells Peter, “It is the Lord.” At these words, Peter recognizes Jesus as well; and in great abandonment, jumps into the water and swims to Jesus.
Once on shore after finishing the breakfast Jesus had prepared for them, Jesus still next to the fire begins to question Peter, and in a way reminiscent to how Peter was questioned in Jerusalem when before another fire he denied Jesus. A three-fold denial at night, is now to be atoned for by a three fold profession of love in the day. There is even more going on here however, than meets the eye.
Our English translation of the Bible has missed an important element in this passage. If we could read it in the original Greek it would be much clearer. In Greek there are four different words for love. Two of these words are used here. The first word is philia, which is a brotherly love, or a natural human love. The second word is agape. Agape is more than natural human love, it is a sacrificial love, in which a man, is not only willing, by lays down his life for his brother or friend. The New Testament writers borrowed the Greek Agape in order to try and describe a natural human love, which in, through and with Jesus and His grace, is elevated to a Supernatural level.
With an agape love a man can actually love his brother and his God not merely with a human love, but also with the very love of God alive in his heart; in other words, with a divine love. Agape is human love infused, elevated and united to the supernatural level or to the divine level; this is known as Charity and it is the deepest longing of the human heart. Charity is to love God and to love one’s brother with both a human and a divine love...it is to love one’s friend not only for Love of Jesus but with the Love of Jesus, united to Jesus.
And so Jesus begins. “Peter, son of John, do you agape love me, do you love me with a supernatural divine love, in which your give me your all, even your life?” Now Peter, perhaps still with the image in his mind of that penetrating gaze of Jesus given to him after denying Jesus, was not about to make the same mistake twice. Remember Peter at the Last Supper impetuously said, “Lord I will follow you even to the death. And yet when it came down to it, Peter failed to even admit he knew Jesus (the other disciples didn’t do much better, they all ran in the Garden, only St. John returned to the foot of the cross—because when he ran, he ran to Mary). In his denial, Peter had learned the hard way that alone He could not love Jesus with an agape love. And so Peter responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philia love you, that is I love you with merely a natural human kind of love.”
And so Jesus asks Him again, “Peter son of John do you agape, love me?” Again Peter, again responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord you know that I philia, Love you.” And finally Jesus asks Peter, “Peter, Son of John, do you philia love me?” Do you even love me with a natural human love?” Peter was of course distressed, some translations say, “cut to the quick” because Jesus questions whether Peter even loved him with a natural human kind of love.
With this question Peter realizes that without Jesus, not only is it impossible for him to agape, that is to love supernaturally—divinely, but it is also impossible for him even to love with a natural human love. In other words, Peter learned that we need Jesus to help us love authentically, to love as we have been created to love.
We are made to be fully human, and to be fully human means to love not only with a natural human love alone, a philia love, but to love with an agape love, that is to love with God’s own love alive in us. We have been created for Divine love and to love divinely is to love fully human, to love the way for which we have been made. And so if we don’t love with God’s divine love alive in us, not only can we not love divinely, we cannot even love with a true human love, we cannot love fully human.
Our world thinks that it can somehow be fully human without Jesus Christ; it is sadly mistaken. We all have a fallen human nature and have lost the ability to love, as we ought, as we were created to love. And as a consequence, the more we turn from God, from His Church and from His commandments of love, the more we become less than human, and so the more we no longer love fully human. As a result, the more we become a culture of death. The more our society turns from God’s love the more we act inhumanly, the more we stop living authentically human lives.
Today in our Easter joy, let us be encouraged by Peter. Peter, who had once in darkness failed so miserably to love, now by his repentance and confession, opened his heart to receive the very light and love of Christ and it slowly transformed him. Remember today’s Gospel ends with the prophecy of Peter’s martyrdom. In the end, Peter indeed would fully agape love Jesus- he would receive the grace to give his life in a sacrificial offering, in imitation of Jesus, truly becoming a fisher of men.
We too, like Peter are so weak. We fail so often in love. We are afraid to give Jesus everything. Nevertheless, like Peter, we have to tell Jesus we love Him, we have to confess the darkness; that is our failure to love Him totally. And we must confess our sins in the darkness of the confessional in the Sacrament of confession. But confess them in order to come into the light of Christ’s mercy and open our hearts more fully to Jesus and His unfathomable love for us.
The Easter season is here to say our failures do not have to have the last word; if we only repent and confess, Christ’s victorious love will have the last word in our lives. At Holy Mass we can literally receive this victorious love of the Risen Jesus who is truly present in the holy Eucharist, Body Blood Soul and Divinity; it is He who turns our darkness into day—it is He who can transform us as He did with Peter. The Holy Eucharist contains the depths of the very Love of God, for it is truly the God who is Love. With the Holy Eucharist, that is with Jesus we can do all things, provided we truly believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Risen Jesus, adore Him there as the true and living God, trust in Him completely in order to love Him enough to offering ourselves totally to Him.
With the Eucharist, and only with the Eucharist, we can agape love Jesus and others. The Eucharist is the means, the source for us to love fully human, to love with our love elevated and united to Jesus’ divine love, in order to be able to bring others to Jesus, so that they may be saved along with us. But we have to, like Peter, trust more and jump out of the boat and swim to our Risen Lord who waiting for us on the shore…that is to Jesus who is waiting for us at the sacred agape meal of the Holy Mass and in the tabernacle in order to transform us as He transformed Peter. Let us turn to the Blessed Mother for help, she was always faithful. We have to love what the Son loves, we have to love the Virgin, she will help us to Love her Son by giving our selves more fully and completely to Him.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real.
There was a body in the grave. It was cold, it was definitely a dead corpse, it did not breath, and the heart did not pump; it was “brain dead.” You could see it; you could touch it and it was cold. It looked no different than any other corpse. For those of you who have had a realistic experience with a dead body, you know that it is profound experience.
