"Have mercy on me, God"

Here we are, the Friday after Ash Wednesday. I always think of Ash Wednesday to the following Saturday as the warm-up period for Lent. Then, on the First Sunday of Lent, the season really kicks in.

Repentance gets short shrift these days. It can sometimes seem that even to suggest there are things in all of our lives that need to change is an affront to human dignity. It's uncomfortable to adhere to the belief that we're broken people living in a fallen world. In the age of "identity," it's important to point out that a Christian finds her/his identity in Christ. This puts us in a mode of becoming.

It's easy to the believe that "the world," which is an abstraction, is fallen, or even that "humanity" (another abstraction) is broken. It's harder to believe that I am. It's downright challenging to believe that the most important thing I can do to change the world is to change myself.

In a pamphlet translated from Russian into English in 1900 and given the English title "Three Methods of Reform," Leo Tolstoy addressed this head-on:

There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself

For anyone who has attempted to change himself, you know, while such an undertaking can bear some fruit, it usually proves futile.

As a Christian, I believe I need God's help to make the changes that I really need to make. This help is usually termed "grace." In the Act of Contrition, at least the one I use, this is acknowledged. Praying to God, the penitent pledges, "I firmly intend, with Your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin."

I would think that the Lenten disciplines one undertakes would have some correlation to what one needs to change, either to embrace or to avoid. What you take up during Lent is as important, if not more so, than what you give up. One clue to this assertion is that the Collect for Ash Wednesday refers to Lent as "this campaign of Christian service."

is While being conformed into the image of Christ isn't something you can achieve solely by your own efforts, it does require your effort, your cooperation. This is what the holy season of Lent urges us to do more intentionally. It is a time to reassess, to recommit, to endeavor to live the new life you received in baptism. Lent is preparation for the renewal of your bapstimal promises at Easter.

Whenever I remember it, I am deeply moved by Pope Francis' response to the first question he was asked by Father Anthony Spadoro, a fellow Jesuit, in a lengthy interview at the beginning of his papacy. The question was Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio? His reply? I do not know what might be the most fitting description…. I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

Nonetheless, Lent, which means "springtime," is not the time wallow in your unrighteousness. It is a time to change with God's help by realizing how much God loves you, even as you struggle or fail. As Saint Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: "But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

Our traditio is what else but a choral rendition of Psalm 51, the Miserere.

Ash Wednesday

Readings: Joel 2:12-8; Psalm 51:3-6.12-14.17; Matthew 6:1-6.16-18

Our Collect for Ash Wednesday describes the holy season of Lent as “this campaign of Christian service.” This prayer goes on to note that we begin this campaign “with holy fasting.”¹ Since both service and fasting are mentioned in the opening prayer, right from the start we have the trifecta: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

There is a reason liturgy is prima theologia or first theology. There is no better way of learning about faith than to actively participate in Mass, what the Church calls assisting at Mass. Hence, we should attentively listen to the prayers of the Sacred Liturgy.

While addressed to God, these prayers constitute our prayer, not just those of the priest. After all, by virtue of baptism, the Church is made a kingdom of priests, offering not just prayers and sacrifices but our entire selves to God through Christ. Better assisting better at Mass is a great Lenten commitment!

I am convinced that there is a strong correlation between the three fundamental spiritual disciplines, taught by our Lord Himself in today’s Gospel, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Faith correlates to praying, hope to fasting, and love to almsgiving. Just as hope is the flower of faith and love their fruit, fasting flows from prayer to sacrifice to self-giving service.

Just as hope is the trickiest of the theological virtues to pin down, fasting is the hardest of the fundamental spiritual disciplines to undertake. When fasting, we give up for a specified period something we need to live, namely food. Through fasting, we make the Lord’s reply to the devil’s first temptation- to turn rocks into bread to satisfy His hunger- our own:

One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God²

Where is your hope? What or who gives you hope? What is it that you want from life? What is true happiness and how is it achieved? How does your hope structure and shape your life? Moreover, how does the structure of your life reveal your hope?

For the imposition of ashes, which serves as the penitential rite, there are two formulae: First, is the most familiar: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Alternatively: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”³

I don’t know about you, but I don't have to come to Church to be reminded of my mortality. As parents, mentors, beloved colleagues and parishioners, friends, cousins, etc., grow infirm and even die, I’m reminded of this inevitable fact very often. This is how reality makes me mindful that I am dust.

It is because, by the grace of God, I believe in the Gospel, which is nicely summarized by Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, that I find hope not in death but through it. Repenting is not a one-off thing. Rather, it is a continual, lifelong process of conversion.

