Lent

1st Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

by

Today’s readings remind us that one of the greatest blessings we’ve received from God is the power to decide, and also the responsibility of being able to decide. We’re free to choose, but that also means we’re free to choose something bad. Lent is a time when we remember and repent for the horrible choices we’ve made personally and as God’s people, and today’s readings show us how we go into these messes and how we can get out of them.

Today’s First Reading reminds us how temptation works, and that we have to take responsibility for our actions, because “the Devil made me do it” and “I didn’t know any better” are so often old, tired, and specious arguments. Adam and Eve had life breathed into them by God himself. We came from dust, which is why every Ash Wednesday one of the formulas for administering the ashes is “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” God created paradise for Adam and Eve, and he also created limits. These limits were for their own good. They could eat the fruit (freedom), but they didn’t think of whether they should eat the fruit (consequences). All the serpent had to do was sow doubt about whether God really had their best interest in mind. Eve considered her options and ate; Adam just seems to follow her lead, and the deed is done.

In today’s Second Reading Paul reminds us that Adam’s decision, as the head of humanity, had consequences, and so does the New Adam’s (Our Lord). Adam, as the head of humanity, was entrusted with its wellbeing throughout the generations. He sinned and lost it all, just like a gambler squandering his family’s livelihood and going bust. One of his sons murders the other out of envy, and death enters into the world, showing the effects of sin. That Original Sin of Adam ushered in death for us all. That is the power and consequence of making decisions. Eve soon led Adam to sin: sin never stays at home, it spreads, just like the consequences of Original Sin spread throughout history, and death reminds us of sin and its consequences.

Yet this power of decision has an even greater potential for good than for evil. Christ, the New Adam, ushers life back into humanity through his good decision. Christ, by becoming man, became the new head of humanity, since he was its greatest example (and still is). He decided to lay down his life out of love for the Father and for us, and through his decision he conquered sin and death for us all.

In today’s Gospel the garden of temptation has been replaced, ages later, as a desert of temptation. Our Lord fasts and prays before beginning his public ministry, and, like all of us, he too has to face temptation in making the right decisions. He does so to teach us how we can face and overcome temptations in order to decide well. The devil tempts him to turn stones to bread in order to satisfy his hunger. Eve saw the forbidden fruit as good for food. Jesus could turn that stone to bread in a snap. But he replies: “One does not live on bread alone.” There are more important things to life than just filling your stomach. These stones being stones, and Jesus being hungry are all part of God’s plan, all part of God’s will. God’s will for us and for others should always shape our decisions.

Since the devil saw that Jesus was a scriptural man, he tried to use some scripture of his own. He took him to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem. The devil insisted that Jesus demand proof of God’s protection, and he had the gall to back it up with Bible verses.We need to have faith in God to make good decisions. Scripture helps us to know his will, not just justify our actions. We can try to make a Biblical case, but it is God who justifies or condemns our actions, not us.

Eve saw that the fruit was good for wisdom, for a knowledge that would make her like God. The devil showed Jesus in an instant all the kingdoms of the world, and all Jesus had to do was grovel at his feet. He offered Jesus everything except the one thing the devil wouldn’t give up: being number one. Jesus stayed focused on who was really number one: his Heavenly Father and the mission he had received —“The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.” Serving God should always shape our decisions. If he is not in first place, our decisions will take a bad turn.

As we head into the desert with Our Lord this Lent, let’s ask him to help us to identify and resist the temptation in our lives right now.

Readings: Genesis 2:7–9, 3:1–7; Psalm 51:3–6, 12–13, 17; Romans 5:12–19; Matthew 4:1–11.

5th Week of Lent, Friday

by

Yesterday‘s Gospel ended with the Jews taking up stones because Jesus claimed he was God. Today’s Gospel takes up John’s account a few chapters later, after Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9) and preaches the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10:1–22). The Jews have once again taken up stones and he challenges them about it. They believe his claim to be God is blasphemy, and he points them back to the many signs he has already performed that show they should believe in him. For them Jesus is either crazy, a blasphemer, or both. For them it’s unthinkable that God could be standing before him, which is why to rationalize how he could be performing these signs they claim he has a demon (John 7:20, 8:48-49, 10:20-21): possession would make him crazy and able to have powers. Even that explanation does not hold weight for everyone in the crowd, because some of his signs are to great for them to conceive anyone other than God doing them (see John 10:21).

As John’s account tells us, Jesus has to escape and hide now to avoid arrest. John no longer simply says his hour had not yet come. The “hour” in John’s Gospel refers to Jesus’ Passion and death, and it is close. Despite the charged atmosphere and hostility the Word sown has begun to bear fruit. People come to Our Lord across the Jordan and continue to follow and believe in him because of the signs he has performed. They know those signs could only be explained by Our Lord being sent by God. It’s poignant that the story comes full circle, back to where John had been baptizing; John had pointed to Our Lord and testified to him being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the greatest power of all. Now the Lamb is gathering his disciples around himself not long before before he does take away the sins of the world on the Cross.

