The Third Sunday of Lent [C]
Exodus 3:1-8,13-15  +  1 Corinthians 10:1-6,10-12  +  Luke 13:1-9

“But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

We’re all familiar with the practice of giving something up for Lent.  The saints show us how to complement that Lenten practice with the practice of doing something positive as well.  That is to say, in addition to what we “give up”, we need also to “take up”.  We need to take up added prayers and works of mercy.

Sacrifices, prayers, and works of mercy are, of course, commanded by Jesus Himself in the Gospel Reading of Ash Wednesday [Matthew 6:1-6,16-18].  Lent has a powerful ability to bring our spiritual life into focus through these three works.  However, there is a danger here that we need to be mindful of.

Lent lasts (roughly) forty days.  A year lasts (usually) 365 days.  Therefore, Lent is about eleven percent of the calendar year.  That’s not a large percentage.  Certainly, it’s something to be grateful for when we take Lent seriously and are active in works of sacrifice, prayer, and mercy.  But if Easter Week comes and all those works fall by the wayside, something is wrong.  God doesn’t want His People running at 11% capacity.

In other words, for the Christian, the works of sacrifice, prayer, and mercy should be a part of one’s daily life:  for 365 days a year, not forty.  It’s for this reason that Jesus cautions us:  “if you do not repent, you will all perish”.

The end Jesus speaks of here is a violent death:  not the suffering of martyrdom, but the suffering of hell.  Like the vinedresser in the Gospel Reading, God has given us another year in which to make the works of sacrifice, prayer, and mercy our own.  God has given us another year in which to see these three works as the discipline—the hoeing and the pruning—by which the Holy Spirit works in our souls.

Jesus is asking each of us to reform our lives.  Of course, it is a good practice to give up something we like for forty days in order to grow spiritually.  However, we must also consider ourselves to be like children who each year are given more chores and more responsibilities around the home.  Each new Church year should see each of us take more spiritual responsibility upon one’s shoulders.  The Season of Lent is merely the best time of the year to introduce these responsibilities.

This Sunday’s Second Reading draws our attention back to the Old Testament, back to the desert that stretched between Egypt and Israel, between the slavery of the Pharaoh and the freedom of the Lord.  Saint Paul, in preaching to the Christians in Corinth, is reminding them that they, like the Israelites of old, have been freed from slavery.  He is reminding them that they, too, are wandering through a desert.  He is reminding them that they, too, are seeking a place where they can rest in freedom.

When Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, God the Holy Spirit inspired his words.  This is the same Holy Spirit who inspired the saints during their earthly days to pray for guidance and strength throughout their lives.  This is the same Holy Spirit who is guiding us through the desert of Lent.  This is the same Holy Spirit who is guiding us through the often difficult journey of our lives, and who brings into our lives a freedom that bars cannot confine, and that death cannot destroy.

God the Holy Spirit led all the Israelites of old under the same pillar of cloud.  God the Father fed all the Israelites of old with the same spiritual food and quenched their thirst with the same spiritual drink.  Nonetheless, though God guided all the Israelites, we know that God was not pleased with most of them, for “they were struck down in the desert.”

God was not pleased with most of them because they were never satisfied with what they had.  Most of them failed ever to express gratitude to God for what He had done for them as they journeyed through their desert.

We are foolish if we believe that we can journey through a desert without a guide.  We seek the Holy Spirit as guide and comforter during Lent, most especially through the Sacrament of Confession.  God through Confession graces us not only with forgiveness, but also with strength for works of sacrifice, prayer, and mercy.

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
Jeremiah 17:5-10  +  Luke 16:19-31

“‘… neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’”

At first hearing, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus might fool us, in just the same way that the Parable of the Prodigal Son can fool us.  When St. Luke the Evangelist narrates his account of Jesus teaching the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the evangelist makes clear that Jesus is teaching this parable to the scribes and the Pharisees.

