Luke 23:35-43 November 24th, 2019 Solemnity of Christ the King.
Today, in the Sacred Liturgy we celebrate the great feast of Christ the King. Our Lord is King and ruler of heaven and earth; and today, in this solemn Liturgy, we acknowledge this fact with our whole heart, mind, soul, strength, with our bodies and with our voices as we with great effort struggle to enter into full, actual, conscious and fruitful participation in this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in which the King becomes present not only spiritual in our midst, but sacramentally, physically present.
Over the centuries devotion to Jesus has taken many forms. In the early centuries of the Church, we see this devotion very much directed to Jesus as the King of Kings. However, with the revelations of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 1800’s devotion to Christ became centered less on his Kingship and more on his Sacred Heart. With the Divine Mercy Revelations, this trend continues, but one could say with a more universal emphasis on the individual begging God’s Mercy not just on himself but one the whole world. With these two beautiful devotions, the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy, which are surely mutually enhancive of one another and both of which point to heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist beating in love there for all men and woman, one could argue that devotion to Jesus as King of the Universe seems, at least in practice, to have been set aside for a more personal devotion. But when we look at the history of devotion to Jesus within the Sacred Liturgy we find it is always center on Christ as King, as the King, no matter the liturgical season.
Unfortunately, us moderns have a hard time with the notion of kingship; especially us Americans, we can understand it only in light of tyranny and the loss of our freedom. After all, our own independence as a country was from the monarchical rule of England. Jesus, however, is not a political King, nor is He a president. He is not a Democrat or Republican nor is He an Independent; in fact, His visible Kingdom on Earth--the Catholic Church, from which He rules, is not a democracy at all; it is a strict monarchy with only one King, Jesus Himself, with full dominion and power.
Jesus the King, therefore, is not a military or revolutionary leader; He is not a socialist or totalitarian. He is not a king of material wealth or worldly power. In fact, He came to the earth as King not to be served but to serve. He wants subjects, not of forced loyalty but subjects who follow him in the freedom of authentic love and truth
The Kingdom of God then does not mean food and drink, or economic prosperity, but instead righteousness and true peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For Jesus’ kingdom is “the kingdom of Truth and Life, the kingdom of holiness and grace, the kingdom of Justice, love and Peace. The Kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of true love, the essence of which is a man laying down his life for love of his friends.
In this, we discover that true love must be through Jesus, in Him, and with Him or else it is not true, for Jesus is the Truth. Love apart from Jesus and His truth results in our ideas quickly taking charge and then we end up creating our own version of a kingdom, the kingdom of man without reference to the kingdom of God. Consequently, it becomes just our made-up kingdom with a puppet on the throne—with an idiot king of our desire and making. What results is the dictatorship of relativism which our pope emeritus Pope Benedict continual warned against, for in this pseudo kingdom, the false kings will turn against the very people who put them in power and in the end they themselves will be destroyed by their own ideology—but not until the good themselves will have much to suffer.
Jesus’ loyal subjects, show their acceptance of Christ’s rule over them and His Father’s will for them and so accept God’s love and mercy for the world. Jesus became man to make this truth about the Father's love for man known and to enable men to accept it and live it, through the grace He won through his death on the cross and his subsequent victory over death in his resurrection.
Those who recognize Christ’s kingship and sovereignty, accept his authority given to His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. By doing so, they allow Jesus to reign over them in His eternal and universal. And these faithful subjects live their lives on this earth by following His Way, the only true way, which is the royal way of the cross, which is the way of self-denial and sacrificial love, loving and serving God above all things and their neighbor as themselves for love of God.
The Solemnity of Christ the King ends ordinary time and thus the liturgical year. We now enter into the Season of hope--advent. Our readings take on the tone of the last things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, topics that don’t at first appear to be hopeful. But the Holy Spirit wants us to be ready, not only for the coming of Christ at Christmas but for His Second Coming in glory at the end of the world. “Behold Jesus is coming amid the clouds and every eye will see Him even those who pierced Him.”
But the Holy Spirit reminds today not to think this event as happening somewhere off in the distance future. Behold He is coming soon!!. This is the theme of Advent. For those souls who die this day, the second coming will happen today, and for each of us, our death is the second coming, for on that day we shall see the King face to face and He will question us about our love…
However, think about it, for you and me He comes even sooner; he comes this very day, on this very altar in the Holy Eucharist, sacrificing Himself anew, in order to totally and completely offer himself to us in love. He longs to enter fully into our hearts at our Holy Communion with Him if we but open our self to allow him to reign over us, for he will not stay by force.
Beginning today, let us as the Holy Spirit to help us more deeply acknowledge Christ as our King; let us start by offering our Hearts in an act of true thanksgiving at this Holy Mass, which makes the King Himself, His royal throne of the cross, His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension and His Kingdom truly present on earth, right here in this Church and in every Catholic Church around the world.
As we prepare to receive the fruit of the Crucifixion and Resurrection at this Holy Mass--Jesus Christ our King in the Holy Eucharist, the Kingdom of God personified, let us ask Him for the grace to hear His voice and to heed his words in testimony that we are committed to the truth of His Kingdom with every fiber of our being.
Let us ask Him through His Holy Mother to help us keep His Authority and the Holy Will of His heavenly Father and our Father, as the driving force of our life. Holy Mary, Queen of the Kingdom of Christ, Queen of our hearts, pray for us helps us to give our heart totally in love and fidelity to Jesus the King.