The disciples of Jesus had such an experience with the dead body of Jesus. They saw it hanging on a tree. They saw the spear go deep into the side, and without a doubt it pierce the Sacred Heart. They saw the blood and water come forth. They saw the corpse laid into Mary’s arms. The women touch it as they prepared it for burial. What a profound experience then, it must have been to see the empty tomb on Easter Sunday.
But just as real and profound was their experience with the dead body of Jesus, so too, was their even more profound and real experience with His resurrected body. They would touch this body with their hands and it was warm, living. They would see it with their eyes, and it moved and breathed. There was not doubt that Jesus once dead in the body, now was truly alive again, in the Body.
Jesus is truly Risen! He is Risen indeed! He lives again, but not just spiritually, not just in the hearts and minds of His followers but in the flesh, with His true human body, with His human heart beating again for love of us, and His precious blood coursing through His veins. Christ once dead lives again forever. He has conquered death; and for those who accept the His gift of faith, they will share in His great victory over suffering and death and the cause of suffering and death, which is sin.
This gift of faith in the resurrection is what we as believing Catholic Christians are celebrating with great joy this day. Not just the Resurrection as a past event, but the Resurrection which occurs in our midst and makes present its power to renew the whole world. And so, the Resurrection points us to the great Mystery of the Holy Eucharist which makes truly present the Risen Lord, truly and really, with His living, breathing body.
The great joy of Easter is that Those believe, adore, hope and love Jesus, the risen Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist, those who feed on Him in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of that eternal life. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world; “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day: This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact, that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch, rightly defined the Eucharist as “a medicine for immortality and antidote to death.
The Joy of the Resurrection is more than just a pipe dream in your life and mine. It is a tangible and livable reality because Jesus, the crucified and the resurrection one is still in our midst. He is truly here, not just in our hearts, not just in the proclamation of the word, not just in our community gathered, Jesus Christ is still physical with us. Let me repeat it, Jesus Christ is still physical with us, in his resurrected body, a real body, albeit a glorified one. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, He who promised he would be with us until the end of the ages, becomes physically, sacramentally present, IN HIS BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY at this very Mass and He comes into us at Holy Communion.
This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real. A Joy that is obtainable in the midst of our sorrow, pain and death, because Jesus suffered sorrow, pain and death. But he has defeated death—He has risen! Jesus is truly, “The resurrection and the Life.” O Come let us adore His resurrected body at this Mass in the Holy Eucharist which I, acting in His person, am about to make present—physically—sacramentally—truly, on this altar of Sacrifice.
Let us put out into the deep of Jesus’ love by offering ourselves totally and with great trust, to Him, with Him, in Him, to the Father. Let us adore Jesus in the Holy Eucharist--beholding the face of Jesus with the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, she who will be with us to help us in our offering of ourselves. For we are weak and we need a mother’s help. Let us pray, to Jesus through her, “Hail true body that was born of Mary, the Virgin, that truly suffered and was offered in sacrifice on the cross for man and that gave forth true blood from its pierced side. Be to us a foretaste of heaven…”
HAPPY EASTER to all of you and your families.
The disciples of Jesus had such an experience with the dead body of Jesus. They saw it hanging on a tree. They saw the spear go deep into the side, and without a doubt it pierce the Sacred Heart. They saw the blood and water come forth. They saw the corpse laid into Mary’s arms. The women touch it as they prepared it for burial. What a profound experience then, it must have been to see the empty tomb on Easter Sunday.
But just as real and profound was their experience with the dead body of Jesus, so too, was their even more profound and real experience with His resurrected body. They would touch this body with their hands and it was warm, living. They would see it with their eyes, and it moved and breathed. There was not doubt that Jesus once dead in the body, now was truly alive again, in the Body.
Jesus is truly Risen! He is Risen indeed! He lives again, but not just spiritually, not just in the hearts and minds of His followers but in the flesh, with His true human body, with His human heart beating again for love of us, and His precious blood coursing through His veins. Christ once dead lives again forever. He has conquered death; and for those who accept the His gift of faith, they will share in His great victory over suffering and death and the cause of suffering and death, which is sin.
This gift of faith in the resurrection is what we as believing Catholic Christians are celebrating with great joy this day. Not just the Resurrection as a past event, but the Resurrection which occurs in our midst and makes present its power to renew the whole world. And so, the Resurrection points us to the great Mystery of the Holy Eucharist which makes truly present the Risen Lord, truly and really, with His living, breathing body.
The great joy of Easter is that Those believe, adore, hope and love Jesus, the risen Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist, those who feed on Him in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of that eternal life. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world; “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day: This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact, that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch, rightly defined the Eucharist as “a medicine for immortality and antidote to death.
The Joy of the Resurrection is more than just a pipe dream in your life and mine. It is a tangible and livable reality because Jesus, the crucified and the resurrection one is still in our midst. He is truly here, not just in our hearts, not just in the proclamation of the word, not just in our community gathered, Jesus Christ is still physical with us. Let me repeat it, Jesus Christ is still physical with us, in his resurrected body, a real body, albeit a glorified one. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, He who promised he would be with us until the end of the ages, becomes physically, sacramentally present, IN HIS BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY at this very Mass and He comes into us at Holy Communion.
This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real. A Joy that is obtainable in the midst of our sorrow, pain and death, because Jesus suffered sorrow, pain and death. But he has defeated death—He has risen! Jesus is truly, “The resurrection and the Life.” O Come let us adore His resurrected body at this Mass in the Holy Eucharist which I, acting in His person, am about to make present—physically—sacramentally—truly, on this altar of Sacrifice.