So who in the Parable of the Prodigal Son symbolizes the scribes and the Pharisees?  It’s not the Prodigal Son.  Nor is it the Prodigal Son’s father, who prodigally—that is to say, lavishly—bestows mercy on his prodigal son.  No, it’s the older son who symbolizes the scribes and the Pharisees:  the older son who refuses to enter the feast thrown by the father for the prodigal son.  So then, if we were to name this parable after the audience to whom Jesus preached it, we might well call this the “Parable of the Miserly Son”:  that is, the son who was miserly when it came to showing mercy.

With that in mind, consider today’s Gospel passage.  Here Jesus teaches what’s commonly called the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  But that name for the parable, like all the names of the parables, are modern inventions.  Jesus never gave a name to any of His parables.  But in the first line of today’s Gospel passage, the evangelist tells us that Jesus preached this parable to the Pharisees.

We need to remember that the same dynamic at work in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is at play here also.  The Pharisees are not symbolized by either the rich man or Lazarus.  Who in today’s parable symbolize the Pharisees?  The five brothers of the rich man symbolize the Pharisees.  When Abraham declares, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead”, the clear reference is to the Pharisees not being persuaded by Jesus’ future resurrection from the dead.  Jesus wants the Pharisees to accept the graces that God offers, even if those graces come through simple and humble messengers.

Just as the rich man during his life on earth failed to lead his five brothers to God, so each of us has a choice about whether or not to be a messenger from God to others.  Or in other words, each of us needs to be a human angel—metaphorically speaking—because the word “angel” literally means a “messenger”.  Whether we intend to or not, we send messages to others all the time.  But are the messages we send others of God’s kindness, mercy, compassion, and forbearing?

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
Jeremiah 18:18-20  +  Matthew 20:17-28

Remember that I stood before you to speak in their behalf, to turn away your wrath from them.

Today’s First Reading is taken from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, whose prophecy echoes throughout the season of Lent.  One of the hallmarks of the Book of Jeremiah is his account of how he must suffer in order to be a faithful prophet.  As such, this hallmark reveals two points for the attention of Christians, though the second grows out of the first.

First, Jeremiah’s suffering as a prophet foreshadows the vocation of Jesus Christ.  Jesus was not only a prophet, of course, but during His three years of public ministry, His prophetic preaching and prophetic miracles were a prime motive for those who sought His death.  So we ought to listen again to the First Reading and imagine it as describing the suffering of Jesus.

Second, each Christian is called by God to live fully in Christ.  This means that each Christian is called by virtue of his or her baptism to share in the three roles that Jesus exercised during His earthly life:  the roles of priest, prophet and king.  Each Christian, in his or her own way, is meant to speak and act prophetically.  In this, we ought to keep in mind that a biblical prophet is not someone who predicts the future, but someone who reminds others—by word and example—of the demands of God’s Word.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
Isaiah 1:10,16-20  +  Matthew 23:1-12

“You have but one Father in heaven.”

Sometimes this verse is quoted against Catholics, who address their priests as “Father”.  However, you don’t at the same time hear the New Testament Letter to Philemon quoted, where Saint Paul says, “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment” (verse 10).  Are these words of Saint Paul un-biblical, and un-Christian?

Or ought we, rather, look at today’s Gospel passage in its own scriptural context?  Scripturally, the first and last verses of today’s Gospel passage help us see the meaning of Jesus’ words:  “You have but one Father in heaven.”

Jesus begins by pointing out the contradiction of the scribes and Pharisees.  They legitimately hold the “chair of Moses”, but the choices of their lives are illegitimate.  They do not practice what they preach.  These first words of the passage present the problem.

The passage’s last words present the answer:  “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  Everything in between is a means to this end.  Today, then, reflect on this question:  “How often do I pray specifically to God the Father, and nurture my relationship with Him as if I were indeed a humble child of His?”

Monday of the Second Week of Lent
Daniel 9:4-10  +  Luke 6:36-38

But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!

Lent is a season of perspective.  Our “great and awesome God”, as Daniel describes him, is infinite in all His qualities:  beauty, simplicity, and mercy, to name only a few.  God’s mercy is our great focus during this season.

