Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings: Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 30:2.4-6.11-13; John 4:43-54

It’s easy for the Good News to become old news. Yeah, we’ve heard these stories, parables, psalms, and histories many times. Maybe even some of us have preached them many times.

From creation, God has been doing something new, something truly incredible. For somewhere around three decades, this newness dwelt on earth in the flesh. True to His promise not to abandon us or leave us orphans, the Word made flesh sent His Holy Spirit.

Rather than trying to imagine the Holy Spirit as someone separate from Jesus Christ, perhaps the best way to think of the Spirit, to borrow words from Catholic Bible scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, is as “the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence” among, in, and through us until He returns.

God’s kingdom, as our reading from Isaiah indicates, is not only something completely new but quite beyond our imagination. In relation to our Old Testament reading, our Gospel today is a case-in-point, a demonstration of what God is doing through Christ by the power of their Spirit.

Before getting to the miracle of Jesus curing royal official’s son, it is important to deal with His rebuke. Word of the miracle at the wedding feast, which, like today’s pericope, took place in Cana of Galilee, in addition what Jesus had done while in Jerusalem (in between was His encounter with the Samaritan woman) had spread through the town. So, when the royal official came looking for Jesus to ask him to accompany him home and heal his son, who was near death, Jesus seems to recoil a bit.

Rather than responding to the man’s plea to go with him to heal his son, the Lord chastises His fellow Galileans for needing signs and wonders to believe. Jesus was not going to go the house of the royal official to create a spectacle, to perform a trick. He resisted being a circus seal. In fact, Jesus never goes to the royal official’s house.

Nonetheless, Jesus told the concerned father “your son will live.” That is all that those hanging around Jesus in Cana were able to witness; no signs or wonders, just a few words. Believing Him, the royal official set off for home. His journey must’ve been a long one because he does not seem to meet up with his servants until the following day.

His servants tell him the good news of his son’s healing. This is the second (of seven signs) contained in the Gospel According to Saint John, which is sometimes referred to as “the Gospel of Signs” (we will hear the seventh sign this Saturday in the Gospel for the Third Scrutiny of the Elect). This second sign is obviously very low-key.

Because it is low-key, this sign provides us with a deep insight into just how the Lord usually works: in small, quiet, but profound ways. In addition to being symbols, sacraments are also signs (if sacraments are not both signs and symbols, then they are literally nothing- slightly out-of-context quotes from Flannery O’Connor notwithstanding).

The sacrament of sacraments, of course, is the Eucharist. If you’re unable to discern the efficacy of this sign, what makes you think you’d be able to discern others? Has it become old, rote, mechanical?

As the old catechetical definition reminds us, the point of the sacraments is to impart grace to our souls. Grace is nothing other than God sharing divine life with us. Therefore, in receiving grace, we receive God. Isn’t this the very concrete point of Holy Communion?

The mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live in you (Col 1:27). Otherwise, how you can fulfill the purpose of attending Mass, at the end of which you are sent forth on mission?

I read something today that struck me as very fitting for this point of Lent, the point at which maybe the newness has worn off and many of our good intentions haven’t been realized. What the author of this short piece sought remind his readers is that, in essence, Christianity has

always been about Jesus. Loving Him. Following Him. Trusting Him. But somewhere along the way, we pile on expectations, stress, and distractions, and before we know it, we’re exhausted—trying to do for God instead of just being with Him (West Salem Four Square Church blog post “Back to the Simple Things”- emphasis in original)

Beyond the rebuke of the spectacle-seekers of ancient Cana is the faith of the royal official who simply believed Jesus when He told him “your son will be healed.” Not knowing how or when this healing might occur, yet trusting in the Lord, the man went on his way.

In every Eucharist Jesus gives you His pledge of eternal life. Giving is the key word. You can’t earn eternal life. It’s not what you can do for God but living in the reality of what God has done for you in Christ. This is the life of the Spirit, the life the inspired author of Isaiah seeks to evoke.

Starting, stopping, restarting- tales of blogging

A year ago tonight, the Church celebrated the Paschal Vigil- the Great Easter Vigil. After posting something for Good Friday, I could not bring myself to post anything or log into any social media site/app/platform/shitstorm for quite a while- from the end of March to the middle of June to be exact. Over that time, I simply hit pause on my online engagement.

Since that blessed time, my relationship with social media has changed and lessened. Social media does not work the way most people think it does. Facebook, X, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. are not the digital agora. Far from it. You can't beat the algorithms. We've become irretriably meme-ized. IRL, social media simply does not work.

I remember how weary I had grown of online engagement last 30 March. Several times over the course of last year I seriously considered downloading my back-up file for this blog and saying "So long!" For some reason, I was unable to do that. Something kept telling me I would regret it.

August of this year will mark my twentieth anniversary of starting this blog. July of 2026 is my anniversary for starting to "blog" (nice verb) in earnest. While these significant milestones added to my reluctance to call it quits, they were not the determining factors. Over those weeks and months, as I considered whether to blog or not to blog, I thought about switching to a fancier platform.

Wordpress was all the rage for a while but it has faded. Several years go, I set up everything up to blog on Wordpress under the title Diaconal Digressions. This time around, I considered moving to Substack but I have no desire to monetize my writing. What I have to offer (which is not much), I offer for free.

