Fourth Sunday of Lent

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/033014.cfm

 

We are all called, like the man born blind in the Gospel today, to not let sin continue to blind us, but to reject sin and be reconciled in our relationship with Jesus so that our eyes may be opened and we may truly walk in the light. Unfortunately, sometimes being brought into the light can be rather difficult. As the old saying goes, it’s often easier said than done. We might be scared to realize how sinful we really are or how far we have wondered away from God.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote about human ignorance and how difficult it is for any of us to be made aware of the truth. This is known as the “Allegory of the Cave”. He tells us to imagine an underground cave. In a large chamber of this cave are men who have been prisoners there since they were small children. They have been chained in such a way so that they cannot move around at all. They can only look straight ahead at the back of the cave. Behind them and slightly above (maybe an overhanging cliff) a fire has been built. In front of that fire a curtain-wall has been placed so that other men can carry objects between the fire and the curtain and make shadow puppets. These shadows are then projected onto the wall at the back of the cave that the prisoners are forced to look at. Now remember, those men have been there since childhood and have no recollection of what life is like outside of that cave. When all they see are those shadows moving around, they think those shadows are the real thing. There isn’t anything making those shadows, they are as real as you or me. And if those shadow puppets are made to talk by those who are making them, the sound is going to bounce off of the cave wall and come to the prisoners, making them think that the shadows themselves are making the sounds. To them their whole truth, their whole reality, consists in those shadows.

Now, Plato tells us, imagine if one of those prisoners is released from his chains and is forced to stand and look at the fire and all the objects that were used to make the shadows. We can suppose that this would be difficult for him for two reasons. One would be that it would hurt his eyes to look at that bright fire after spending years looking only at shadows and reflected light. It’s like when we spend some time in a dark room and someone turns the light on. The other difficulty would be that he would see that his whole idea of reality was being turned upside down. Everything he thought was real is now shown to be only a shadow of the real thing. This could be a hard revelation for anyone to accept. Then, what if the person was dragged out of the cave and was forced to see for the first time the sun and the blue sky and water and trees and animals and people (and snow if he was in Minnesota). Again, the brightness alone might be enough to stumble back into the cave and never come out again. Again the shock at realizing that everything he had known as truth was really just a fake reproduction of the real things outside of the cave would be overwhelming.

Eventually though, the man would get used to seeing things and will realize the beauty and the truth of the things he sees outside of the cave. Maybe he would even go back into the cave and try to explain what he saw to his companions and convince them to come with him out of the cave and into the bright light of truth. We can imagine their reactions. Some wouldn’t believe him. They might even try to kill him for suggesting such things. Others might try to go with him, but on seeing the light, they retreat back into the darkness. Still others may join him in the true reality outside of the cave. Accepting this new reality can be difficult, but it is well worth it for those who have accepted it.

The Allegory of the Cave can be very easily applied to our own struggles with sin and growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ. When St. Paul says in his Letter to the Ephesians today, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” he is telling us that to live in sin is to live in darkness, but when we turn to the Lord we become children of the light. So when we live a life of sin, never thinking of coming back to Jesus through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we are just like those men who have been chained looking at shadows for their entire lives. We might not know it, but our sense of reality has been distorted when we live a life of sin. Think about it: when we get into the habit of doing a sin again and again, we eventually forget what it was like before we did that sin. We can’t imagine our life without that sin. We are blind.

When someone comes to us and tries to tell us to give up that sinful habit or go to reconciliation, depending on how long it’s been since we went to confession, our reaction might be very similar to that man who was first released or his companions when he tries to talk to them. We might be scared to go. Maybe we’re afraid of how hard it will be or afraid of what the priest will say. We might get angry at the person who tries to convince us to repent of our sins. “I’m fine just the way I am! Don’t bother me!” When we finally let go of our fears, anxieties, anger and whatever else we are feeling, and we finally allow ourselves to come into the light outside of our musty old cave through Reconciliation, then our blindness is cured and we can see as God wants us to see.

In the Gospel today, the man born blind is able to leave the darkness of his blindness behind and truly see the light of truth in all its glory. The Pharisees, however, are too afraid to leave the comfort of their cave. Though they think they can see matters of faith just fine, they are really blind, as Jesus points out in His little word-play at the end of the Gospel. We are called to have the courage like the young man and not let fear hold us back as it did for the Pharisees.

What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of having to admit to what we have done? Are we afraid of confessing those sins? Are we afraid of getting closer to God out of fear of what He might ask us to do? Are we afraid of what the Church is teaching: about life; about justice; about marriage? Do not be afraid, my brothers and sisters, for it is only the light. We are talking about God, and He will bring us to the truth.