God’s love for us is infinite, and when we sin even in the smallest way, we offend this infinite love.  God’s mercy is an expression of his love.  Some people love, but only up to a point.  Many of us, perhaps, are the sort of person who cannot love once we are offended.  We insist that the one who has offended us does not deserve our love.

Yet who of us deserves love?  What is love if not a gift?  God the Father shows us what real love is in offering us His gift of mercy as a means of reconciliation, in the very light of our rejection of His gift of love.  God’s mercy knows no bounds.  What of ours?  Can we put our need to have mercy on others in perspective with God’s mercy towards us?

Jesus also speaks in the Gospel passage about perspective.  He points out to us that the measure we use will be measured back to us.  This is what we pray every time we recite the Our Father:  “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  That word “as” is the fulcrum within this vital petition.  Let us show mercy to the extent that we wish to receive mercy.

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 26:16-19  +  Matthew 5:43-48

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus focuses our attention on how to love our neighbor.  As a backdrop to His words today, we ought to keep in mind Jesus’ two great commands:  to love God and to love our neighbor.  We also need to remember His parable about the Good Samaritan, and its point concerning who exactly our neighbor is.

Jesus is teaching us not only not to hate our enemies, but to consider them our neighbors.  To help us appreciate this, Jesus points to the impartiality of God’s treatment of human beings even on the natural level of life:  “your Heavenly Father… makes His sun rise on the bad and the good”.  So also His Son died and rose for the bad and the good on the supernatural level.

The last sentence of today’s Gospel passage sums up this section from the Sermon on the Mount:  “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Here we see Jesus drawing His two great commands ever closer.  We cannot love our God any more than we love our neighbors.  If I am excluding others from the definition of “my neighbors”, than to that extent I am excluding God from my life.  This is so because God extends His love to every person.  No person can ever be “God-forsaken”, but only “me-forsaken”.  But if I forsake another, it’s not only that other’s loss, but mine as well.

Friday of the First Week of Lent
Ezekiel 18:21-28  +  Matthew 5:20-26

“Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

When you take up a passage of Sacred Scripture, remember that the passage may have several different meanings.  At a single sitting, you would likely only ponder one particular meaning, so as to keep your focus.  But after you’ve spent many months and years in prayerful reflection upon the Bible, as you come upon a passage that you’ve reflected upon before, you ought to consider whether there’s an additional meaning that you haven’t previously considered.

The Church has an ancient practice of looking within any particular Scripture passage for four different types of meaning, or “senses”.  Not every passage will bear all four, but we need to look for all four when we take up any given passage.  These four senses are:  the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical.  Without explaining what all four of these are, simply consider today’s Gospel passage in regard to the last of these four senses, the anagogical.

Simply put, the anagogical sense of Scripture takes the literal meaning of a passage and considers what it reveals about “the Last Things”.  The Last Things are Heaven and hell, death and judgment.  So while today’s parable might seem at first hearing only to relate to how a Christian ought to act in this world, the anagogical sense shows how the same parable also applies to life after death.  Reflect, then, on how Jesus’ words following the parable—“Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny”—teach us about the nature of God’s justice in requiring Christians who have been saved by God’s grace to undergo purification in Purgatory before being capable of sharing in the fullness of divine love in Heaven.

The Second Sunday of Lent [C]
Genesis 15:5-12,17-18  +  Philippians 3:17—4:1  +  Luke 9:28-36

But our citizenship is in heaven ….

In this Sunday’s First Reading from Genesis, we hear about God’s relationship with Abram, whom God renames “Abraham” a few chapters later.  In the snapshot of their relationship presented by the First Reading, we see the kernels of a life of prayer.

If you were to choose a single word out of the First Reading to summarize this snapshot, it would be the word “covenant”.  In our society, about the only place you hear of a “covenant” is in a housing edition that calls itself a “covenant community”.  This is a mis-use of the word “covenant”, because belonging to a housing community is based upon a contract.