To repent is to change, to convert, to be ever more conformed to the image of Christ. En español, la segunda fórmula es “Conviértete y cree en el evangelio.” Si, es conviértete no esta arrepientete. In Spanish, the second formula translates as “Be converted and believe in the Gospel,” not “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” This gets to the heart of the matter regarding not only of Ash Wednesday and of Lent but Christian life. Esto llega al meollo de la cuestión, no solo en lo que respecta al Miércoles de Ceniza y la Cuaresma, sino también a la vida cristiana.

Practically, what it means to repent, to be converted, is to engage in this “campaign of Christian service.” Our engagement in this campaign is, in large part, what constitutes our “battle against spiritual evils.”⁴ As Christians, we don’t fight fire with fire. To extend the analogy, we fight fire with water. In this, we heed Saint Paul’s exhortation to not only not be overcome by evil, but to “overcome evil with good.”⁵ Prayer and fasting are what distinguish our service, our diakonia, as characteristically “Christian.”

According to the Collect, fasting is our weapon of self-restraint. Learning not to always put yourself first is a demanding thing. It requires training. Sacrifices like eating less to give more to the poor, spending less time online or watching television to spend more time praying and serving others, especially those in need, are what we are urged to do not only for Lent, but for life. This is how we become what Saint Paul calls Christians in our second reading: “ambassadors for Christ.”⁶

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1 Roman Missal. Lent. Ash Wednesday.^↩
2 Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3.^↩
2 Roman Missal. Lent. Ash Wednesday.^↩
4 Ibid.^↩
5 Romans 12:21.^↩
6 2 Corinthians 5:20.^↩

Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: James 1:1-11; Psalm 119:67-68.71-72.75-76; Mark 8:11-13

I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult most of the time to count my various trials as joy. This is in no way calls God word into question. Rather, it’s an opportunity to let God’s word interrogate me.

Unless you’re very young and/or inexperienced, it’s difficult to argue with James’ assertion that testing produces perseverance. Perseverance, of course, is the fruit of the fifth Sorrowful Mystery of the Holy Rosary. What is the mystery of which perseverance is the fruit? The Lord’s crucifixion.

Christian discipleship was well-described in the title of a book by the late Eugene Peterson: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.¹ In this book, Peterson wrote about the necessity of patience, perseverance, and community for those who would take up their cross and follow Christ.

Following Jesus is not and never has either been a quick fix or a magical solution to life’s difficulties. As many experience it, becoming a Christian, or taking one’s Christian commitment with due seriousness, creates more difficulties. As Father Daniel Berrigan, one of the most prophetic voices of the last century, wrote:

We need to live our lives in accord with the deepest truths we know, even if it does not produce immediate results in the world²

It bears repeating often that being a Christian requires living a life rooted in spiritual discipline. It is a life of prayer featuring a deep engagement with scripture. It is a life of self-giving service, worship, and witness. A sacrificial life.

Our first reading consists of the first eleven verses of the Letter of Saint James, one of the Bible's most challenging books. As for a life rooted prayer, what James is not saying is something like, “Ask God for anything and if you ask without doubting, He will deliver the goods.”

Rather, he is saying turn to God for wisdom. Turn to God for direction on how you ought to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. True wisdom, divine wisdom isn’t worldly wisdom, as the exhortation to count your trials as joy indicates.

As the quote often misattributed to Flannery O’Connor describes it: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you odd.”³ Counting one’s trials as joy is certainly odd and at odds with the more or less pagan notion that if life isn’t going my way God must be upset with me. This childish way of relating to God or understanding how God relates to you is spiritually crippling. It lacks wisdom.

Jesus makes much the same point James does when it comes not only to prayer but to righteous living. As the Law clearly warns: “You shall not put the LORD, your God, to the test.”⁴ Yet, this is what these Pharisees challenged Him to do.

Since we're just a few days away from the start of Lent, it seems fitting to point out that this is one of the temptationd Jesus undergoes during His forty days and nights in the wilderness.⁵ Certainly in the Synoptics and especially in Mark, the Lord’s attitude to His own miracles is ambivalent at best.

I am not telling you, “Don’t expect anything from God.” Every good Christian spiritual writer warns against seeking miracles and consolations. Inherent in this warning is the belief that God can and does perform miracles and that He gives us consolations. But He does it according to His own will and wisdom, which is not, at least not yet, our will because we lack wisdom.

Wisdom is only gained through experience. What Christ wants you to experience, far from making your troubles and worries magically disappear, is how He walks with you on the journey of life. How He accompanies you, comforts you, loves you, helps you through your various trials.