Third Sunday of Lent

 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032314.cfm

A popular scene in both cartoons and other movies is having a person stumbling across sand dunes in the dessert. He is often shoeless (or has only one and is missing the other) and is dressed in rags with the edges of his pant legs and sleeves in shreds. Many times he doesn’t have any head covering, his face is red with the heat and he has a several day old beard growing. Perhaps, far above, two vultures circle and call. And, of course, he is always calling out, “Water! Water!” Many times the person starts seeing a mirage of some sort. The goofier cartoons and comedies would of course have these mirages be all the more ridiculous and grandiose. Like, instead of a simple oasis, the character sees a five star hotel with a swimming pool and all you can eat buffet. I’m pretty sure there is a Loony Tunes cartoon with Daffy Duck diving and swimming through hot dessert sand because he is certain that he saw a swimming pool. Meanwhile, Bugs Bunny is probably off to the side trying to figure out why he didn't turn left at Albuquerque.

Whether it is a goofy cartoon like that or a comedy or much more serious movie or TV show, writers love to put their characters in predicaments and other dangerous situations to see how they can get back out alive. This situation of being lost or stranded in the dessert without water plays off of our own very basic survival instincts. We need water to survive. Even though we enjoy laughing at fictitious characters who end up lost in the dessert and have bizarre mirages and other hallucinations, we know we can't survive without water.

Our first reading from Exodus tells us the famous story of Moses striking of the rock to provide water for the people in the dessert. The story starts out with the often heard complaining of the people. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” When we hear the ancient Israelites complain in this way, it's easy for us to start pointing the finger and judging them for their disbelief. These are the people who witnessed the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and the column of fire and cloud that led them and protected them. I know that I have often wondered how it is that the Israelites could have seen all of that and still doubted that God and His servant Moses didn't have their best interests in mind. Before we start the pointing and judging, however, we need to remind ourselves of how we are not so different from them. We see the miracle of ordinary bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ at least once a week; we hear the stories of incredible miracles from saints; we claim to trust in God's providential care for all of us and yet we question whether God really loves us when things don't happen when we want them to happen.

God is very patient as well, thankfully, so He offers the Israelites what they need, just as He continues to offer us what we need. At this point, the Israelites need water. Moses follows God's instructions and strikes the rock, allowing water to flow from the rock. Many centuries later, St. Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians a reference to a Jewish story that said that that same “spiritual rock” continued to follow the Israelites around the dessert for the next forty years, providing them with water. I don't know if the tale claims the rock seemed to roll on its own after them, or if it just miraculously appeared wherever they stopped, but the point of the tale is to show that God continued to provide for them, even after this specific incident.

God provides for all of us, as we heard St. Paul remind us in his letter to the Romans. Instead of literal water from a rock, God provides us with His Son, Jesus Christ. The last line from that reading says, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” God's love is shown through the sacrifice of His Son, through His Son's Passion and death. Again, as I said before, even though we complain about this and that and everything under the sun at times, God sends His Son, and the Son is willing to die for us, sinners though we are. So what good does Jesus' dying on the Cross, do for all of us? As we will see as we look at the Gospel, it is only through His death that Jesus is able to provide what we truly need: water from the spring that leads to eternal life.

The Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well is so important, that the Church really highlights it as showing how Baptism will bring us eternal life. The woman doesn't get what Jesus is trying to explain at first. “Why is this man asking me for water? What is He talking about with this 'living water' stuff? How does He expect to get it without a bucket? Who does He think He is anyway?” But as we read through this great story, we see that Jesus may be talking about water, but He is pointing to Himself the entire time. We have a thirst for something more. If we all we do is focus on the things of this world, thinking that material things and our selfish desires will quench our thirst, then we will only be like those who drink from the water of well that Jesus is sitting next to: we will be thirsty gain. Jesus is the source of the that life giving water, however. The woman thinks Jesus is talking about physical water, but as Jesus reveals more about Her life, she realizes that Jesus is that source of water.

Our baptism gives that relationship with Jesus that we cannot live without. We don't typically do this with children, but traditionally adults were baptized by dunking them three times into water. Three times in the water; just like Jesus' three days in the tomb after death. The idea behind this is that the person is dying with Christ. Having been baptized, having received that water, we turn to Christ who is our spiritual rock, who will continue to provide the water we need.

In this Lent, brothers and sisters, let us strengthen our relationship with Christ so we may say like the people of the village: “we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

First Sunday of Lent

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030914.cfm 

If we look through the readings for today, we can see that the common theme is about sin and temptation. The temptation to sin that we all feel from time to time is alive and well in the world today. We all know what that feels like: wanting to eat meat when we are supposed to abstain from meat; having a piece of chocolate when we agreed to give up sweets for Lent; watching another TV program when we know we need to get to work on something; viewing images on the Internet, TV, or magazines that we know are not appropriate; saying mean things or gossiping about a person when we think they can’t hear. These are just a few examples of ways in which any one of us might be tempted to sin.