A contract is based in time, has limits, and involves an exchange of money, possessions, and labor or the like.  By contrast, a covenant is based in eternity, is meant to be limitless, and involves an exchange of persons.  When one buys a house, one signs a contract.  When one marries one’s spouse, one enters into a covenant.  When one is baptized, one enters into a covenant with God, even if one is an infant.

In the First Reading, God enters a covenant with Abram, and through him, also with his progeny.  Through this covenant, God and Abram make promises about how they would act towards each other.  They enter into a relationship with spiritual and moral dimensions.

You can see here the similarity between the marriage covenant and a biblical covenant like that between God and Abram.  In a covenant, each party agrees not only to be moral in behavior towards the other, but even to sacrifice oneself for the other.

Entering into a covenant with God, or with another person in a sacrament like Marriage, is the giving of one’s whole self:  one’s whole life.  Each saint’s life demonstrates just how much effort this takes.  That’s why prayer is so needed, and in this we have an example of God’s generosity.  Not only does He enter into a covenant with us in our Baptism, so that we might possibly enjoy His life eternally in Heaven.  God gives us the strength through prayer and the sacraments to live up to our end of the deal.

What can we say about prayer, then, as it helps us grow stronger in our covenant relationship with God?  You might describe prayer as “communication” with God.  Real communication, whether in marriage or in one’s relationship with God, involves both listening and speaking.  A marriage where only one spouse speaks—where’s there’s no dialogue, but only monologues—will not grow to its intended fullness.

But this covenant relationship between God and Abram also shows us that prayer, while often a dialogue, is meant to lead into something profound.  The trance that Abram enters in the First Reading symbolizes the deepest stage of prayer:  what in our Catholic tradition is called mystical prayer.  This deepest stage of prayer is not just for gifted Christians like St. Teresa of Avila.

This deepest level of prayer is the goal of prayer for every Christian, as the Council Fathers at Vatican II said.  If you and I reach Heaven, this is what we will experience there:  a mystical relationship with God.

The question isn’t whether you are meant for this.  The question isn’t even only whether you will experience it in Heaven.  The spiritual life also asks whether even on earth you might grasp some glimpse of this experience in prayer while on earth.  A good resource to help Christians grow in this pursuit is Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen’s book Union with God according to St. John of the Cross (Sophia Institute Press).

The difficulty is that to be disposed to deeper levels of prayer, we have to root out of our souls the selfishness that lies underneath the surface of our lives.  So the Christian life is like the chicken and the egg:  the relationship between our moral life and spiritual life is complex.  Each builds upon the other.

To take one simple step forward this Lent, in either our moral life or our spiritual life, we should keep in mind the simple phrase of Saint Paul in today’s Second Reading:  “our citizenship is in Heaven.”  God has created you for Heaven, not for earth.  Like Jesus at the Transfiguration, we cannot remain here and rest.  We have an exodus to make, a pilgrimage to set out upon, and Christ is our guide if we would only hear and heed Him.

Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Esther C:12,14-16,23-25  +  Matthew 7:7-12

“… how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

When a Christian is a beginner in the spiritual life, most of his prayers are likely prayers of petition.  As he grows in spiritual maturity, fewer of his prayers will be petitions.  More of his prayers will be of the other three types of vocal prayer:  contrition, thanksgiving and adoration.

However, is one of the goals of the spiritual life to no longer offer prayers of petition?  Should you strive to reach the point where you no longer “need” to offer petitions?  Would this even be possible?

In the secular culture that surrounds us, independence is prized.  Standing on one’s own two feet is a hallmark of personal identity.  But Christian growth is marked by becoming more like a little child.  This occurs as one realizes one’s deep and abiding—indeed, everlasting—dependence upon God the Father.  One doesn’t, strictly speaking, grow in dependence upon God, for one can never be anything but fully dependent upon Him.  One grows, rather, in one’s awareness of this dependence, as well as one’s comfort in resting in His providential care.