Let us put out into the deep of Jesus’ love by offering ourselves totally and with great trust, to Him, with Him, in Him, to the Father. Let us adore Jesus in the Holy Eucharist--beholding the face of Jesus with the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, she who will be with us to help us in our offering of ourselves. For we are weak and we need a mother’s help. Let us pray, to Jesus through her, “Hail true body that was born of Mary, the Virgin, that truly suffered and was offered in sacrifice on the cross for man and that gave forth true blood from its pierced side. Be to us a foretaste of heaven…”
HAPPY EASTER to all of you and your families.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Mother of Mercy, obtain for us the grace we need to see our sinfulness and the humility we need to acknowledge and confess it in order to receive the forgiveness of the Father through Jesus Christ your Son, receiving His Mercy and so we can show mercy to others.
“I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah foretells something new, something we would not have thought of- God Himself, like the Father of the prodigal son, comes…runs out to meet us in order to save us and bring us into a deeper union of love with Himself.
Our Father comes in love and mercy through His son, Jesus in order to forgive our sins in and through the Sacraments. By sacramental grace, He makes a road in the wilderness, paths of grace into the wilds of this sinful world. Jesus comes in the same Sacraments with the waters of grace and mercy into the desert, into the wilderness of a world gone mad with sin, and into the wretchedness of our personal sins.
And those who open their hearts to His mercy through their repentance, that is a truthful acknowledgment of their sinfulness and the confession of their sins; these literally are enabled to drink in these living waters. And through these living waters of His grace and love flowing from the Sacraments, the Father changes our actions from that of wild beasts into new actions, ones worthy of the Human persons that we are. We are Human persons made in the Father’s image and restored in His likeness, made free sons and daughters of the Father through baptism.
But sometimes, we do not perceive this, sometimes we are too discouraged by our failures and sins to even think that God would want to come and do something new in our lives. In our heart we really do desire to have a fresh start, but we despairingly think we are never going to have it. The opposite is sometimes true as well, we can be too proud, thinking that we have already arrived, that we are already righteous, that we are “those without sin,” so unlike others who are the sinners.
Both of these attitudes, shown very clearly in today’s Gospel, keep us from the mercy and forgiveness of Our Heavenly Father offered to us through Jesus Christ His Son. The woman justly condemned of a serious sin, a mortal sin, the sin of Adultery, can only see her fate as being already decided; she is to die justly for her sin…no hope for a new beginning now. The Scribes and Pharisees so convinced of their goodness, that they don’t see their own sin, and so their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness.
And so, as serious as her sin is, and it is serious, the sin of the Scribes and Pharisees is much worse. We can assume that the woman’s sin was at least guided by an attempt to find love. But these men are only evil, filled with hate, filled with a desire to destroy the very goodness in others. (This is the difference between a bad man and an evil man. The bad man does bad things, but the evil man tries to destroy the goodness in others. And so the evil man can be very nice, but he is not kind. He wants justice but doesn’t work for justice for others; he doesn’t see His need for mercy and so shows no mercy).
They (the Scribes and Pharisees) think that adultery is the worse sin, and so fail they to see that they are guilty of an even graver sin, that of Presumption. For presumption fails to see the horror of one’s own sinfulness, while at the same time demanding that others be punished justly and without mercy for their sins.
The scribes and Pharisees are blind with the sin of presumption; they actually believe that they have no sin that they are “those without sin,” (which was actually a title they took for themselves). And so, they think they have already achieved their salvation and are in no need of repentance and forgiveness. In their blindness, in their hardness of heart they reject outright the very mercy of God that is being offered to them in the Person of Jesus Christ standing right before their eyes. For you see, we can only receive the mercy of God to the extent we recognize our sinfulness and repent of it, seeking God’s forgiveness, especially through the Sacrament of confession. In Other words, we can’t receive mercy, if we don’t realize we’re a sinner, which of course we all are. In fact, only those who receive mercy through the confession of their sins can then show mercy to others.
This lent we need to throw off our old attitudes, we need throw off the old man, no longer recalling the past, no longer be shackled to what was done before; we need instead to put on the new man in Christ Jesus. We need to take on the attitude of St. Paul who in his weakness sought perfection not in his own power, but in the power that comes through faith in Christ and the reception of His Sacraments with faith. This is the power that comes from God, a power that has its source in the Holy Eucharist, which is God among us-Jesus.
However, This Divine power is accessible only through faith in the Eucharist as the true and living God in the flesh among us through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the ordained sacred Priesthood. It is literally, a power to imitate the master, sharing in His sufferings thus reproducing the pattern of His death in their lives becoming instruments of the renewing power of His resurrection, which is love and mercy, for those around them and for the world. So St. Paul says, “I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.
It is not so much our sin that is the problem, but how we respond to it that counts. Either this Lent we deny our sinfulness and commit an even greater sin of presumption, like the scribes and Pharisees, and so in the blindness of our self-righteousness, walk away from the God who has come to meet us in our degraded state. Or instead, we imitate the woman caught in adultery who stays with Jesus without a denial or protestation on her lips about her sin. She is left alone with Jesus her Lord and God, just like one who is left alone in adoration with the same God, adoring Him truly present in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar at Holy Mass and in the Tabernacle. Before His Eucharistic presence we too, can be alone with Jesus who in His love reminds us of His mercy and points us to healing power of the Father’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of confession, which enlarges our capacity for God’s love.