In the first reading today, we hear about the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. We also hear about the very first temptation to sin. I think that it is easy for us to hear this story of the fall and assume that if we had been there, things would have turned out different. We say to ourselves, “If I had been there, I never would have fallen for the serpent’s lies. If I had been there, I never would have eaten that fruit and we would still be in paradise”. Well, there is no telling how different things may have turned out had our parents not taken the fruit, but it is important that we remember who it is that we are dealing with. Satan is the master tempter; he is the expert trickster. He is also very prideful. He is envious that we are so important to the Father that He would send His Son to be just like us in order to save us. Because of that, Satan will do whatever he can to stop us from getting closer to God. A priest once explained to me in a seminary class that we need to remember that Satan is a fallen angel. When he was an angel his name was Lucifer, which means “light barer.” Satan still loves to use light and he uses it to trick us. He doesn't mind if we do good things, like helping the poor or giving things up for Lent, but if he can tempt us into doing those things for the wrong reasons and not doing them for God, then he's happy. Have we ever felt tempted to pat ourselves on the back because we just volunteered several hours of our time at a charity or wanted to tell all those around us about what we gave up for Lent in order to complain about how hard it is, “But I'm still doing a good job”? That is one of many sneaky ways that Satan tries to fool us. We can keep trying to tell ourselves that we wouldn't have fallen for the Devil's tricks in the Garden of Eden, but in reality we fall for a lot of his tricks in our day to day lives as Christians.

Now at this point, it may feel like I'm trying to bring everyone down with all this talk about temptations and Satan's tricks and deception. This homily is not meant to be a guilt ridden homily; I simply want to make a clear point in this first part that Satan has been tempting humanity from the very beginning and is still going strong. However, the readings today are not all about Satan's success at tricking humanity or about his power of temptation. We are also told about the hope that we have in Christ for getting past those temptations and coming to be with God in Heaven.

The Gospel is that famous scene with Jesus in the desert as He is tempted by the Devil. A big theme that Matthew is trying to show in this section is that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. I still get a kick out of reading the line, “He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.” I always want to say, “Well no kidding Sherlock! What was your first clue?” Any of us would be hungry after fasting for one day, let alone forty. But the point is, we would never expect the Son of God to be hungry after fasting for forty days. The fact that He is hungry, means He is human like the rest of us. Another indication that Jesus is human is that Satan can tempt Him. Jesus was like us in all things except sin. That mean the Devil could tempt Him, but as the Son of God He never chose to give in to those temptations.

This story of Jesus' temptation in the desert should give us, as Christians, great hope. From the beginning of time, Satan has been trying to sabotage humanity's relationship with God. Those temptations he lays before us are meant to play to our own pride. When you think about it, the original sin of Adam and Eve was the sin of pride. They thought they knew better than God what was best for them, so they took the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If we continue to think this through to the next step, we realize that all sin is rooted in pride. Whenever we sin, we are essentially making a statement that God's Commandments do not apply to me. Maybe we claim that we are somehow exempt or maybe we just claim to know better than God what we truly need. We are tempted to follow Satan's example of pride. However, when Jesus comes into the world, we now have one whom Satan in unable to tempt with pride. Jesus has no sinful pride; no ego which He so desires to puff up. This is a great hope for all of us, because Jesus was human. He could be tempted, but wouldn't give in. All humans, all Christians, now have hope that we too will one day be free from pride and all sin.

This is accomplished through God's grace. This is what St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans when he wrote, “For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. One man brought suffering and sin into the world. One man, is able to make it possible to get past those sins and be closer to God. Thanks be to God for His abundant grace.

We need not fear Satan, or his temptations, or his tricks. Jesus came and died for us that me might have the grace to get past our own pride and focus completely on the love of God. Let us praise God for that wonderful gift of love and mercy.

Ash Wednesday

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030514.cfm

I don't know about you, but the coming of Lent seems to fill me with fear and trepidation every year.  I know that part of it is not being sure what I am going to give up or do for Lent.  I hem and haw for several weeks, trying to figure out what will be a good challenge for me but not so hard that I'm setting myself up for failure.  I usually don't make the final decision until the night before or the morning of Ash Wednesday.  I also don't like the idea of entering into a time when I have to focus so much on my sins.  I'm not trying to vent about Lent, I'm just saying that I don't like Lent.

But there is really no good reason to fear or dislike Lent that much.  Lent is not meant to be something we fear or agonize over.  In reality, it is meant to bring us joy.  The penances of Lent are meant to help us grow in holiness.  Growing in holiness is meant to bring us closer to God.  Being closer to God brings us joy.

