Lent

1st Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Just as the Ninevites in today’s First Reading, Lent is a time when all Christians consider Our Lord’s call for repentance and conversion and consider the path they’ve taken in life. The Ninevites believed the Lord’s warning of destruction; he didn’t exhort repentance, but gave them forty days to figure that out, and they did. Our Lord in today’s Gospel, faced with the incredulity of the crowds, takes them to task for not just rejecting a prophet’s warning, but a warning from God the Son himself. Our Lord warns us that amidst all the “career options” and “lifestyle choices” there is really one path to take. People speak of the road to Hell, but there is only one true road that goes anywhere: the road toward being with God forever that we call Heaven. It’s a road where following the right vocation and making the right choices leads us. If we turn away from that road we’re lost and may contribute to others being led astray as well.

That thought would be fatalistic if we didn’t remember the point of arrival: a fulfilled and content life in communion with God, a rest from all our labors. In short, true and lasting happiness. Repentance and conversion are not just to make life more miserable or to cramp our lifestyle; they’re the way to get back on track and take the only road and the only lifestyle that truly matters: in imitation of Christ and in communion with God and with others. Otherwise we won’t go the distance.

Nineveh received a forty day grace period to figure it out; these days of Lent remind us that our whole life is a grace period to find and follow the right road. Let’s use this grace period to recover and foster a life of grace so that when it expires we’re not faced with a dead end or lost along the way. The choice is ours.

Readings: Jonah 3:1–10; Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 18–19; Luke 11:29–32. See also 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday,  16th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday and the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

1st Week of Lent, Tuesday

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Lent is a good time to take stock of our prayer, and today Our Lord reminds us that prayer should be simple and reflect the state of our heart. The petitions we make reflect and shape our attitudes as well as our willingness to be pleasing in his sight. The Lord’s Prayer contains the simplest, most basic petitions and attitudes on which all our prayer should be founded.

We ask that God be glorified in Heaven and on earth, and we know that the best way to glorify God is to help his will be done, showing that he is someone special to us and good for the whole world. His will, as today’s First Reading reminds us, will be done; that “word” that goes forth from him is his Son, and his Son will accomplish Our Father’s will in Heaven and on earth. We can second that in our lives or be spectators left out in the cold when it happens without our participation. It all rests on our willingness and our effort.

We ask for our daily bread. Not yachts, fame, riches, but what we need. What we need is very simple; sometimes we lose sight of that. We should strive to make what we want not much more than what we need in a spirit of Gospel poverty. We may have nice things, but we know they’re to provide for our needs and to be used to help provide for the needs of others.

We ask for forgiveness, but, just as importantly, we ask for the grace to forgive others, because we know the degree we receive mercy is determined by the degree to which we show it. Our Lord reiterates this connection in today’s Gospel and also dedicates an entire parable to the subject (see Matthew 18:21–35).

Lastly, we acknowledge that we cannot effectively resist temptation and battle evil alone. We need Our Lord’s help, first in not getting into situations of temptation or evil in the first place, but also in giving us the grace we need to overcome temptation and be holy.

A long path of prayer remains this Lent. Meditate on the Lord’s Prayer and see what needs and attitudes you are bringing before Our Lord. Lent is a time for changing attitudes for the better.

Readings: Isaiah 55:10–11; Psalm 34:4–7, 16–19; Matthew 6:7–15. See also 11th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

1st Week of Lent, Monday

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In today’s First Reading the Lord frames the need to be just and to love your neighbor as yourself as a way to be holy just as he is holy. The Lord reveals something that anyone with common sense and good will can see. Being ethical is a way of being loving, and loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself is a path to holiness. During Lent one possible Lenten resolution is almsgiving. Making an extra effort to be ethical and to be loving is a way of giving alms. In today’s First Reading the Lord describes many ways in which others can be in difficulty, and how helping them and being attentive to their needs is a path to holiness.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord gives another reason for loving and caring for others. The Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” receives an explanation: what you do unto others you are also doing to the Lord himself. Love for neighbor goes from just being the ethical and loving thing to do to being a way to love God himself. Sometimes Our Lord hides really well in those we’re trying to love. Many saints throughout history have persevered in loving nasty, smelly, offensive, ungrateful people because they know they are loving Our Lord and showing those people how much God loves them. We may not feel loving or feel the love, but we continue to try based on a deeper spiritual conviction that it is the right thing to do and also a way of loving Our Lord. When we live this deep spiritual conviction, driven by charity, the difference between those who don’t and us is like the difference between a nasty cranky goat and a humble simple sheep: night and day.

Let’s take stock of our charity today toward God and others and expunge the inner goat.