In this real encounter with Jesus in Eucharist at this Holy Mass, Jesus doesn’t leave us on our own power to sin no more, instead with our hearts being now purified by confession, He is able to fill us with His own Love, with His own Divine power. Then with Jesus, through Him and in Him, the Father can do something NEW in us, spreading the Living waters of God’s Love throughout the world, leading others through us to His Divine Mercy and forgiveness—this is the power of the Resurrection, which renews the whole World. Let us turn to Our Lady for her help and Intercession. Mother of Mercy, obtain for us the grace we need to see our sinfulness and the humility we need to acknowledge and confess it in order to experience the forgiveness of the Father through Jesus Christ your Son, receiving His mercy so that we can show mercy to others. Amen
Our Father comes in love and mercy through His son, Jesus in order to forgive our sins in and through the Sacraments. By sacramental grace, He makes a road in the wilderness, paths of grace into the wilds of this sinful world. Jesus comes in the same Sacraments with the waters of grace and mercy into the desert, into the wilderness of a world gone mad with sin, and into the wretchedness of our personal sins.
And those who open their hearts to His mercy through their repentance, that is a truthful acknowledgment of their sinfulness and the confession of their sins; these literally are enabled to drink in these living waters. And through these living waters of His grace and love flowing from the Sacraments, the Father changes our actions from that of wild beasts into new actions, ones worthy of the Human persons that we are. We are Human persons made in the Father’s image and restored in His likeness, made free sons and daughters of the Father through baptism.
But sometimes, we do not perceive this, sometimes we are too discouraged by our failures and sins to even think that God would want to come and do something new in our lives. In our heart we really do desire to have a fresh start, but we despairingly think we are never going to have it. The opposite is sometimes true as well, we can be too proud, thinking that we have already arrived, that we are already righteous, that we are “those without sin,” so unlike others who are the sinners.
Both of these attitudes, shown very clearly in today’s Gospel, keep us from the mercy and forgiveness of Our Heavenly Father offered to us through Jesus Christ His Son. The woman justly condemned of a serious sin, a mortal sin, the sin of Adultery, can only see her fate as being already decided; she is to die justly for her sin…no hope for a new beginning now. The Scribes and Pharisees so convinced of their goodness, that they don’t see their own sin, and so their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness.
And so, as serious as her sin is, and it is serious, the sin of the Scribes and Pharisees is much worse. We can assume that the woman’s sin was at least guided by an attempt to find love. But these men are only evil, filled with hate, filled with a desire to destroy the very goodness in others. (This is the difference between a bad man and an evil man. The bad man does bad things, but the evil man tries to destroy the goodness in others. And so the evil man can be very nice, but he is not kind. He wants justice but doesn’t work for justice for others; he doesn’t see His need for mercy and so shows no mercy).
They (the Scribes and Pharisees) think that adultery is the worse sin, and so fail they to see that they are guilty of an even graver sin, that of Presumption. For presumption fails to see the horror of one’s own sinfulness, while at the same time demanding that others be punished justly and without mercy for their sins.
The scribes and Pharisees are blind with the sin of presumption; they actually believe that they have no sin that they are “those without sin,” (which was actually a title they took for themselves). And so, they think they have already achieved their salvation and are in no need of repentance and forgiveness. In their blindness, in their hardness of heart they reject outright the very mercy of God that is being offered to them in the Person of Jesus Christ standing right before their eyes. For you see, we can only receive the mercy of God to the extent we recognize our sinfulness and repent of it, seeking God’s forgiveness, especially through the Sacrament of confession. In Other words, we can’t receive mercy, if we don’t realize we’re a sinner, which of course we all are. In fact, only those who receive mercy through the confession of their sins can then show mercy to others.
This lent we need to throw off our old attitudes, we need throw off the old man, no longer recalling the past, no longer be shackled to what was done before; we need instead to put on the new man in Christ Jesus. We need to take on the attitude of St. Paul who in his weakness sought perfection not in his own power, but in the power that comes through faith in Christ and the reception of His Sacraments with faith. This is the power that comes from God, a power that has its source in the Holy Eucharist, which is God among us-Jesus.
However, This Divine power is accessible only through faith in the Eucharist as the true and living God in the flesh among us through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the ordained sacred Priesthood. It is literally, a power to imitate the master, sharing in His sufferings thus reproducing the pattern of His death in their lives becoming instruments of the renewing power of His resurrection, which is love and mercy, for those around them and for the world. So St. Paul says, “I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.
It is not so much our sin that is the problem, but how we respond to it that counts. Either this Lent we deny our sinfulness and commit an even greater sin of presumption, like the scribes and Pharisees, and so in the blindness of our self-righteousness, walk away from the God who has come to meet us in our degraded state. Or instead, we imitate the woman caught in adultery who stays with Jesus without a denial or protestation on her lips about her sin. She is left alone with Jesus her Lord and God, just like one who is left alone in adoration with the same God, adoring Him truly present in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar at Holy Mass and in the Tabernacle. Before His Eucharistic presence we too, can be alone with Jesus who in His love reminds us of His mercy and points us to healing power of the Father’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of confession, which enlarges our capacity for God’s love.
In this real encounter with Jesus in Eucharist at this Holy Mass, Jesus doesn’t leave us on our own power to sin no more, instead with our hearts being now purified by confession, He is able to fill us with His own Love, with His own Divine power. Then with Jesus, through Him and in Him, the Father can do something NEW in us, spreading the Living waters of God’s Love throughout the world, leading others through us to His Divine Mercy and forgiveness—this is the power of the Resurrection, which renews the whole World. Let us turn to Our Lady for her help and Intercession. Mother of Mercy, obtain for us the grace we need to see our sinfulness and the humility we need to acknowledge and confess it in order to experience the forgiveness of the Father through Jesus Christ your Son, receiving His mercy so that we can show mercy to others. Amen
Saturday, February 27, 2016
In this we discover while Mercy is free, it ain’t cheap.
We have all heard someone say, “You know, they got what they deserved.”? Sometimes this is meant as way of speaking of justice. The criminal gets caught and is sent to jail and so we think they got what they deserve. It is a common way to think and in way it does acknowledge justice; but at the same time, it can be said without mercy.
