Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Isaiah 55:10-11  +  Matthew 6:7-15
March 3, 2020

“If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”

Our prayers of petition add nothing to God:  neither to His knowledge of us, nor to His love for us.  God cannot love us more than He already does. Likewise, He knows everything about us, better then we know ourselves.  He knows our past lives, our current thoughts, motives and actions, and our destiny.  So if we offer our petitions to God, since we do so not for God’s sake, we must do so for our sake.  But in what sense is this true?

If our petitions are answered as we wish, then the act of petitioning God beforehand helps our little minds understand our dependence on God:  that every good thing comes from him, not from ourselves.

If our petitions are not answered as we wish, because what we wish is contrary to what God wishes for us, then the act of petitioning God helps our little hearts turn towards Him and ask questions about our own desires, and how we might need to reform them.  Hopefully this helps us enter more deeply into God’s Heart and His desires for us.

Yet if our petitions are not answered as we wish because what we wish is something we are not ready for, then the act of petitioning God helps our little souls to grow in their capacity and desire for God’s good gift.  We hear St. Augustine speak to this holy need in the Office of Readings during the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time:

“The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.  Now what you long for, you do not yet see:  however, by longing, you are made capable, so that when that has come which you may see, you shall be filled.  For just as, if you would fill a bag, and know how great the thing is that shall be given, you stretch the opening of the sack or the skin, or whatever else it be—you know how much you would put in, and see that the bag is narrow—by stretching you make it capable of holding more.  So God, by deferring our hope, stretches our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, increases its capacity.  Let us desire therefore, my brethren, for we shall be filled.”

Monday of the First Week of Lent
Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18  +  Matthew 25:31-46
March 2, 2020

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

At the beginning of this first full week of Lent, Jesus preaches to us about the Final Judgment.  The parable that Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel passage reminds us of the old adage:  “Always begin with your end in mind.”  This saying is good for reflection first thing in the morning, as an entire day upon God’s green earth stretches out before us.  At the beginning of the day we pray the Morning Offering, which reminds us that each day on earth is about God:  living in His love, and for His glory.

This saying—“Always begin with the end in mind.”—is good for reflection at the beginning of Lent, as we recognize our need for conversion, our need for forgiveness, and our need for redemption.  Thanks be to God that all of these are possible in Christ!

Some would argue that God’s Judgment at the Second Coming inspires fear, and so therefore we ought not reflect upon either the Second Coming, or upon the three of the four Last Things that seem “negative”:  Hell, death and judgment.  But Hell, death and judgment do not come directly from God.  God permits each, but only when man chooses them.  God’s direct choice is always love.  Love is the end for which God has created each person.  Reflecting upon the consequences of the Last Things help us more firmly choose God in all things, even in suffering.

The First Sunday of Lent [A]
Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7  +  Romans 5:12,17-19  +  Matthew 4:1-11

“The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”

+     +     +

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 394, 538-540, 2119: the temptation of Jesus
CCC 2846-2849: “Lead us not into temptation”
CCC 385-390, 396-400: the Fall
CCC 359, 402-411, 615: Adam, Original Sin, Christ the New Adam

+     +     +

The first time that I travelled to Europe, I decided to visit two particular sites:  the Oxford residence of St. John Henry Newman, and the cell where St. Thomas More was imprisoned before his beheading.

I knew that it would be a long time before I’d have the chance to visit England again.  So I was determined to take a lot of photographs.  I recalled my boyhood lessons in 4-H photography classes.  There are really only a few basic types of pictures, which include the panorama, the group photo, and the portrait.

The panorama helps the viewer’s eyes look out towards a horizon, to imagine a scene that goes on and on.  In the group photo, there are several persons, either doing something together or simply posing together.  The viewer’s eyes look around from one person to the next, and put them together to form one scene.

But the portrait is different.  The portrait focuses the eyes of the viewer.  There is simply one person to look at.  If there are other things in the picture, they can easily distract the viewer’s focus.  But a good portrait draws an onlooker’s eyes toward the person who is at its center.

The panorama and the group picture are not so difficult to take.  You have to spend some time finding a good panorama or group picture, but they are easier to create than the portrait.  To create a portrait, a photographer has to focus his attention on the subject, and somehow has to capture the spirit of that person as an individual.

The season of Lent invites us to focus our eyes upon Jesus Christ.  We are invited to focus not just on the dramatic events which make up this season—such as His temptation in the desert, His trial and Crucifixion—but on the person of Jesus Himself.  If we focus on Who He is, than we understand why He did the things He did.  But this is actually harder than it seems.

As we heard in the Gospel on Ash Wednesday, Jesus wants us to use this time for extra prayer, sacrifices, and acts of charity.  But none of these will have meaning unless they help us focus on the person of Christ Jesus.  After all, as the Gospel made clear on Wednesday, good things can become bad actions is a person’s motive is bad:  for example, giving to the poor simply in order to get a tax write-off does not impress God very much, and doesn’t strengthen one’s soul very much.