To Gain a Plenary Indulgence for the Feast of Christ the King
• Be in a state of grace
• Receive Holy Communion (should be easy, since this is Sunday, but you can receive within a few days so if you already received at Saturday vigil you can use that one)
• Go to Confession within 20 days before or after today
• Pray (out loud) for the intentions of the Holy Father (one Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be is sufficient)
• Be free from all attachment to sin (just do the best you can there)
And Publicly Recite the following prayer. It is sufficient if you read it out loud softly in a church open to the public.
Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Most Sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thine altar. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but to be more surely united to Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates ourselves today to Thy Most Sacred Heart.
Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart. Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful children, who have never forsaken Thee but also of the prodigal children, who have abandoned Thee; Grant that they may quickly return to their Father’s house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.
Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith, so that there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of the race, once Thy chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may it now descend upon them a laver of redemption and of life.
Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry; praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; To it be glory and honor forever. R. Amen.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Death is not only the passage of our souls back to God, but one day our bodies will be reunited with our souls
Luke 20;20-28. Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. November 10th, 2019
As we approach the end of our liturgical year, our readings are changing. We have heard Jesus talk about prayer over the last few months and all of a sudden now Jesus is teaching about the resurrection of the dead. Last week we celebrated All Saints Day-the Church triumph in heaven, and All Souls Day-the Church suffering in purgatory. All of these feasts and readings from the Sacred Scriptures remind us of the serious topic of death.
Death is a hard topic to talk about; as it can make us feel fearful- it is normal to fear death, it is normal to fear death because death is not natural for us human persons.
Yet death is a reality for us which nobody can deny. And so, we all need to face the fact that one day each and every one of us is going to die. Our age is in denial of death. In fact, in our modern world, when someone dies we don't want to face it; so instead, we celebrate their life, as if we can somehow just pass over the sadness and reality of their death. Why do we want to avoid dealing properly with death? Is it because death reminds us of sin, for death is the result of sin, of our sin…this, is why we must die? God did not create death; he does not delight in the death of his creatures—we creatures created death by our sin, not God.
I would argue we also see this practical denial of death, even in our modern funeral liturgy, we no longer have black vestments which remind us of the horror of the wages of our sin, and its sorrow, which is our death. We are told that we wear white at funerals because we are people of the resurrection. Yes, we are truly people of the resurrection, but we can't just pass over the reality of death, and jump into the resurrection. Why? Because First, we must face reality of our sin and its horrible consequence—death; first, there must be morning, wailing, and sorrow for our sin, because sin is a refusal to love, obey and serve God who is all good and deserving of all our love; first, their needs to be confession for our grave offenses against God’s infinite goodness, and then an acceptance of our just punishment—death; First, all of this, only then the resurrection.
In our Gospel today, Jesus confronts all of the errors of death in his day, which are the same as in ours, just with different wrapping paper. Jesus confronts the myths about death held by the Sadducees. The Sadducees believed in the soul, but they denied the bodily resurrection of the dead. In other words, they denied that someday God will raise our bodies from the grave in order to be reunited with our souls; and in these resurrected bodies, we will be present body and soul at the final judgment before Jesus, who will come then not as merciful redeemer but as Just Judge. The Sadducees denied that we would spend eternity for better or worse in our bodies.
For the Sadducees death consisted of just the soul returning to the bosom of Abraham- the body simply was ignored. So what does it matter? Well, the practical result of this is, is that the body just isn’t important, and if the body isn’t important, then it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do in or with your body. You can sin in your body, but not with your soul. At the heart of the Sadducee's error, then, is that it separates the body and soul of the human person.
But, we are creatures who are body and soul; we are not a body with a soul or a soul with a body, but we are a body and soul composite, we are our body and we are our soul. This is one of the great terrors of death, our body and soul are not made to be separated, and it is sin that is the cause of this unnatural separation…if you want to know how bad sin is, look at the mystery and horror of death…the wages of sin is death.
How does this error of the Sadducees look in our day: We see it when someone gets caught in the act and gives an apology that consists of admission, not a confession, similar to the following: “Yes I did this bad thing, but that is not who I am.” But it is how you are. Our acts define who we are, what type of person we are. This is why there needs to be repentance and healing and forgiveness and transformation from Christ through his representative, the priest.
We also see this separation of the body and soul in our day, the idea that the body can be a different gender than the soul. And so, a person wrongly believes, I must mutilate my body to conform to what I think is the gender of my soul. And for your part, you must—or you will be forced, not only accept it but approve of it, thus, denying the truth of the human person as God has created, male and female he created them. (There is push to force even catholic hospitals to have to perform the “transitional mutilation…surgery”
We also see this error in everything from extreme body piercing, tattooing, to all forms of immodest dress. We see it in all forms of promiscuity, fornication and debauchery all carried out in the body… St. Paul reminds us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” We are to use our bodies to adore God both here at Mass, keeping them pure and undefiled by, with the grace of the Sacraments, living according to His Commandments and the teachings of His Holy Catholic Church.
After death too, we see the Sadducee’s error in a lack of respect of the body as a former temple of the Holy Spirit, by not burying the ashes of one cremated, placing them instead on the mantel of the fireplace or spreading them on the ocean or even making them into jewelry. St. Augustine, said that after their death we are so careful with the personal effects of our loved ones so that they are not lost, we should have the same care with regards to their body. The body should be buried with respect…this is one of the seven corporal works of mercy by which we will be judged…to bury the dead (by the way when the body is cremated what is left should never be called cremains, but instead called a cremated body, and it should be treated as such, a temple of the Holy Spirit and buried properly in sacred ground).