Sometimes as well, you hear the same phrase used when referring to someone’s relationship with God. It is not unusual to hear fundamentalist preachers say things like “They have obviously sinned and God is punishing them for it, or they didn’t have enough faith. Actually, this kind of thinking can creep into the mindset of many religious people. This as well, justice without any mercy?
In today’s Gospel, we hear the same thing. People were standing around and talking about some horrible incidents where people had suffered and died. We don’t know a lot about the two events mention by Jesus in today’s Gospel, but we think that those who died were thought to have been guilty of cooperating with the enemy, in this case Pilate, -and because of this, it was assumed that God had punished them for their unfaithfulness--for their sins. Jesus, for His part, knew that the people were thinking in their hearts, “These people in justice got what they deserved, that will teach them to cooperate with sinners like Pilate,.” With this attitude we discover that these people had no mercy.
These terrible events in the Gospel make us think of events in our own day. We’ve had so many terrible tragedies, tornados, so many terrorist attacks and violent shootings. So many are suffering, some from loneness, mental illness, bad marriages or horrible diseases such as cancer. These events rightly cause us to be distressed. We question God about all of this, how do I make sense of all of this? Some even believe that the sufferings they, or others, are experiencing are a punishment from God for not living the life they should. Now it is easy to accept when our enemies or bad people suffer, after all they deserve it, but what about when someone who is good and seemingly innocent suffers or is killed. Is God punishing them too? And another survives where another dies, does that mean the survivor was more righteous than the victim.
Jesus enters this conversation with his listeners in the Gospel and with us. Jesus does not steer around the issue but speaks directly to the people. His words are hard to hear, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners that all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Jesus repeats the same words when referring to the people of Siloam and ultimately to us. Jesus tells us that, “yes all suffering and death is the result of sin. He tells us plain truth- we are all sinners and suffering and death is, as matter of justice, a natural consequence of sin-not only death of the body, but death of the soul.
Jesus explains that when someone suffers however, it is not necessarily a direct result of his or her personal sin--After all, even the greatest of saints who were right with God still suffered and suffered greatly, even Jesus Himself suffered-but still Jesus says suffering is the result of sin in general. In Jesus case he suffered for our sins. In this we discover a great truth, while at the same time a great mystery. While God may in His infinite wisdom allow one to suffer in justice as a result of his or her own personal sin, at the same time, He may allow that same one or another in mercy to suffer for the sins of another. Ultimately, we can’t know what is the case, so we can’t judge one way or another.
This is all included in God mysterious plan of salvation. There are no pat answers. But like all the mysteries of our faith we can have some understanding. Suffering no matter what the cause is allowed as part of the care that God gives to each soul-it is a way of turning the soul back to God, if the soul lets it. It is like the gardener pruning the fig tree. The pruning hurts, but it causes the tree to produce much fruit. In this we discover that God’s Justice is also His Mercy; in God the two are united.
Not only can suffering purify and atone for sin in Justice, but in mercy, it can also bring the soul who is suffering closer to God. And the soul who is suffering can be used as well, in mercy, to bring others back to and closer to God. Just like Jesus’ own suffering and death was used by the Father to bring salvation to all of those who would accept it. So too our sufferings in this life and even our deaths, united to the cross of Christ-to Jesus’ own sufferings, our sufferings can be used to bring other souls back to God-this is the fruit the fig tree is asked to bear. And to offer one’s suffering for sinners, this, is the ultimate form of mercy.
But for all this to happen, we need to repent of our own sins in order to accept the fruits of Jesus’ own suffering. If we don’t repent, our sin blinds us and we can only see suffering and struggles as a punishment from a vengeful God. We then can see only the justice without the mercy (like those in today’s Gospel). Or the reverse, we can see mercy only as way of God letting us off the hook as regard to the punishment due to our sins, seeing only the mercy without the justice. Through our personal repentance and with God’s grace from prayer and the Sacraments, we can see that the suffering he allows in our lives is not so much a punishment for our sin, but is a way to show our love for Him and others. We can then see that our suffering can actually be a share in Jesus’ own great work of redemption, his own great work of the salvation of souls. We, through our sufferings, if united to the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body the church, we can help Jesus save souls; he can use our sufferings and struggles in this life to bring others His mercy, bring others to him, saving them from eternal damnation and saving them for an eternity with God for ever.
In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus tells that an owner desired to cut it down because it was not producing fruit. The gardener pleads with the owner of the tree to allow him to cultivate it for one more year. He’ll break up the dirt and fertilize the tree. The gardener is Jesus and He desires to come into our life and cultivate our hearts. Jesus desires to produce good fruit in our souls. He allows suffering to prune us if we allow it to. Again, He does not do this to hurt us but to give us a share in his own redemptive work so that we may atone for our sins and the sins of others and so come to love like Him. Yes, to love like Him—He who loved us to the end, unto death on the Cross. In this we discover while Mercy is free, it ain’t cheap.
Today, at this Holy Mass let us offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father. Let us lift up our hearts as an offering to Him in love. Let us unite our pains, sorrows and sufferings in this life with His suffering and death being re-presented, that is being made truly present, on this Holy Altar of sacrifice. Let us do this to make atonement for our sins, for the sins of the living and of the dead and the sins of the whole world. This is what it really means to participate in the Holy Mass; for it is the Holy Mass that makes it possible for us to unite our sufferings to Christ for the sake of His Body the Church.
Let us pray. Jesus I give you my heart and my soul, I offer to you all the sufferings of this life as an offering for my sins and for my failure to love you with all my being. Please turn my heart to you and fill it with your love, allow me to share in the Joy of Your resurrection at this Holy Communion so that I may become another you and lead others to You in my daily life, especially in & through sufferings you allow me to experience which are a share in your own passion and death, so that when the lent of this life is over, I and many others through me, may share in the Joys of that eternal Easter which is Heaven. Amen. Mary refuge of sinners pray for us. God Bless You!