Looking squarely at Christ is our way of turning from sin and turning toward God.  It helps us put things in order.  It helps us reverse the course that leads us from pride, to sin, to death.  This is why God thousands of years ago gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.  There’s a reason why the First is first:  the First commandment that God speaks to us is the most important:  “I am the Lord, your God.  You shall not have strange gods before me.”  The First Commandment helps reverse the course of the first sin:  the Original Sin that we hear again in our First Reading today.

We might be tempted to take the easy way out:  to think of God’s First Commandment as referring only to those who bow down before golden calves, or in some manner worship the devil.  We should recognize, though, that the devil is much more subtle than we give him credit for.  The devil seeks to work his way into our lives through anything that he thinks we might not just like, but through anything that he thinks that we will be unable to detach ourselves from.

The word “detachment” sums up the Season of Lent.  It’s not that every Christian must live like a monk and have no possessions.  But we are not to be attached to them.  We should be able to let them go if they are taken from us.  Because in the end, whether through disaster or death, everything will be taken from us except for our soul.  Everything that’s not important will remain here on earth.  Everything that is important, if it’s rooted in God, will be part of our life with God and the communion of His saints forever.  Focusing on Jesus during Lent will help us to see the difference.

Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Isaiah 58:9-14  +  Luke 5:27-32
February 29, 2020

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

During Lent, any time that you hear the word “way” you ought to think of the Via Dolorosa:  the “Way of Sorrows”.  This is the way from the city of Jerusalem to the top of the hill of Calvary, where Jesus’ feet and wrists were nailed to a cross.  For the Jews in ancient days, Jerusalem was the greatest city on the face of the earth.  It was as close to Heaven as you could find on earth.  Little wonder, then, that the city of Jerusalem was often used in the Scriptures as a “type” or symbol for Heaven.  This is where the phrase “the heavenly Jerusalem” comes from.

Jerusalem was so great a place that anyone who resided there would rarely leave it.  If they did, it would only be for a serious reason.  But to go outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem, and travel up to the hill of Calvary in order to be crucified:  there was a particular shame in this.  Going outside of Jerusalem to be killed by the state was symbolic of being an outcast in death.

So you can see how this way—the Via Dolorosa—was not only a way of sorrow, but of shame as well.  No wonder that most of the apostles weren’t willing to walk the Way of the Cross behind their Master.

But this is the “way” that the Psalmist foreshadowed:  “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.”  It is a way of contradiction, because it leads from a city of life, power and strength, to a barren hilltop of death, weakness and impotence.  It is not a way that any right-thinking person would want to go, if he learned about what’s important from the teachers of this world.

But Our Lord has a unique way to teach us:  a way that we learn only in the process of following Him.  This way leads to mercy, forgiveness and—through mercy and forgiveness—divine love.  For all the times that we are tempted by our culture to cultivate bitterness, anger and resentment against those who have hurt and harmed us, Our Lord invites us to follow Him along a different way.

Friday after Ash Wednesday
Isaiah 58:1-9  +  Matthew 9:14-15
February 28, 2020

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit….

Both John the Baptist’s disciples in the Gospel Reading and the house of Jacob in the First Reading are thoroughly focused upon themselves.  The people of the house of Jacob seem to be fasting as a way of gaining leverage in their negotiations with God.  John’s disciples want to know why Jesus’ disciples don’t have to fast in the same way they do.

In both readings God is trying to make clear what the purpose of fasting (or, in fact, any type of penance) is.  On the surface, when we fast we are imitating Christ, who fasted for forty days in the desert.  Whenever we carry out works of penance by denying something we want, we are imitating Christ who denied his own life for our sake.

But on a deeper level, through our penance we are clearing out our souls.  We are clearing out of our soul those desires which serve only ourselves.  The more and more we remove these desires, the more room there is in our soul for the desires of God, the fruit of which are the works that He wants to accomplish within us and through us.

Lent is about preparing our souls to accept the Cross of Christ in our own lives.  When we seek to follow in the footsteps of Christ, we ourselves are led to Calvary, where with Mary and the apostle John we gaze upon our God who died for us.  At the foot of the cross we learn humility and gratitude for the sacrifice Christ made on the Cross for us.

Abiding in the Word offers theological reflections in a video format.  Here is the reflection for the First Sunday of Lent [Year A], March 1st 2020.

Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Deuteronomy 30:15-20  +  Luke 9:22-25
February 27, 2020

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

There are three steps to Jesus’ counsel in today’s Gospel passage.  Jesus explains to us:  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  Each of the three steps within this counsel is necessary to entering into the mysteries of Lent.  They are like three legs of a stool:  if you remove one leg, the stool will not stand.