Our Lord still works signs, but to those who have faith. When he appears after the Resurrection, he only appears to those who had faith in him. Make this last week of Lent a moment of prayer where you contemplate the things Our Lord has worked in your life. He’s always willing to reveal something new.

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10–13; Psalm 18:2–7; John 10:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Thursday

by

Today’s Gospel concludes the long discourse we’ve read in the liturgy over the last week regarding the arguments between Jesus and the Jews who didn’t believe in him (John 8). Yesterday he spoke with some who had believed in him, but, scratching beneath the surface, their faith was shaped more by his telling off the incredulous Jews than by deep convictions. Even yesterday Our Lord warned those in the crowd who believed in him that they were slaves to sin in need of liberation in order to really treat God as their Father again. The response was hostility.

Now Our Lord, having just received another barrage of name-calling due to his teachings (John 8:47–49), and after a long attempt to tell them the truth, a truth that could only be accepted in faith, he lays it on the line: he claims to have power over life and death, and to have seen Abraham and pleased him. The crowds respond that he is possessed (in other words, insane) to think that he is greater than Abraham and greater than the prophets, yet he is. It all comes down to the words for which they sought to stone him: “before Abraham came to be, I AM.” “I AM” was how the Lord told Moses to identify him when he went to free Abraham’s descendants in Egypt (Exodus 3:13–15), and now Jesus was identifying not only his Father as God, but himself. If he is God he’d have power over death, and be able to know Abraham personally. For his listeners that is the last straw.

A deeper relationship with Christ requires not only embracing his humanity, through which he makes himself accessible to us, but his divinity as well. Through faith in him we are led to a deeper trust in him and love for him, and God goes from being some all-powerful being overshadowing us, aloof and distant, to someone who loves us and is close to us. In a week and a day we’ll see the depths of his love on the Cross.

Readings: Genesis 17:3–9; Psalm 105:4–9; John 8:51–59.

5th Week of Lent, Wednesday

by

Yesterday Our Lord addressed the Jews who didn’t believe in him or in the Father. Today he addresses those who did believe in him, and he reminds us that faith alone is not enough; there has to be a change of heart, a conversion. To understand what Our Lord is saying today about the Father and the “father” of the Jews he is addressing we have to consider a moment in the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve. The Lord, addressing the serpent who contribute to the Fall, says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3:15, NABRE).

The Jews are thinking of being blood descendants of Abraham. Our Lord is speaking of whose side they’ve chosen by their behavior. Our Lord is the “offspring” who strikes at the head of the serpent’s offspring, a fatal blow. Our Lord is offering them a way to return to the right side: to return to the family of God by turning away from sin. As he describes in today’s Gospel, those who sin enslave themselves. The fact that they seek Our Lord’s death shows that they are not on the side of Our Lord, or of Abraham, or of the Father, because they are trying to kill the truth that could set them free. Our Lord is trying to convince them to change back to the winning side; it they don’t, they may slow down God’s designs, but ultimately they’ll fail.

The young men in today’s First Reading were clear regarding which side they were on, regardless of the consequences. In a world that often entices us to sacrifice our Christian principles, let’s show the same boldness as the young men by believing in Christ and the winning side and giving witness to it, no matter how much the world seems to threaten us.

Readings: Daniel 3:14–20, 91–92, 95; Daniel 3:52–56; John 8:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Tuesday

by

In today’s Gospel the Jews who don’t understand what Our Lord is trying to teach him are like people who’ve become so accustomed to listening to a muffled voice that they don’t even realize it’s muffled anymore. Even now they have an intuition that Our Lord is trying to tell them something: they recognize he is speaking of some sort of departure that involves death, they recognize that he claims to be someone special, and they recognize that he claims to be sent by someone very important to knowing and understanding the importance of him and his mission.

Like the Israelites in today’s First Reading, their lack of faith has condemned them to wandering, lost, confused, and angry in a desert. The Israelites feared the Promised Land and therefore returned into the desert. The Lord provided for them and they complained about it. Just as the Lord sent them what they needed to survive in the desert, now he has sent his Son to lead them out of the desert. It is a lack of faith that strands them: that generation of Israelites died never entering the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and their sin. Our Lord is warning the Jews in today’s Gospel who don’t believe in him or the Father that they are lost, and they are not open to letting Jesus guide them out of the desert of their lack of faith.

Not everyone listening to Our Lord that day heard a muffled voice; John tells us that, “Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.” Faith is what enables us to hear and understand what Our Lord is trying to say. Ask him for a greater faith and let him lead you out of whatever spiritual desert in which you may be wandering.

Readings: Numbers 21:4–9; Psalm 102:2–3, 16–21; John 8:21–30.