Sometimes as well, you hear the same phrase used when referring to someone’s relationship with God. It is not unusual to hear fundamentalist preachers say things like “They have obviously sinned and God is punishing them for it, or they didn’t have enough faith. Actually, this kind of thinking can creep into the mindset of many religious people. This as well, justice without any mercy?
In today’s Gospel, we hear the same thing. People were standing around and talking about some horrible incidents where people had suffered and died. We don’t know a lot about the two events mention by Jesus in today’s Gospel, but we think that those who died were thought to have been guilty of cooperating with the enemy, in this case Pilate, -and because of this, it was assumed that God had punished them for their unfaithfulness--for their sins. Jesus, for His part, knew that the people were thinking in their hearts, “These people in justice got what they deserved, that will teach them to cooperate with sinners like Pilate,.” With this attitude we discover that these people had no mercy.
These terrible events in the Gospel make us think of events in our own day. We’ve had so many terrible tragedies, tornados, so many terrorist attacks and violent shootings. So many are suffering, some from loneness, mental illness, bad marriages or horrible diseases such as cancer. These events rightly cause us to be distressed. We question God about all of this, how do I make sense of all of this? Some even believe that the sufferings they, or others, are experiencing are a punishment from God for not living the life they should. Now it is easy to accept when our enemies or bad people suffer, after all they deserve it, but what about when someone who is good and seemingly innocent suffers or is killed. Is God punishing them too? And another survives where another dies, does that mean the survivor was more righteous than the victim.
Jesus enters this conversation with his listeners in the Gospel and with us. Jesus does not steer around the issue but speaks directly to the people. His words are hard to hear, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners that all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Jesus repeats the same words when referring to the people of Siloam and ultimately to us. Jesus tells us that, “yes all suffering and death is the result of sin. He tells us plain truth- we are all sinners and suffering and death is, as matter of justice, a natural consequence of sin-not only death of the body, but death of the soul.
Jesus explains that when someone suffers however, it is not necessarily a direct result of his or her personal sin--After all, even the greatest of saints who were right with God still suffered and suffered greatly, even Jesus Himself suffered-but still Jesus says suffering is the result of sin in general. In Jesus case he suffered for our sins. In this we discover a great truth, while at the same time a great mystery. While God may in His infinite wisdom allow one to suffer in justice as a result of his or her own personal sin, at the same time, He may allow that same one or another in mercy to suffer for the sins of another. Ultimately, we can’t know what is the case, so we can’t judge one way or another.
This is all included in God mysterious plan of salvation. There are no pat answers. But like all the mysteries of our faith we can have some understanding. Suffering no matter what the cause is allowed as part of the care that God gives to each soul-it is a way of turning the soul back to God, if the soul lets it. It is like the gardener pruning the fig tree. The pruning hurts, but it causes the tree to produce much fruit. In this we discover that God’s Justice is also His Mercy; in God the two are united.
Not only can suffering purify and atone for sin in Justice, but in mercy, it can also bring the soul who is suffering closer to God. And the soul who is suffering can be used as well, in mercy, to bring others back to and closer to God. Just like Jesus’ own suffering and death was used by the Father to bring salvation to all of those who would accept it. So too our sufferings in this life and even our deaths, united to the cross of Christ-to Jesus’ own sufferings, our sufferings can be used to bring other souls back to God-this is the fruit the fig tree is asked to bear. And to offer one’s suffering for sinners, this, is the ultimate form of mercy.
But for all this to happen, we need to repent of our own sins in order to accept the fruits of Jesus’ own suffering. If we don’t repent, our sin blinds us and we can only see suffering and struggles as a punishment from a vengeful God. We then can see only the justice without the mercy (like those in today’s Gospel). Or the reverse, we can see mercy only as way of God letting us off the hook as regard to the punishment due to our sins, seeing only the mercy without the justice. Through our personal repentance and with God’s grace from prayer and the Sacraments, we can see that the suffering he allows in our lives is not so much a punishment for our sin, but is a way to show our love for Him and others. We can then see that our suffering can actually be a share in Jesus’ own great work of redemption, his own great work of the salvation of souls. We, through our sufferings, if united to the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body the church, we can help Jesus save souls; he can use our sufferings and struggles in this life to bring others His mercy, bring others to him, saving them from eternal damnation and saving them for an eternity with God for ever.
In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus tells that an owner desired to cut it down because it was not producing fruit. The gardener pleads with the owner of the tree to allow him to cultivate it for one more year. He’ll break up the dirt and fertilize the tree. The gardener is Jesus and He desires to come into our life and cultivate our hearts. Jesus desires to produce good fruit in our souls. He allows suffering to prune us if we allow it to. Again, He does not do this to hurt us but to give us a share in his own redemptive work so that we may atone for our sins and the sins of others and so come to love like Him. Yes, to love like Him—He who loved us to the end, unto death on the Cross. In this we discover while Mercy is free, it ain’t cheap.
Today, at this Holy Mass let us offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father. Let us lift up our hearts as an offering to Him in love. Let us unite our pains, sorrows and sufferings in this life with His suffering and death being re-presented, that is being made truly present, on this Holy Altar of sacrifice. Let us do this to make atonement for our sins, for the sins of the living and of the dead and the sins of the whole world. This is what it really means to participate in the Holy Mass; for it is the Holy Mass that makes it possible for us to unite our sufferings to Christ for the sake of His Body the Church.