This means seeing your trials and tribulations as opportunities to experience the Lord firsthand. A preacher can only tell you that Christ walks with you on your journey through life." Just how He does so is something that can only be experienced for yourself.

When it comes to accompanying you, the Lord doesn't lead you over, above, beneath, or around but through your trials, through the valley of the shadow of death.⁶ He is worthy of your trust. This assertion is testable.

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1 Eugene Peterson. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. IVP: 2000 (20th Anniversary Edition).^↩
2 Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings, Ed. John Dear. Orbis: 2009, pg. 31.^↩
2 Mike Shapiro. “A source for the quotation ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.’” Seaspawn and seawrack blog 31 January 2021, updated 3 February 2021.^↩
4 Deuteronomy 6:16.^↩
5 See Matthew 4:1-11- our Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent.^↩
6 Psalm 23:4.^↩

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sir 15:15-20; Ps 119:1-2.4-5.17-18.33-34; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Matt 5:17-37

Genuine obedience cannot be imposed. The root of “obedience” is the Latin verb obedire. Obedire doesn’t just mean to listen, it means to really listen so as to deeply hear what is being said.

According to Christ Himself, the first of the two Great Commandments is to love God with your entire being.¹ And so, before it is anything else, to obey God is to love God. Because obedience is a choice made from love, there is nothing legalistic about it. So, contrary to a common misconception, true obedience is not compulsory compliance for fear of punishment.

Our reading from Sirach shows us that God respects our freedom, which derives from being made in God’s own image. At least in part, respecting your freedom means not shielding you from the consequences of your choices. This stands in contrast to the rather pagan concept of God getting angry at your slightest misstep and then actively and deliberately punishing you.

When we confess our sins, receive absolution, and fulfill our penance, the eternal punishment due our sins is taken away. But the natural consequences remain. The sacrament of penance, while it is given to heal, isn’t magic. Healing comes through repentance, which means making a commitment to change, “to sin no more and avoid whatever leads me to sin.”

God is good and always seeks your good. Our loving Father is even able to use the suffering that results when you screw up (again). We are sinners in the hands of a loving God! As Saint Paul wrote, you can’t begin to imagine “what God has prepared for those who love him.”² So, the question for each of us is not “Does God love me?” It is, “Do I love God?” As in any relationship, love is best shown through actions rather than mere words.

This seems an important message as we stand on the threshold of the holy season of Lent. Let's be honest up front, in and of themselves your Lenten efforts and sacrifices will not make you holier. God’s grace is still needed. Far from being an effort to earn something from God or to place Him in your debt, spiritual disciplines are simply tried and true ways of opening yourself to receive God's grace.

Found this on SlideServe- liked it

As for our Gospel, it is important to grasp that in His life and ministry Jesus never denigrates the Law. Instead, He positively extols it. Of course, He is the only person who has completely obeyed the Law both in letter and in spirit, thus fulfilling it.

This is the third of four Sundays during Year A of Sunday lectionary that the Church normally reads from the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. Due to the start of Lent this Wednesday, this year it’s for only three weeks. We do this because this chapter is the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. What we hear today are the antitheses.

The theses with which these teachings are contrasted arise from the Law itself. These take the form “You have heard it said” [thesis] “But I say to you” [antithesis]. With these, Jesus shows us that real obedience is more than mere compliance to an outwardly imposed set of rules. He makes obedience a matter of listening with your heart.

Saint Benedict’s rule begins with this exhortation: “Hearken, my son, to the precepts of the master and incline the ear of your heart.”³ This is just what the Lord teaches us to do today. This is just what the Lord teaches us to do today. Like the Bible, at the core of which are the Gospels, Saint Benedict's regula isn’t a rule book.⁴

What the Lord sets forth is a mode of being, the way of becoming who God created and redeemed you to be. “This is the way we may know that we are in union with him,” scripture teaches, “whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived.”⁵

As Catholics, we embrace the efficacy of rules and precepts. A good example of this are the Church's five precepts, which are given “to guarantee for the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer, the sacramental life, moral commitment and growth in love of God and neighbor.”⁶

What you must be careful not to do is to mistake means for ends. This is the fatal flaw of the scribes and Pharisees. What Christ gives us through His Church are proven means for realizing the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

As for a just love of self, you can selflessly love because you were first selflessly loved. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”⁷ At root, every sin is a failure to love. We acknowledge this in the Act of Contrition: “In choosing to wrong and failing to good, I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things.”