Many Christians are willing to make sacrifices during Lent:  they are willing to deny themselves chocolate, or television, or even Facebook!  But Jesus says that to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves much more:  each of us has to deny his very self.  But what does this mean?

We can’t answer that question until we understand how we define the human self.  For many of us, our self is self-defined, because we believe in what the culture around us tells us about being a “self-made man”.  To experience deeper conversion in our lives, we have to allow God to define the terms of our lives.

But denying one’s very self is only the first step.  The second step is for the Christian to take up his cross “daily”:  not just during Lent; not just once you’ve got life figured out; but “daily”.  Crosses can come into our lives from many different places:  from our own foolish mistakes, from the evil choices of others, or from the loving and merciful will of a Father who knows what is best for us.  There are many situations in our lives as Christians that allow us to bring about goodness into this world, if only we are willing to bear our crosses daily.

The third step of the Lord’s command is to follow Him.  That is to say, we should recognize where the first two steps are leading us.  If we deny our very self, and take up our cross each day, then we are headed with Jesus to Calvary.  That’s where Jesus will lead us, if we follow Him.  We do not need to be frightened by this, because if—like Our Blessed Mother and the Beloved Disciple—we walk with Jesus to Calvary, He has promised that we will experience the joy of His Risen Life, a life which is deeper than any suffering, and everlasting.

Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:12-18  +  2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2  +  Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
February 26, 2020

For our sake He made Him to be sin who did not know sin ….

One way to meditate upon the whole of Lent is to allow our Lenten journey—including our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—to be a means to enter into the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  Every baptized Christian shares in this priesthood, and the baptismal priesthood shapes every other call that God gives.

One phrase in particular from today’s Second Reading forces us to reckon with the depth of Jesus’ priesthood.  What does Saint Paul mean when, speaking about God the Father and the Son, he states that “For our sake He made Him to be sin who did not know sin”?  This saving truth reminds us about three distinct forms of humility that Jesus accepted for our salvation, through which He stands between sinful man and the divine Father.

First, we need to reflect upon God the Son humbling Himself to become human at the Annunciation.  Jesus stands between God and man as True God and true man.  For scriptural meditation on this saving mystery during Lent, we might use the prologue of St. John’s Gospel account, or the canticle of Christ’s humility found in the second chapter of Philippians.

Then, more than thirty years after His conception, this divine Word made Flesh offered up His life on the Cross.  We need to reflect upon Jesus’ humility on Calvary.  Upon the Cross, Jesus is not an Old Testament priest, crying and weeping and offering a dumb animal in sacrifice.  In humility, the Word made Flesh sacrifices His own Body and Blood, soul and divinity.  To reflect on this saving mystery, we might use the Passion narrative from any of the four Gospel accounts.

But within this second form of Jesus’ humility dwells a third:  a mystery that we must not underestimate.  Again, in speaking about the Father sending His divine Son to save us, the Apostle declares:  “For our sake He made Him to be sin who did not know sin”.

Often when we meditate upon the Passion of the Christ—say, for example, during the Stations of the Cross—we are impressed by how awfully man’s sins affect Jesus.  We might imagine the Cross as “containing” our sins, so that the physical weight of Jesus’ heavy cross symbolizes the spiritual weight of all mankind’s sins.  Or we might imagine each lash from the Scourging at the Pillar as representing an individual sin.  But while those images may help us meditate upon the meaning of the Passion, St. Paul is saying something even more profound.

God the Father made His divine Son “to be sin”:  not only to carry sin, or be wounded by sin, but to be made sin.  Jesus, who from before time began was true God, stands not only in the place of sinners, but in the place of sin.  This is where He offers sacrifice as a new and everlasting priest.  His stance between merciful grace and man’s sins brings both together in Himself, where the former destroys the latter, for us men and for our salvation.

Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time [II]
James 4:1-10 +  Mark 9:30-37
February 25, 2020

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

Today’s Gospel passage points our attention back to one of the first lessons of the liturgical year.  This lesson is expressed in the saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.”  Another way of expressing the same truth is to say that “the only reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world”, or perhaps rather, “for this world”.  We might be tempted at Christmastime to think only of the innocence of the infant Christ, without connecting this innocence to the purity of the Lamb who was slain on Calvary.

It might seem strange for today’s Gospel passage to meander from Jesus’ prediction of His Passion and Death at the passage’s beginning to His holding up a child for emulation at its end.  But this beginning and end are connected by Jesus Himself.

Jesus, as a divine person, is completely innocent (indeed more so than any child) that He becomes a fitting sacrifice on Calvary.  We may think of innocence as a goal of our spiritual life because it prepares us to be fit for Heaven.  Perhaps greater spiritual growth might come from seeing innocence as preparing us for a share in Jesus’ Passion during our earthly life.