The readings for today help illustrate this misunderstanding we so often have about Lent.  As the prophet Joel talks about, it is not about literally rending our garments or making a big deal about how we are to do penance for our sins.  It is about seeking a closer relationship with God from our hearts.  So too, Jesus talks about all those who try to make a big show of the penances they are doing; either blowing their own horn for how pious they are, or whining about how tough all this stuff is.  That is not the point either.  The sacrifices and fasting and penances you do are between you and God.  Make Lent a time to get closer to God.  Then our joy will be complete.

Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030214.cfm

It started out like any other day. I accompanied my mother to the grocery store. I was in elementary school and everything was going great in the world. This trip to the store was going just as well as any other trip. I don't quite remember what happened next. I think I found something that had caught my interest on a shelf somewhere. Perhaps it was a toy or perhaps it was a treat that I enjoyed. It might have been something shiny that was hanging somewhere. All I know is that I turned to show my mom this wondrous piece of treasure that I had just found, and that was when it happened: my mother was lost! I know. You might be saying to yourself, “Father, are you sure it wasn't actually you who had gotten lost?” Yes, I'm certain of this. I knew exactly where I was. It was my mom who had wondered off. She should have known that we were going down the aisle with all those interesting things in it that I would want to look at.

 But then the worrying began. Where did she go? I look up and down the aisle; she is no where to be seen. I go to the end of the aisle to see if I can see where she turned. Now this store wasn’t very large with just a few people walking around, but from my point of view it might as well have been ten football fields wide and filled with hundreds of people: I couldn’t see her anywhere. She was really lost this time.

 My mind began to play through the possible scenarios of what might happen to me. What if I don't find her? She wouldn't leave without me – would she? What if she kept going and didn't notice that I wasn't there until she got home? What if they lock up the store and leave me inside? I'll be done for. I could see my family talking years later. “Whatever happened to Joe? Oh. We lost him in the grocery store back in '85: never heard from him again. It was tragic, but then we got a dog”.

I was frantic. I needed to find my mother before she completely forgot about me. I began calling out for her, “MOM! MOM!” Of course, as you may have guessed, my Mom was just in the next aisle over. I for one was greatly relieved to see her again (the whole ordeal was all of twenty seconds). My mom was more than a little embarrassed that her son was yelling at the top his lungs in public. She had not forgotten about me at all, and obviously I made it out of the store without being locked in it forever.

As that story helped illustrate, I have always been a worrier. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tended to worry about things that many people do not give that much attention to. I am a master at making mountains out of molehills. I feel very blessed that as an adult, God has given me the grace to not worry or jump to conclusions as much as I used to. I truly believe that it was through the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders that I was able to get past so much of the worrying that I have done in my life. I still worry at times, but now I can get past worrying about the small things and place more of my trust in God.

I joked in my story about thinking that my own mother might forget about me. Sometimes my childhood imagination would get away from me and I would worry about silly things like that. But deep down, I always knew that my mother could never forget me. Just as our first reading from Isaiah tells us, a mother cannot forget about her child. There is such a connection between mother and child it is simply impossible. All the mothers here in the Church today will no doubt tell us the same thing. But even though our life experiences tell us this, we still sometimes worry in this life as if our Father in Heaven has forgotten about us. God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah, “Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” I think we all know this just as well as we know our own parents on earth could never forget us. Yet, when things get hard and stressful in our lives, we blame God, as if He has forgotten about us. We complain that He is the one that left us, when in reality we were the child who left the parent to go look at a shiny new toy in the store. I suppose it is because of our pride that we tend to want to blame others for our misfortunes. We might not necessarily blame God for causing bad things to happen to us, but many times we blame Him for leaving us when we needed Him most. Isn't that just as ridiculous? God will never forsake us.

This passage that we heard in the Gospel of Matthew has a parallel passage in the Gospel of Luke. Both are some of my favorite passages from Sacred Scripture. They are wonderful reminders for someone like me who tends to worry, that there is really no need to worry. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” We then move on to more specific examples. First, Jesus gives us the image of the birds. In Luke's version, He talks about the ravens. Birds don't have to grow their food; they don't have to gather it into barns or containers. They don't have to prepare it to make it suitable for eating. Jesus even adds that we are more important than they are, and God still gives those friendly feathered friends of ours everything that they need.

Christ moves on to the wild flowers. Some translations refer to the lilies of the field. The point is all they do is grow. They don't have to work for their beautiful colors, they don't have to make clothes for themselves or buy them, but they are so beautiful that King Solomon in all his opulence couldn't compare to them. Now I personally love a beautiful flower garden in full bloom and I love seeing a field of wild flowers, but the truth is flowers are no more important than the grass and weeds that we cut and put in brush piles. Yet God gives them all they need. Will He not provide for us all the more?

It's easy for anybody to start worrying about things in life. In fact, I don’t think we will ever be completely free of all worry in this life. But God can help us through the worst of it. Trust in Him and do not worry. He’s closer than you might think.