In our Gospel, Jesus points out that the Sadducees were wrong. And as we read in the book of Maccabees, the Scriptures do point out clearly the bodily resurrection of the dead and an eternity spent again in our bodies. In his condemnation, Jesus is pointing out as well all of the errors of death in our day and reveals to us the truth. Our faith tells us with certainty that the body is created as good and will be reunited with our souls after our death, at the end of the world. Jesus confirms this by answering the questions concerning marriage after the resurrection.
Death is not only the passage of our souls back to God, but one day our bodies will be reunited with our souls. So those who have already died are awaiting the resurrection of their bodies. Even the souls of the just that are now with God are not totally complete; they await the last day when their bodies will be reunited with their souls.
The truth is, is that on that last day we will be judged according to the works we performed while in the body. And this last judgment will be given to us after our souls have been reunited with our bodies—at the Last Judgment, all souls will be united to their body. For those who have done evil, their bodies will be horribly disfigured and they will suffer in those bodies eternally separated from God in hell.
But for those who have used their bodies to glorify God, they will receive a renewed body, a glorified beautiful body—the unimaginable beauty of their soul will shine through their bodies. This glorified body will have no need for food or drink or even marriage. Instead of the pleasures of food and drink and earthly marriage, there will be much, much greater pleasure. Earthly pleasures in the body are only a small hint to what pleasures God has in store for us.
Because at the end of our life, God will judge all of our deeds, all that we have done and all that we have failed to do, it is easy for us to be afraid of death and especially in the judgment that follows our death. However, St. Paul gives us encouragement in today’s second reading. He tells us that Grace is given to us in order to “encourage our hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.”
With faith and confidence in God’s grace, we can face our sins and ask God to help us each day to live this life on earth using our bodies and souls in a way that we will be ready to die and meet him. But we strive with the to use our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. We must not only treat our bodies as holy and sacred temples, but we must also use them assisted by God’s grace (again which comes to us through the Sacraments) to live holy lives, holy lives lived out in the body. Then we will be able to share in the joy of the resurrection, and live out eternity in heaven not only in our souls but in our bodies as well. If we are ready, meaning if we are holy, if we have taken care of our souls by confessing our sins and amending our lives, if we have been striving to by God grace live out God’s Holy Will in our body on earth, then far from fearing death, we will long for it so we can be with God forever and see Him face to face.
The Holy Eucharist is the key to the Resurrection of our bodies to the eternal glory of the Father, for the Holy Eucharist is the resurrected human body and blood of Jesus reunited to his human soul, along with the fullness of His divinity. It is through our Holy Communion with Him if we have faith, that gives us the grace to transform our earthly bodies into glorified bodies like Jesus in order to share in the happiness of all the angels and saints in the resurrection of the body in heaven. We become what we eat and we come to share more and more fully in the victory of Jesus until our communion with Him is consummated in an eternal union with the blessed Trinity, along with all of the angels and the Saint, whose bodies and souls together, like ours, will be glorified with the splendor of the Father love.
We live and move and have our being in Christ, and through the Sacraments, we are members of His Mystical Body, the Church, and children of Our Heavenly Father. Let us ask Jesus to help us deepen our faith, hope and charity and so be prepared to meet him face to face one day not with fear but with hearts full of joy. Even now, our bodies are being transformed into glory. Let us also continue to pray for our dead, all of the Holy Souls in purgatory. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the living not the dead, pray for us sinners, now and especially at the hour of our death. Holy Mary, we know you will honor all of the Hail Mary's we say in our life and you will be there for us at the hour of our death. Amen. God Bless you all.
As we approach the end of our liturgical year, our readings are changing. We have heard Jesus talk about prayer over the last few months and all of a sudden now Jesus is teaching about the resurrection of the dead. Last week we celebrated All Saints Day-the Church triumph in heaven, and All Souls Day-the Church suffering in purgatory. All of these feasts and readings from the Sacred Scriptures remind us of the serious topic of death.
Death is a hard topic to talk about; as it can make us feel fearful- it is normal to fear death, it is normal to fear death because death is not natural for us human persons.
Yet death is a reality for us which nobody can deny. And so, we all need to face the fact that one day each and every one of us is going to die. Our age is in denial of death. In fact, in our modern world, when someone dies we don't want to face it; so instead, we celebrate their life, as if we can somehow just pass over the sadness and reality of their death. Why do we want to avoid dealing properly with death? Is it because death reminds us of sin, for death is the result of sin, of our sin…this, is why we must die? God did not create death; he does not delight in the death of his creatures—we creatures created death by our sin, not God.
I would argue we also see this practical denial of death, even in our modern funeral liturgy, we no longer have black vestments which remind us of the horror of the wages of our sin, and its sorrow, which is our death. We are told that we wear white at funerals because we are people of the resurrection. Yes, we are truly people of the resurrection, but we can't just pass over the reality of death, and jump into the resurrection. Why? Because First, we must face reality of our sin and its horrible consequence—death; first, there must be morning, wailing, and sorrow for our sin, because sin is a refusal to love, obey and serve God who is all good and deserving of all our love; first, their needs to be confession for our grave offenses against God’s infinite goodness, and then an acceptance of our just punishment—death; First, all of this, only then the resurrection.
In our Gospel today, Jesus confronts all of the errors of death in his day, which are the same as in ours, just with different wrapping paper. Jesus confronts the myths about death held by the Sadducees. The Sadducees believed in the soul, but they denied the bodily resurrection of the dead. In other words, they denied that someday God will raise our bodies from the grave in order to be reunited with our souls; and in these resurrected bodies, we will be present body and soul at the final judgment before Jesus, who will come then not as merciful redeemer but as Just Judge. The Sadducees denied that we would spend eternity for better or worse in our bodies.