Let us pray. Jesus I give you my heart and my soul, I offer to you all the sufferings of this life as an offering for my sins and for my failure to love you with all my being. Please turn my heart to you and fill it with your love, allow me to share in the Joy of Your resurrection at this Holy Communion so that I may become another you and lead others to You in my daily life, especially in & through sufferings you allow me to experience which are a share in your own passion and death, so that when the lent of this life is over, I and many others through me, may share in the Joys of that eternal Easter which is Heaven. Amen. Mary refuge of sinners pray for us. God Bless You!
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Man will never find true happiness in bread alone, but in Me alone!!!
As we begin our Lenten observance, the Church gives us the account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert by the devil. We need to start by saying, and this can’t be said enough, the devil definitely exists and is a real person; this is an article of our Catholic Faith. In the desert, the devil presents Jesus with a shortcut from the cross; it is the same temptation satan still uses on us. It’s a temptation to try and do away with the cross and to seek only what we want instead of what we need or better yet, what our neighbor needs-it is a temptation to selfishness versus self-denial for the sake of love, for the sake of the other.
Translating the temptations into modern terms, satan told Jesus that he could win us over by filling our bellies with the bread of earthly desires-- wealth, pleasure, power and honor. The Devil said, Jesus you can make them follow you by giving them power to solve their own problems through politics so they can be released from being dependant on a tyrannical Father God, and true worship of Him. Satan said Jesus; you can win them over by amazing them with great feats and unbelievable technological marvels. But Jesus, you can’t win them over with the cross, give them instead a nice guy Jesus without the cross. Put a resurrected Jesus on the cross but not a crucified one who paid a price for their sins and then who calls them to return that love by bearing their own cross along with Him sharing in his redemptive work of love for the salvation of souls
The devil indeed loves to give half-truths. If we look at each one of the temptations more closely we can discover that the truth is, is that Jesus actually desires to give us what the devil said would win us over, but not in the way or in the manner that the devil suggested.
And so in the first temptation, the devil tempts Jesus to change stones into bread. Jesus responds, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” The fact is, is that Jesus wants to give us bread, but not earthly bread, the things of this world which never totally satisfy our hunger, but the Bread of Life, His very self, his whole self in the Holy Eucharist. This is the bread that fills every desire of man, including the desire for eternal life; it is the bread that a man may eat of and never die. And so Jesus says to the devil, I won’t bribe the people into following me, for man’s heart was not made for material things, man will never find true happiness in bread alone, but in Me alone! And I am in the Holy Eucharist as their true food and drink.
In the second temptation, the devil tempts Jesus with all of the kingdoms of the earth, which are under satan domain, if Jesus would but just fall down and worship him. Jesus responds with the first commandment- You shall worship God alone. Here again, Jesus wants to give us power to solve our problems but not through earthly power and honor which corrupts and fades away, but through the power of his divine Love and mercy which becomes available to us through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the other Sacraments which flow from the Holy Mass. And coming in touch with God’s love and mercy in the Sacraments and being transformed into the image of Jesus, Jesus wishes to use us to bring His mercy and love into our world thus transforming it. And so Jesus says to satan, man can not save himself, man cannot build the kingdom of man without reference to the Kingdom of God…there is truly no “state” without the Church…without the Church the state collapses in on itself…
The third temptation: Here the devil tempts Jesus with presumption and vanity- cast yourself from the Temple and the angels will catch you. Jesus says, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Again, Jesus wanted to give us great marvels and feats, but not the kind Satan suggests. Jesus didn’t want to win us over with the latest technology, which in a short while becomes obsolete as soon as the next best thing comes along.
No, Jesus wanted to give us the greatest feat and marvel of all, and so as God He humble Himself putting His divine power aside and became one of us, like us in all things but sin. The all powerful God became one of us so that he could lay down his life on a cross for us in order to save us from our sins, not only giving us an example, but earning us the grace we need in order to have the strength to follow in imitation of Him, so we too could lay down our lives for love of our friend, first of whom is Jesus, and then our neighbor. No greater love is there than this, than for a man to lay down his life for his friends. And so Jesus tells the devil, no I won’t win them over with sensationalism and be just a nine day wonder, sensationalism never lasts, I want to win them over forever by my sacrificial love, the same love that I share with my Father, the love that I call each one of them to share in as well.
During this time of Lent we will experience many temptations when we begin to discipline ourselves so we can more fully repent and believe the Good News, leaving our selfishness behind and so live more perfectly in the freedom of God’s truth as His beloved sons and daughters. And so, we are invited to spend these forty days in the desert close to our blessed Lord through our prayer, fasting, and alms giving, the three things, which weaken the power of Satan over us.
Our prayer must include the Sacraments, especially the Holy Mass and Confession so that we may have the grace and the power to share in Jesus’ victory over the devil and his temptations. Important as well in our prayer are all Lenten devotions offered to us, like walking with Jesus along the way of Calvary in the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, spending time in adoration, and experiencing all the Holy week services and Masses, like Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
And our fasting must be more than just giving up things, but giving them up in order to become less attached to the good things of
this world and more attached to Jesus who gives us these things to lead us to Himself, so we can become better—become holy; that is, dearest of friends of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the angel and saints.
And our alms giving must include serving others through practicing the Corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Feeding the physically hungry, yes, but most importantly feeding the spiritually hungry who can sometimes be very rich and powerful, giving drink to those thirsting for water, but most importantly giving the drink of God’s love for those who are dying of thirst for it; burying the dead but also bury resentment and un-forgiveness by forgiving wrongs against us (just to name a few). Our Holy Father Francis said as much in his Lenten Message to us in this Jubilee “Year of Mercy,” in which He pointed out that, “God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn.