Don’t make Lent a time either to annoy yourself in some arbitrary way or a time for self-driven self-improvement. Make it a time to open yourself to God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pray, fast, abstain, give to the poor, and serve others. Make it a time to heed the call made during the imposition of ashes: “Repent and believe the Gospel.”⁸

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1 Matthew 22:37.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 2:9.^↩
3 Rule of Saint Benedict, Prologue.^↩
4 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation [Dei Verbum], sec. 18.^↩
5 1 John 2:5-6.^↩
6 Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 431.^↩
7 1 John 4:106.^↩
8 Roman Missal. Ash Wednesday, Blessing and Distribution of Ashes.^↩

"I don't know where I am, but I know I don't like it"

Okay, now that I've broken the 60 barrier, I can go on about certain things. I promise I won't go on and on.

Electronic means of communication! Well, at least in my experience, these constitute a very mixed bag. Not included in this are voice communication, like an actual phone call. I believe most mobile phones still feature this capability (sarcasm).

On the one hand, it's nice to able to communicate with people directly, especially people I know very well whether they live near or far. These communications run the gamut from brief, insightful conversations about books, sports, music, movies, shared articles, etc., to the mundane, like "Hey, can you pick up some milk on your way home?"

Again, in my experience, such media are not built to be a relationship in toto. Communicating exclusvely via electronic means with someone, especially when you don't have the foundation of a well-developed personal relationship or any in-person interaction, is not only unsustainable, it's imprudent. In-person communication is often difficult enough under the best of circumstances. It becomes impossible when more than half of how human beings communicate is always missing.

So, what's missing? Easy. Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, eye contact or lack thereof, etc. Also, knowing someone, knowing how they "are" thus allowing you to filter what they write through your experience of the person. If you're limited to communicating with someone exclusively by electronic means (i.e., texting, Snapchat, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Dm'ing on other platforms, etc.) and the two people don't know each other well it can be impossible to know what s/he is trying to say. "Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm," as the song goes, even if in a different context. I kind of miss the days when, apart from sending a letter or card through the post or passing someone a note, communicating meant talking.

This past week provided me with a great chance to be gentler with myself. This always happens when I spend more time with the Lord. Many times, my impetus to spend more time in personal prayer is something going sideways, sadly. It's not always the case, just more often than it should be. Either way, Christ gazes on me with such tender gentleness. This enables me to be gentler with myself and, in turn, with others. It doesn't matter to Him that I am flawed and in many ways a deeply deficient person. I already know that and often pay the price for it, which leads to me to berate and shame myself. Like many people, I have some very deep insecurities. Insecurities are vulnerabilities.

It would be easy for me to choose not make myself vulnerable by keeping to myself. As an introvert, though not a shy introvert, I am perfectly content by myself. I don't get bored. But too much self isn't good. No matter how introverted you are, being human requires you to be relational. With no thou there is no I. By making myself vulnerable, I take the risk of having my insecurities exposed and my scabs ripped off. I am grateful to have recourse to the One who loves me best, always, without fail, warts, weaknesses, insecurities, deficiencies and all. Here's something beautiful: He is disposed the same way toward you!

Someone I knew well and who I helped return to the Church some years ago wound up taking his own life a few years after his return. Casey was a wonderful, kind, and creative person. At his memorial service, in which I was privileged to participate, cards were given to each person that read: Be gentle with yourself & with others (I have posted the picture above before). These remain good words for me to live by even if I can only strive to do so in my weak and forgetful way.

On the brink of the holy season of Lent, being kinder and gentler give me a focus. In his Lenten message, the Holy Father has invited us "to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor."

In the tradition prevalent among Eastern Christians prior to Great Lent, if I have ever been less than gentle and/or patient with you, please forgive me. Not only do I bring these lapses to the Lord one-on-one but to Him through the sacrament of penance because, when I say the Confiteor at Mass, I mean it. . . "and you my brothers and sisters. . ."

I used to be a Utah Jazz fan. In response to a post about the franchise being fined $500K for tanking (i.e., losing games on purpose in the hope of securing a top draft pick), I wrote "They should be called the Utah Tankopotamuses. They've been doing this since [Ryan] Smith bought the team. This is why I retired as a fan." To which some stranger replied, complete with GIF, "No one cares." I initially responded with, "You know this because you're no one?" After several seconds, I went back and deleted my original comment, which automatically deletes all replies. I don't want to interact in that way with anyone. Neither do I want to be treated that way. The Golden Rule remains in effect.

The online exchange about the Jazz isn't what precipitated this post. I just helps make my point without getting too specific. To be clear, I still hold to my view about the Jazz and their cyncial approach to the game, despite promises to the contrary at the start of the season. Feel free to disagree or not care.

Anyway, our Friday traditio is General Public's "Tenderness." Indeed, "without tenderness, there's something missing." I must say, "Mirror in the Bathroom" was a temptation.

Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13; Psalm 132:6-10; Mark 6:53-56

There is a great contrast between the way God is present in our first reading and in today’s Gospel. One way to see this contrast immediately is by comparing the length of these readings.

In our reading from 1 Kings, we read an account of the dedication of the First Temple, Solomon’s Temple. There is a parallel account in 2 Chronicles that runs to three chapters.¹ After the Temple was dedicated God manifested His presence there through a dark cloud. This cloud was so thick and dark that Temple service could not be conducted.

In our Gospel, while the people “immediately recognized” Jesus, it isn’t clear that they recognized Him as the Only Begotten Son of the Father, that is, as “true God from true God” in the flesh. Rather, they recognized the guy who had been going around Galilee healing the sick and performing other signs and wonders, like miraculously feeding five thousand people who followed Him and the disciples as they attempted to make a retreat after a busy time of ministry.²

It was while making their way back from their failed retreat, while Jesus stayed behind to pray, that the Lord came to His disciples walking on the water.³ Arriving back on the western shore of Lake Gennesaret (a different name for the same body of water also known as the Sea of Galilee), they landed in the town of Gennesaret, which, along with Capernaum (Jesus’s base of operations during the early part of the Galilean ministry), is located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Geography plays an important role in Saint Mark's Gospel.

Gennesaret is a fertile plain about three miles long and one mile wide. It is delineated by the hills of Galilee on the west and the Sea of Galilee on the east. Gennesaret is not, therefore, a Gentile territory but a Jewish one. And so, it makes sense that this Nazarene who had been going around healing the sick and performing miracles would be recognized there.

During the dedication of the Temple, God is not the dark cloud. He is not incense. He is not the ark of the covenant. God is not the tablets inside the ark. Rather, God’s presence is mediated through these holy things. Something about which we, as Catholics, can grasp.

While this relatively non-descript Galilean peasant is God in the flesh, He is not recognized as such. He is recognized as a healer, as someone who might give sight to the blind, open the ears of the deaf, make the lame walk, etc.

Despite this, there doesn’t seem to be any talk among these Galileans that perhaps this is Messiah. One doesn’t have to be a New Testament scholar to notice that Jesus’ divinity wasn’t intuitively obvious to the casual or even to the engaged observer most of the time. There was no golden halo or shimmering glow as we see in so many artistic depictions of the events of His ministry.

It doesn’t matter who people say Jesus is. What matters is who you believe or maybe even know Him to be, based on your experience. A few chapters further on in Mark’s Gospel, as Jesus was making His way with His disciples to another region of Galilee- Caesarea Philippi- He asks those closest to Him who people are saying that He is. After listening to the various answers, spoken by Peter, the Lord asks him the most important question in the world: “But who do you say that I am?”⁴

And so, who do you say Jesus is? Is He merely someone you turn to in dire need, someone who can and just might, in His goodness, do what you ask of Him? Do you follow Jesus for what you think He will do for you? In other words, is your relationship with the Lord transactional? Keep in mind the reward for following Jesus is Jesus.

Bread and wine are very ordinary things. It isn’t intuitively obvious that these consecrated, transubstantiated elements become Christ’s body and blood. Nonetheless, He gives Himself to you wholly in Holy Communion. All He asks in return is for you to give yourself wholly to Him.

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1 See 2 Chronicles 5-7.^↩
2 See Mark 6:34-44.^↩
3 See Mark 6:45-52.^↩
4 See Mark 8:27-30.^↩

A very short take

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; Psalm 112:4-9; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

What Saint Paul is driving at in our reading from his First Letter the Corinthians is that the power of God isn't made known through the luminous demonstration of one's gifts and abilities, even though those are bestowed on us by God. Rather, God's power, manifested by the Holy Spirit, mostly happens through our weakness.

Something easy to glance over in the Incarnation of God's Son but made clear in the kenotic hymn is Jesus' vulnerability. In the Eucharist He makes Himself more vulnerable still. To genuinely love someone, not merely romantically but in that way, is to take a risk. Making yourself vulnerable is just a different way of saying "to take a risk." Embracing a certain degree of vulnerability is what it means to know Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

As for the rest, stay salty and be lit.

But what does that mean? In answer, I urge you to revisit last week's Gospel, which consisted of the Beatitudes (See Matthew 5:1-12). Then, to complete the answer, see today's first reading from Isaiah. Sometimes short is simple and simple is good. It's easy to oversimplify things and it's also easy to over complicate things.

Blessings at the start of new week. Stay salty, be lit, different from getting lit! A fair reminder on Super Bowl Sunday, no?