For the Sadducees death consisted of just the soul returning to the bosom of Abraham- the body simply was ignored. So what does it matter? Well, the practical result of this is, is that the body just isn’t important, and if the body isn’t important, then it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do in or with your body. You can sin in your body, but not with your soul. At the heart of the Sadducee's error, then, is that it separates the body and soul of the human person.
But, we are creatures who are body and soul; we are not a body with a soul or a soul with a body, but we are a body and soul composite, we are our body and we are our soul. This is one of the great terrors of death, our body and soul are not made to be separated, and it is sin that is the cause of this unnatural separation…if you want to know how bad sin is, look at the mystery and horror of death…the wages of sin is death.
How does this error of the Sadducees look in our day: We see it when someone gets caught in the act and gives an apology that consists of admission, not a confession, similar to the following: “Yes I did this bad thing, but that is not who I am.” But it is how you are. Our acts define who we are, what type of person we are. This is why there needs to be repentance and healing and forgiveness and transformation from Christ through his representative, the priest.
We also see this separation of the body and soul in our day, the idea that the body can be a different gender than the soul. And so, a person wrongly believes, I must mutilate my body to conform to what I think is the gender of my soul. And for your part, you must—or you will be forced, not only accept it but approve of it, thus, denying the truth of the human person as God has created, male and female he created them. (There is push to force even catholic hospitals to have to perform the “transitional mutilation…surgery”
We also see this error in everything from extreme body piercing, tattooing, to all forms of immodest dress. We see it in all forms of promiscuity, fornication and debauchery all carried out in the body… St. Paul reminds us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” We are to use our bodies to adore God both here at Mass, keeping them pure and undefiled by, with the grace of the Sacraments, living according to His Commandments and the teachings of His Holy Catholic Church.
After death too, we see the Sadducee’s error in a lack of respect of the body as a former temple of the Holy Spirit, by not burying the ashes of one cremated, placing them instead on the mantel of the fireplace or spreading them on the ocean or even making them into jewelry. St. Augustine, said that after their death we are so careful with the personal effects of our loved ones so that they are not lost, we should have the same care with regards to their body. The body should be buried with respect…this is one of the seven corporal works of mercy by which we will be judged…to bury the dead (by the way when the body is cremated what is left should never be called cremains, but instead called a cremated body, and it should be treated as such, a temple of the Holy Spirit and buried properly in sacred ground).
In our Gospel, Jesus points out that the Sadducees were wrong. And as we read in the book of Maccabees, the Scriptures do point out clearly the bodily resurrection of the dead and an eternity spent again in our bodies. In his condemnation, Jesus is pointing out as well all of the errors of death in our day and reveals to us the truth. Our faith tells us with certainty that the body is created as good and will be reunited with our souls after our death, at the end of the world. Jesus confirms this by answering the questions concerning marriage after the resurrection.
Death is not only the passage of our souls back to God, but one day our bodies will be reunited with our souls. So those who have already died are awaiting the resurrection of their bodies. Even the souls of the just that are now with God are not totally complete; they await the last day when their bodies will be reunited with their souls.
The truth is, is that on that last day we will be judged according to the works we performed while in the body. And this last judgment will be given to us after our souls have been reunited with our bodies—at the Last Judgment, all souls will be united to their body. For those who have done evil, their bodies will be horribly disfigured and they will suffer in those bodies eternally separated from God in hell.
But for those who have used their bodies to glorify God, they will receive a renewed body, a glorified beautiful body—the unimaginable beauty of their soul will shine through their bodies. This glorified body will have no need for food or drink or even marriage. Instead of the pleasures of food and drink and earthly marriage, there will be much, much greater pleasure. Earthly pleasures in the body are only a small hint to what pleasures God has in store for us.
Because at the end of our life, God will judge all of our deeds, all that we have done and all that we have failed to do, it is easy for us to be afraid of death and especially in the judgment that follows our death. However, St. Paul gives us encouragement in today’s second reading. He tells us that Grace is given to us in order to “encourage our hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.”
With faith and confidence in God’s grace, we can face our sins and ask God to help us each day to live this life on earth using our bodies and souls in a way that we will be ready to die and meet him. But we strive with the to use our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. We must not only treat our bodies as holy and sacred temples, but we must also use them assisted by God’s grace (again which comes to us through the Sacraments) to live holy lives, holy lives lived out in the body. Then we will be able to share in the joy of the resurrection, and live out eternity in heaven not only in our souls but in our bodies as well. If we are ready, meaning if we are holy, if we have taken care of our souls by confessing our sins and amending our lives, if we have been striving to by God grace live out God’s Holy Will in our body on earth, then far from fearing death, we will long for it so we can be with God forever and see Him face to face.
The Holy Eucharist is the key to the Resurrection of our bodies to the eternal glory of the Father, for the Holy Eucharist is the resurrected human body and blood of Jesus reunited to his human soul, along with the fullness of His divinity. It is through our Holy Communion with Him if we have faith, that gives us the grace to transform our earthly bodies into glorified bodies like Jesus in order to share in the happiness of all the angels and saints in the resurrection of the body in heaven. We become what we eat and we come to share more and more fully in the victory of Jesus until our communion with Him is consummated in an eternal union with the blessed Trinity, along with all of the angels and the Saint, whose bodies and souls together, like ours, will be glorified with the splendor of the Father love.