Readings: Leviticus 19:1–2, 11–18; Psalm 19:8–10, 15; Matthew 25:31–46.

 

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1st Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

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Lent is forty days long (symbolically speaking) because we imitate Christ going into the desert at the start of his public ministry for forty days of prayer, fasting, and temptation. Every year we go into the desert with Our Lord. We can have the attitude of rolling our eyes and saying to ourselves, “here we go again.” Why do we have to remember these mysteries over and over again? We remember and relive this mysteries in order to go beyond spiritual monotony and attain spiritual profundity.

In today’s First Reading Moses tells the Israelites how to present the first fruits as gifts from God, remembering how long they wandered in the desert. We have only just started, and we have many fruits to present to Our Lord: five days of fresh Lenten effort. Maybe for some of us our stomach has started to grumble, like Jesus’ after forty days of fasting. Maybe we’re not feeling the pinch yet, so we need to keep making an effort. The grumbling stomachs will come at one point or another. Whenever the Israelites in the desert had a hard time, the first bad thing they wished for was to return to the fleshpots of Egypt. We give up sweets and our mind is on the ice cream parlor.

However, in today’s Second Reading St. Paul reminds us that the word is near us. It’s not just a spoken word: it is the Word made flesh. Jesus is with us during our first days in the desert trying not to think of the dessert, and St. Paul reminds us we must have him on our lips and in our heart. All we have to do is call upon him and we will be saved from falling into temptation. It can seem that Jesus’s word is spiritually monotonous. Our stomachs grumble, we turn to him for an encouraging word, and he says the same things, over and over: Man shall not live by bread alone, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. We ask the Holy Spirit and it says go into into the desert for forty days. We turn to Mary for advice, and she just says, “Do whatever he tells you.” Arrrgh.

Congratulations, you are praying and fasting. The desert is dry. You look around and there’s lots of sand and sun, but no beach. Wild animals are looking at you wondering if you taste like chicken, but you’re following the Holy Spirit’s promptings, listening to Our Lord, asking Mary’s advice. Good job. The monotony reflects the fact that, for a part of you, this is not what you want, but the better part of you knows it is what you need. There is life in the desert. God led the Israelites around there for forty years (not days, years) so that he could spend quality time with them, away from the distractions, and away from the dangers. The Israelites weren’t just attached to those fleshpots in Egypt; the gods of Egypt had started to appeal to them as well.

So if you’re not feeling the grumbling yet, or the spiritual monotony is starting, it’s time to analyze the fleshpots for which the fallen part of you is longing, but do it with the Lord’s word in your lips and in your heart. Whatever stone you’d rather be bread, whatever empire of ego you’d like to sell out God for, whatever sign you expect him to show to prove himself to you, look at it through the lens of Jesus’ words. It will be like putting on your glasses to take in the panorama after just having a fuzzy view. Through his words you will go beyond the monotony and start attaining profundity. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to really help us use this time in the desert to go deeper.

Readings: Deuteronomy 26:4–10; Psalm 91:1–2, 10–15; Romans 10:8–13; Luke 4:1–13.

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Saturday after Ash Wednesday

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Today’s Gospel can be a cause for depression or a cause for inspiration. If everyone in a room was asked to raise their hand if they were a sinner, the only two who wouldn’t raise their hand would be Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary. We’re all sinners and we are called to repentance and conversion, especially during Lent, because we are sinners. Levi (the apostle Matthew) was a sinner and his friends and associates were sinners. When he arranges a dinner and invites Our Lord, Our Lord knows with whom he is going to be spending time. They are exactly who he wants to meet; they are lost in darkness and need light and healing, just as Matthew does, and Our Lord wants to heal them and lead them out of their personal darkness.

The Pharisees and scribes are understandably shocked by Jesus’s behavior and associations, but he has come to guide sinners out of their darkness. Caravaggio’s depiction of the calling of St. Matthew is priceless: it seems Our Lord is lancing a ray of light into Matthew’s face, and he is starting to see things clearly for the first time. The First Reading today talks about gloom turning into light when we strive for justice and abandon sin. Our Lord turns that darkness into light for us, and that is a cause for inspiration: we don’t have to feel our way blindly out of our self-inflicted darkness alone, because Christ will be our light.

Let’s take stock today and acknowledge ourselves to be sinners before God in need of light and healing. Lent is a time for sinners to repent. Let’s reconcile with Our Lord and with others this Lent through the sacrament of Reconciliation, and invite others to do so as well.

Readings: Isaiah 58:9b–14; Psalm 86:1–6; Luke 5:27–32. See also St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist and 1st Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday.

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