This lent let us ask Our Lady for help to enter into lent more deeply. Let us ask her to help us avoid the temptation of Satan, a temptation that puts personal pleasure first, and does away with personal guilt and sin and the need for redemption, satisfaction, expiation, mortification and penance for our sin. A temptation that says that essence of love is personal gratification and not sacrifice, not that of laying down one’s life for a friend. Our Lady can teach us how to adore Jesus; all we need to do is to ask her. Let us pray, that the Blessed Mother, who while adoring Jesus on the Cross was given John as her son and by this gift was given all of us as her sons and daughters as well, that she may help us to enter the desert this lent and there learn how to adore the unseen God from whom we came and to whom we are called as His beloved little children to return. Amen.
Translating the temptations into modern terms, satan told Jesus that he could win us over by filling our bellies with the bread of earthly desires-- wealth, pleasure, power and honor. The Devil said, Jesus you can make them follow you by giving them power to solve their own problems through politics so they can be released from being dependant on a tyrannical Father God, and true worship of Him. Satan said Jesus; you can win them over by amazing them with great feats and unbelievable technological marvels. But Jesus, you can’t win them over with the cross, give them instead a nice guy Jesus without the cross. Put a resurrected Jesus on the cross but not a crucified one who paid a price for their sins and then who calls them to return that love by bearing their own cross along with Him sharing in his redemptive work of love for the salvation of souls
The devil indeed loves to give half-truths. If we look at each one of the temptations more closely we can discover that the truth is, is that Jesus actually desires to give us what the devil said would win us over, but not in the way or in the manner that the devil suggested.
And so in the first temptation, the devil tempts Jesus to change stones into bread. Jesus responds, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” The fact is, is that Jesus wants to give us bread, but not earthly bread, the things of this world which never totally satisfy our hunger, but the Bread of Life, His very self, his whole self in the Holy Eucharist. This is the bread that fills every desire of man, including the desire for eternal life; it is the bread that a man may eat of and never die. And so Jesus says to the devil, I won’t bribe the people into following me, for man’s heart was not made for material things, man will never find true happiness in bread alone, but in Me alone! And I am in the Holy Eucharist as their true food and drink.
In the second temptation, the devil tempts Jesus with all of the kingdoms of the earth, which are under satan domain, if Jesus would but just fall down and worship him. Jesus responds with the first commandment- You shall worship God alone. Here again, Jesus wants to give us power to solve our problems but not through earthly power and honor which corrupts and fades away, but through the power of his divine Love and mercy which becomes available to us through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the other Sacraments which flow from the Holy Mass. And coming in touch with God’s love and mercy in the Sacraments and being transformed into the image of Jesus, Jesus wishes to use us to bring His mercy and love into our world thus transforming it. And so Jesus says to satan, man can not save himself, man cannot build the kingdom of man without reference to the Kingdom of God…there is truly no “state” without the Church…without the Church the state collapses in on itself…
The third temptation: Here the devil tempts Jesus with presumption and vanity- cast yourself from the Temple and the angels will catch you. Jesus says, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Again, Jesus wanted to give us great marvels and feats, but not the kind Satan suggests. Jesus didn’t want to win us over with the latest technology, which in a short while becomes obsolete as soon as the next best thing comes along.
No, Jesus wanted to give us the greatest feat and marvel of all, and so as God He humble Himself putting His divine power aside and became one of us, like us in all things but sin. The all powerful God became one of us so that he could lay down his life on a cross for us in order to save us from our sins, not only giving us an example, but earning us the grace we need in order to have the strength to follow in imitation of Him, so we too could lay down our lives for love of our friend, first of whom is Jesus, and then our neighbor. No greater love is there than this, than for a man to lay down his life for his friends. And so Jesus tells the devil, no I won’t win them over with sensationalism and be just a nine day wonder, sensationalism never lasts, I want to win them over forever by my sacrificial love, the same love that I share with my Father, the love that I call each one of them to share in as well.
During this time of Lent we will experience many temptations when we begin to discipline ourselves so we can more fully repent and believe the Good News, leaving our selfishness behind and so live more perfectly in the freedom of God’s truth as His beloved sons and daughters. And so, we are invited to spend these forty days in the desert close to our blessed Lord through our prayer, fasting, and alms giving, the three things, which weaken the power of Satan over us.
Our prayer must include the Sacraments, especially the Holy Mass and Confession so that we may have the grace and the power to share in Jesus’ victory over the devil and his temptations. Important as well in our prayer are all Lenten devotions offered to us, like walking with Jesus along the way of Calvary in the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, spending time in adoration, and experiencing all the Holy week services and Masses, like Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
And our fasting must be more than just giving up things, but giving them up in order to become less attached to the good things of
this world and more attached to Jesus who gives us these things to lead us to Himself, so we can become better—become holy; that is, dearest of friends of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the angel and saints.
And our alms giving must include serving others through practicing the Corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Feeding the physically hungry, yes, but most importantly feeding the spiritually hungry who can sometimes be very rich and powerful, giving drink to those thirsting for water, but most importantly giving the drink of God’s love for those who are dying of thirst for it; burying the dead but also bury resentment and un-forgiveness by forgiving wrongs against us (just to name a few). Our Holy Father Francis said as much in his Lenten Message to us in this Jubilee “Year of Mercy,” in which He pointed out that, “God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn.
This lent let us ask Our Lady for help to enter into lent more deeply. Let us ask her to help us avoid the temptation of Satan, a temptation that puts personal pleasure first, and does away with personal guilt and sin and the need for redemption, satisfaction, expiation, mortification and penance for our sin. A temptation that says that essence of love is personal gratification and not sacrifice, not that of laying down one’s life for a friend. Our Lady can teach us how to adore Jesus; all we need to do is to ask her. Let us pray, that the Blessed Mother, who while adoring Jesus on the Cross was given John as her son and by this gift was given all of us as her sons and daughters as well, that she may help us to enter the desert this lent and there learn how to adore the unseen God from whom we came and to whom we are called as His beloved little children to return. Amen.
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