We live and move and have our being in Christ, and through the Sacraments, we are members of His Mystical Body, the Church, and children of Our Heavenly Father. Let us ask Jesus to help us deepen our faith, hope and charity and so be prepared to meet him face to face one day not with fear but with hearts full of joy. Even now, our bodies are being transformed into glory. Let us also continue to pray for our dead, all of the Holy Souls in purgatory. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the living not the dead, pray for us sinners, now and especially at the hour of our death. Holy Mary, we know you will honor all of the Hail Mary's we say in our life and you will be there for us at the hour of our death. Amen. God Bless you all.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
If you truly want peace, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there.
John 14: 23-29. Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. May 26th, 2019.
The last few weeks in the Gospel readings we have been hearing Jesus calling us to the deepest form of love. It is a love that surpasses anything that man is capable of on his own power. Unfortunately, our English translations almost always use the word “love” to describe it. However, “love” is certainly not the best of words, for the love that Jesus calls us to is Charity. Charity is human love elevated and united, through grace, to divine love—elevated and united to the God who is Charity.
Charity is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart trustingly offers itself in totally self-giving love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the Holy Mass and the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith through the human virtues animated with the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and of course, Charity.
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 love the world has ever seen. Jesus in divine love, in Charity, 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 He would do so, not just to save us, but in order to be able to give himself has a gift to us in the Holy Eucharist. In this sacrificial offering we discover that the God who has given us the very gift of existence, isn’t content to stop there, he offers us the gift of himself in the Person of Jesus, His Son present in Risen Body in the Holy Eucharist.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man loves 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 receiving the Father’s Love in its fullness. It is an act of gratitude to the God who has given us everything, and this gratitude can only be expressed in the offering of our self to the Father through Jesus in order to be united to God in Charity, to the God who is Charity.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through virtuous action. After all, love—charity 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, which he leaves with us, 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 bring 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 to the truth that leads to 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. In fact, these technological advancements have led, at least partially, to the ideal that man can live a moral life, a good life, a flourishing life, apart from God and His Commandments, and especially apart from God’s first commandment which is to love Him above all else and adore and worship him according to His dictates, not our own. Our generation even seeks to use its technological advancements to overcome death apart from the power of the Resurrection of Jesus, which is the power of the divine and human love known as Charity, which is stronger than death. But even if he were to succeed, which he will not, to live forever without God and his love is not paradise but hell.
The result of this pride of man-this self-exaltation of man is nothing but an astronomical increase in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society, which have surpassed what many of us never 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.
All of this has led to a degradation of man himself, who fails to see that his greatest lies in his relationship with His Creator. As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in love to the other, especially to God-this fear is manifested either in outright atheism or at least a practical atheism in which one speaks of God but lives one’s life contrary to God’s truth. 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 epidemic.
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 through noise, because it lacks peace; it hates silence; it is afraid of silence.
In his book, The Power of Silence over the Dictatorship of Noise, Cardinal Sarah, who is the head of the office in the Vatican that oversees the liturgy, including how the Holy Mass is celebrated, speaks of this atheism and noisiness:
“Postmodern man seeks to anesthetize his own atheism. Noises are screens that betray a fear of the divine, a fear of real life and of death. But “what man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” (Ps 89:48). The Western world ends up disguising death so as to make it acceptable and joyful. The moment of demise becomes a noisy moment in which true silence is lost in weak, useless words expressing compassion.”
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 alone.
Now, I am not suggesting we all become Carthusian monks, but we do need to 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 the power to this comes through silence, spending intimate time with him apart from the dictatorship of the noise that this world offers.
Again, Cardinal Sarah:
“It is necessary to protect precious silence from all parasitical noise. The noise of our “ego”, which never stops claiming its rights, plunging us into an excessive preoccupation with ourselves. The noise of our memory, which draws us toward the past, that of our recollections or of our sins. The noise of temptations or of acedia (sloth), the spirit of gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sadness, vanity, pride—in short: everything that makes up the spiritual combat that man must wage every day. In order to silence these parasitical noises, in order to consume everything in the sweet flame of the Holy Spirit, silence is the supreme antidote.”
And so 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 silence of our inner room, that is our heart and listen. And especially we need to come in silent faith before 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 love for us, which made visible the love…no, which made visible the Charity that God has for us.*
In reality, the more that faith in the Holy Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass 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 too often try to fill every moment of the Holy 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).
Cardinal Sarah put it this way:
“Why are men so noisy during the liturgies while Christ's prayer was silent? The words of the Son of God come from the heart, and the heart is silent. Why do we not know how to speak with a silent heart? The heart of Jesus does not speak. It radiates with love because its language comes from the divine depths."
Therefore if you truly want peace, 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, I didn’t say silence is easy. 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 give ourselves to him entirely, and He and the Father will come and make their 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 to 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; and others experienced the Charity of God through her. 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 by offering ourselves to God through Charity !!
The last few weeks in the Gospel readings we have been hearing Jesus calling us to the deepest form of love. It is a love that surpasses anything that man is capable of on his own power. Unfortunately, our English translations almost always use the word “love” to describe it. However, “love” is certainly not the best of words, for the love that Jesus calls us to is Charity. Charity is human love elevated and united, through grace, to divine love—elevated and united to the God who is Charity.
Charity is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart trustingly offers itself in totally self-giving love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the Holy Mass and the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith through the human virtues animated with the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and of course, Charity.
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 love the world has ever seen. Jesus in divine love, in Charity, 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 He would do so, not just to save us, but in order to be able to give himself has a gift to us in the Holy Eucharist. In this sacrificial offering we discover that the God who has given us the very gift of existence, isn’t content to stop there, he offers us the gift of himself in the Person of Jesus, His Son present in Risen Body in the Holy Eucharist.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man loves 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 receiving the Father’s Love in its fullness. It is an act of gratitude to the God who has given us everything, and this gratitude can only be expressed in the offering of our self to the Father through Jesus in order to be united to God in Charity, to the God who is Charity.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through virtuous action. After all, love—charity 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, which he leaves with us, 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 bring 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 to the truth that leads to 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. In fact, these technological advancements have led, at least partially, to the ideal that man can live a moral life, a good life, a flourishing life, apart from God and His Commandments, and especially apart from God’s first commandment which is to love Him above all else and adore and worship him according to His dictates, not our own. Our generation even seeks to use its technological advancements to overcome death apart from the power of the Resurrection of Jesus, which is the power of the divine and human love known as Charity, which is stronger than death. But even if he were to succeed, which he will not, to live forever without God and his love is not paradise but hell.
The result of this pride of man-this self-exaltation of man is nothing but an astronomical increase in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society, which have surpassed what many of us never 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.
All of this has led to a degradation of man himself, who fails to see that his greatest lies in his relationship with His Creator. As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in love to the other, especially to God-this fear is manifested either in outright atheism or at least a practical atheism in which one speaks of God but lives one’s life contrary to God’s truth. 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 epidemic.
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 through noise, because it lacks peace; it hates silence; it is afraid of silence.
In his book, The Power of Silence over the Dictatorship of Noise, Cardinal Sarah, who is the head of the office in the Vatican that oversees the liturgy, including how the Holy Mass is celebrated, speaks of this atheism and noisiness:
“Postmodern man seeks to anesthetize his own atheism. Noises are screens that betray a fear of the divine, a fear of real life and of death. But “what man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” (Ps 89:48). The Western world ends up disguising death so as to make it acceptable and joyful. The moment of demise becomes a noisy moment in which true silence is lost in weak, useless words expressing compassion.”
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 alone.
Now, I am not suggesting we all become Carthusian monks, but we do need to 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 the power to this comes through silence, spending intimate time with him apart from the dictatorship of the noise that this world offers.
Again, Cardinal Sarah:
“It is necessary to protect precious silence from all parasitical noise. The noise of our “ego”, which never stops claiming its rights, plunging us into an excessive preoccupation with ourselves. The noise of our memory, which draws us toward the past, that of our recollections or of our sins. The noise of temptations or of acedia (sloth), the spirit of gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sadness, vanity, pride—in short: everything that makes up the spiritual combat that man must wage every day. In order to silence these parasitical noises, in order to consume everything in the sweet flame of the Holy Spirit, silence is the supreme antidote.”
And so 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 silence of our inner room, that is our heart and listen. And especially we need to come in silent faith before 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 love for us, which made visible the love…no, which made visible the Charity that God has for us.*
In reality, the more that faith in the Holy Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass 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 too often try to fill every moment of the Holy 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).
Cardinal Sarah put it this way:
“Why are men so noisy during the liturgies while Christ's prayer was silent? The words of the Son of God come from the heart, and the heart is silent. Why do we not know how to speak with a silent heart? The heart of Jesus does not speak. It radiates with love because its language comes from the divine depths."
Therefore if you truly want peace, 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, I didn’t say silence is easy. 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 give ourselves to him entirely, and He and the Father will come and make their 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 to 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; and others experienced the Charity of God through her. 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 by offering ourselves to God through Charity !!
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Like the Israelites, God calls us too, out into the desert.
Luke 4:1-3. First Sunday in Lent. March 10th, 2019
Lent is our time to imitate our Blessed Lord and to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the desert.
But why the desert? Time in the desert signifies a time away from our normal cares, a turning away from the distractions of the world and worldly things which do not last, and a turning more fully toward that which last forever, the one thing in which we can truly trust--the eternal God and His unfathomable love for us.
In the Old Testament, God called Israelites out of Egypt, which represents the spirit of the world, and calls them into the desert. Why? So that apart from the distractions of Egypt, and all of its idols and false worship, He could teach them again to recognize His sovereign rights as their one True God. All so they could offer Him proper worship and adoration, not for God's sake but for their own.
In their struggles and hunger, they would see their complete dependency on God and then turn to worship Him and adoring Him alone and doing so according to His dictates. He for His part would reveal His great Love for them. He would provide for their every need, give them water from the rock of salvation, feed them with bread from heaven and lead them to the promised land flowing with milk and honey; but most of all He would take them to Himself; He would be their God and they would be His people; He would share Himself totally to Him and make them one with Him lavishing them with His divine Love, that for which they truly hungered and thirsted; He would give them life.
Like the Israelites, God calls us too, out into the desert. In the desert, filled with silence, we too can hear the small, still, voice of God speaking to us, teaching us, revealing His love to us. Apart from the distractions and noise of this world, we can come face to face with God in prayer, the God who draws near to us. It is then that we are able to honestly recognize the Creator’s sovereign rights over us. He is our Creator, the source of our existence and the loving and caring Father to whom we are called to return. We are poor creatures, completely dependent on Him and so need to reach out to Him by worshiping and adoring Him, and doing so properly. We must have an attitude of poverty because the truth is we are absolutely nothing, have nothing without God; but with Him, we have everything.
The more we come to this realization of the sovereign rights of God over us, the more we see the many ways we have replaced our dependency on God with our idols, that is, those things that we have put in the place of God and so have worshiped and adored instead of him. True religion always, if it is true, consists of adoring God. It is our supreme duty to do so; it is a matter of justice. But this duty is a duty of love, better yet a response of love that comes from the fact that God has first loved us; He has created us and wants us to return to Him.
As a result, in our effort to return to Him, we must necessarily deny ourselves of those things that have taken us or prevented us from a deeper relationship with Him. We must deny our self of those things we have loved before Him and so have, in a sense, “worshiped” before Him, especially, our love of comfort before service, pleasure before self-denial, power over others, and sinful amusements before adoration. Our inordinate attachments to these “idols” prevent us from offering proper worship and adoration of God.
And so, in order to help rid ourselves of these inordinate attachments, we are asked in Lent to take on a spirit of penance and repentance, this leads us to self-denial; in other words, to the cross—which is the way of Love of Jesus and others before ourselves. We deny ourselves by giving up comforts and delights, such as abstinence from meat or other food or drink. This sacrificing and denying of ourselves leads us to discover that nothing, nothing on this earth can fulfill our dependency and our longing for God. Think about the things people give up for love- things like meals, sleep; we sacrifice because we want to be closer to the one we love—this is what Lent is all about.
During this time of Lent when we begin to discipline ourselves so we can convert and draw closer to our God, it is then that we will experience many temptations from satan. The devil always promises more than he can give. He doesn't want our happiness; anything he tempts us with is a miserable deception. In order to test us, the devil takes advantage of our own ambitions, of our desire to be the center of attention and to seek ourselves in everything we do or plan. This self-centeredness is at the heart of wanting material things so much that we end up turning to them before God and so worshiping them. We then give God lip service if even at all. Material things then cease to be good because they separate us from God and from our fellow man. As a result, we fail to serve God and our neighbor for love of God and end up only serving ourselves, and this leads to our destruction. But Jesus tells us that we should seek only His glory. He tells us, "You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.
Ultimately God, allows these temptations from the devil to help purify us, to make us holy, to detach ourselves from the things of the earth, to lead us to where He is and by the route He wants us to take, so as to make us happy (even in a life which may not be comfortable), to make us flourish; He allows them in order to help us to grow in Christian maturity and understanding, and virtue, so as to become more effective in our apostolic work for the salvation of souls. He allows temptations above all to make us humble, very humble.
It is then very clear why we need to spend these forty days in the desert very close to our blessed Lord, fasting with Him, praying with Him and giving alms, three things which weaken the power of Satan over us. And above all, we need to stay close to Him by making use of the Sacraments, especially Holy Mass and confession, (you can’t really love or flourish without confession), all so that we may have the grace and the power to persevere in the battle and so share in Jesus’ victory over the devil and his temptations. Additionally, as well, we need to take in the Lenten devotions offered to us, like walking with Jesus along the way of His via Dolorosa, His way to Calvary in the Stations of the Cross on Fridays; also, by experiencing all the Holy Week Masses and services, like Holy Thursday and Good Friday. And especially, by spending time in adoration where we can really experience the silence of the desert but above experience the bodily presence of Jesus alongside us in our struggles.
In the temptations of Christ, we discover that Jesus has allowed Himself to be tempted for our sakes. He was tempted as one of us, having laid aside His divine power. Christ, true God and true man-made Himself like us in all things except sin and voluntarily underwent temptation. He was tempted in order to give us an example and a model of what we are to do when we too are tempted by satan and to give us hope that we too can share in His victory. St. John Vinney, the Cure of Ars, said:
“How fortunate we are, how lucky to have a God as our model. Are we poor? We have a God who is born in a stable, who lies in a manger. Are we despised? We have a God who led the way, who was crowned with thorns, dressed in a filthy red cloak and treated as a madman. Are tormented by pain and suffering? Before our eyes we have a God covered with wounds, dying in unimaginable pain. Are we being persecuted? How can we dare complain when we have a God who is being put to death by executioners? Finally, are we being tempted by the demon? We have a lovable Redeemer; he also was tempted by the demon and was twice taken up by the hellish spirit: therefore, no matter what sufferings, pains or temptations we are experiencing, we always have, everywhere, our God leading the way for us and assuring us of victory as long as we genuinely desire it.”
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, mortifcation, and penance for our sin. A temptation that saythe s that essence of love is personal gratification and not sacrifice, a temptation that says love is not that of laying down one’s life for a friend. Our Lady can teach us how to adore Jesus, how to give ourselves entirely to him without fear in complete trust; 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 to 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, through our proper adoration at Holy Mass, we are called as his little children to return. Amen.
Lent is our time to imitate our Blessed Lord and to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the desert.
But why the desert? Time in the desert signifies a time away from our normal cares, a turning away from the distractions of the world and worldly things which do not last, and a turning more fully toward that which last forever, the one thing in which we can truly trust--the eternal God and His unfathomable love for us.
In the Old Testament, God called Israelites out of Egypt, which represents the spirit of the world, and calls them into the desert. Why? So that apart from the distractions of Egypt, and all of its idols and false worship, He could teach them again to recognize His sovereign rights as their one True God. All so they could offer Him proper worship and adoration, not for God's sake but for their own.
In their struggles and hunger, they would see their complete dependency on God and then turn to worship Him and adoring Him alone and doing so according to His dictates. He for His part would reveal His great Love for them. He would provide for their every need, give them water from the rock of salvation, feed them with bread from heaven and lead them to the promised land flowing with milk and honey; but most of all He would take them to Himself; He would be their God and they would be His people; He would share Himself totally to Him and make them one with Him lavishing them with His divine Love, that for which they truly hungered and thirsted; He would give them life.
Like the Israelites, God calls us too, out into the desert. In the desert, filled with silence, we too can hear the small, still, voice of God speaking to us, teaching us, revealing His love to us. Apart from the distractions and noise of this world, we can come face to face with God in prayer, the God who draws near to us. It is then that we are able to honestly recognize the Creator’s sovereign rights over us. He is our Creator, the source of our existence and the loving and caring Father to whom we are called to return. We are poor creatures, completely dependent on Him and so need to reach out to Him by worshiping and adoring Him, and doing so properly. We must have an attitude of poverty because the truth is we are absolutely nothing, have nothing without God; but with Him, we have everything.
The more we come to this realization of the sovereign rights of God over us, the more we see the many ways we have replaced our dependency on God with our idols, that is, those things that we have put in the place of God and so have worshiped and adored instead of him. True religion always, if it is true, consists of adoring God. It is our supreme duty to do so; it is a matter of justice. But this duty is a duty of love, better yet a response of love that comes from the fact that God has first loved us; He has created us and wants us to return to Him.
As a result, in our effort to return to Him, we must necessarily deny ourselves of those things that have taken us or prevented us from a deeper relationship with Him. We must deny our self of those things we have loved before Him and so have, in a sense, “worshiped” before Him, especially, our love of comfort before service, pleasure before self-denial, power over others, and sinful amusements before adoration. Our inordinate attachments to these “idols” prevent us from offering proper worship and adoration of God.
And so, in order to help rid ourselves of these inordinate attachments, we are asked in Lent to take on a spirit of penance and repentance, this leads us to self-denial; in other words, to the cross—which is the way of Love of Jesus and others before ourselves. We deny ourselves by giving up comforts and delights, such as abstinence from meat or other food or drink. This sacrificing and denying of ourselves leads us to discover that nothing, nothing on this earth can fulfill our dependency and our longing for God. Think about the things people give up for love- things like meals, sleep; we sacrifice because we want to be closer to the one we love—this is what Lent is all about.
During this time of Lent when we begin to discipline ourselves so we can convert and draw closer to our God, it is then that we will experience many temptations from satan. The devil always promises more than he can give. He doesn't want our happiness; anything he tempts us with is a miserable deception. In order to test us, the devil takes advantage of our own ambitions, of our desire to be the center of attention and to seek ourselves in everything we do or plan. This self-centeredness is at the heart of wanting material things so much that we end up turning to them before God and so worshiping them. We then give God lip service if even at all. Material things then cease to be good because they separate us from God and from our fellow man. As a result, we fail to serve God and our neighbor for love of God and end up only serving ourselves, and this leads to our destruction. But Jesus tells us that we should seek only His glory. He tells us, "You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.
Ultimately God, allows these temptations from the devil to help purify us, to make us holy, to detach ourselves from the things of the earth, to lead us to where He is and by the route He wants us to take, so as to make us happy (even in a life which may not be comfortable), to make us flourish; He allows them in order to help us to grow in Christian maturity and understanding, and virtue, so as to become more effective in our apostolic work for the salvation of souls. He allows temptations above all to make us humble, very humble.
It is then very clear why we need to spend these forty days in the desert very close to our blessed Lord, fasting with Him, praying with Him and giving alms, three things which weaken the power of Satan over us. And above all, we need to stay close to Him by making use of the Sacraments, especially Holy Mass and confession, (you can’t really love or flourish without confession), all so that we may have the grace and the power to persevere in the battle and so share in Jesus’ victory over the devil and his temptations. Additionally, as well, we need to take in the Lenten devotions offered to us, like walking with Jesus along the way of His via Dolorosa, His way to Calvary in the Stations of the Cross on Fridays; also, by experiencing all the Holy Week Masses and services, like Holy Thursday and Good Friday. And especially, by spending time in adoration where we can really experience the silence of the desert but above experience the bodily presence of Jesus alongside us in our struggles.
In the temptations of Christ, we discover that Jesus has allowed Himself to be tempted for our sakes. He was tempted as one of us, having laid aside His divine power. Christ, true God and true man-made Himself like us in all things except sin and voluntarily underwent temptation. He was tempted in order to give us an example and a model of what we are to do when we too are tempted by satan and to give us hope that we too can share in His victory. St. John Vinney, the Cure of Ars, said:
“How fortunate we are, how lucky to have a God as our model. Are we poor? We have a God who is born in a stable, who lies in a manger. Are we despised? We have a God who led the way, who was crowned with thorns, dressed in a filthy red cloak and treated as a madman. Are tormented by pain and suffering? Before our eyes we have a God covered with wounds, dying in unimaginable pain. Are we being persecuted? How can we dare complain when we have a God who is being put to death by executioners? Finally, are we being tempted by the demon? We have a lovable Redeemer; he also was tempted by the demon and was twice taken up by the hellish spirit: therefore, no matter what sufferings, pains or temptations we are experiencing, we always have, everywhere, our God leading the way for us and assuring us of victory as long as we genuinely desire it.”
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, mortifcation, and penance for our sin. A temptation that saythe s that essence of love is personal gratification and not sacrifice, a temptation that says love is not that of laying down one’s life for a friend. Our Lady can teach us how to adore Jesus, how to give ourselves entirely to him without fear in complete trust; 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 to 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, through our proper adoration at Holy Mass, we are called as his little children to return. Amen.
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