In the end, I like simply Blogger. If nothing else, it keeps my html skills sharp. In any case, this platfrom is the home and digital habitat for Καθολικός διάκονος. Since recommitting to this effort at the start of the current liturgical year, I have been surprised by how much I am enjoying this again. It's been a true rejuvenation. It took me several years of blogging before I realized that the best benefit I derive from this is personal growth.

I know this is a blog post about blogging (Yawn!). Since I noticed that my moratorium began a year ago, I thought I'd observe it by indulging myself a bit. I am more than grateful for the surprising number of kind email notes and comments I have received from readers telling me how what they have found in this little cyberspace has helped, encouraged, and challenged them.

Since I am already blogging about blogging, I would note that with this post and tomorrow's, which will be my homily for Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent, I will have posted seven more times than I did the first three months of 2024, prior to my hiatus. So, I will press forward and see where the road leads us. For anyone reading, I appreciate your time and attention. I pray you derive some benefit from spending time (virtually) here.

Fourth Sunday of Lent- Homily for Second Scrutiny

Readings: 1 Sam 16:1b.6-7.10-13a; Ps 23:1-6; Eph 5:8-14; John 9:1-14

In our fast-paced overly entertained culture the phrase “cut to the chase” is often used. What does it mean to “cut to the chase”? It means, let’s just get to the action, no explanation and no context needed and none wanted. This can be the case in preaching when the urge to go right to the Gospel reading takes over. This is especially true when, like today, the Gospel reading is a long one.

Of course, the Gospels are the heart of Sacred Scripture because “they are the principal witness for the life and teaching of the incarnate Word,” our Lord Jesus Christ¹ Certain depictions of the Sacred Heart aside, it’s a bit weird to think of a heart without a body. Jesus has a context that is neither incidental nor accidental.

During Lent, readings from the Old Testament lay out salvation history from beginning to the promise of the New Covenant.² Unlike Ordinary Time, during Lent, pains are taken to harmonize the epistle reading with the Gospel. Our reading from 1 Samuel shows that throughout salvation history God doesn’t choose according to human criteria. Instructing Samuel in his choosing among Jesse’s sons who would replace Saul as king, God tells the prophet:

Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature…
Not as man sees does God see,
because man sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart³

The Responsorial Psalm is also a reading. Our Psalm for this Mass with the celebration of the Second Scrutiny, is Psalm 23. Even in a time of increasing biblical ignorance, this Psalm remains the best known of the one hundred and fifty inspired compositions.

“The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”⁴ Perhaps the best way to understand this might be: “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything.” Jesus + nothing = everything. This is what each of the three people who figure prominently in our readings for the three Scrutinies demonstrate in different ways.

Before it is anything else, true faith is a matter of the heart. As Romano Guardini insisted: “In the experience of a great love, all that happens becomes an event inside that love.”⁵ Now, this sounds “intellectual,” but it isn’t. It is descriptive of experience. All someone needs to understand this is to have been in love. A familiar quote, usually erroneously attributed to G.K. Chesterton, provides some clarity: “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind,” Jesus is asked by His own disciples.⁶. Now, this question cuts to the chase! Just as God vindicates Job contra his well-meaning but catastrophically wrong friends, turned accusers, with a few words, Jesus obliterates this immature and even pagan understanding of God.

“Neither he nor his parents sinned,” declares Jesus, destroying their grave error, “it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”⁷ In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul, takes this theologically farther:

creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God⁸

Jesus healing the Blind Man, by Brian Jeke

It is crucial to understand that sending His Son as Savior and Redeemer was not God’s Plan B, which went into effect when Plan A failed as the result of the ancestral sin. God only ever had one plan; there is no Plan B. At the beginning of the Easter Vigil, during the singing of the Exsultet, the Church, referring to fall, proclaims:

O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!⁹

This is so fundamental that to get this wrong by thinking human beings can frustrate God’s plan, forcing God to double-clutch, leads to the heretical and self-defeating idea that you save yourself by being really good and that you can be really good by trying really hard. This is the road to futility, not salvation.

I ask you, apart from being born blind, what did the man in our Gospel do except testify to the truth of what he experienced after the fact? The answer is simple: he humbly let himself be healed. My friends, your blindness, as well as mine, is so that the works of God might be made visible through us. You are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the Good News!

As He did with the Samaritan woman last week, Jesus reveals Himself to this poor, blind beggar. Thus showing what Msgr Luigi Giussani observed: “The real protagonist of the history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.”¹⁰

Amazing Grace is a great hymn for the First and Second Scrutinies. The Samaritan woman was lost, alienated from her community, and then found. The man born blind was blind but now sees. Let’s not lose track of the irony that, in the end, it is only the man born blind who truly sees. The light by which he sees is Christ. This is the backward and upside-down theo-logic of the Gospel. This is the wisdom of the Cross, which is foolishness to those who are blind.

In one of the intercessions for you, dear Elect, which we will pray in a few minutes, we ask God “That, contemplating the wisdom of the Cross, they learn to glory in God, who confounds the wisdom of this world.”¹¹ This is the same wisdom expounded by the Lord in today’s Gospel:

I came into this world for judgment,
so that those who do not see might see,
and those who do see might become blind¹²

The purpose of your election to the Easter sacraments is to confirm that though you were formerly blind, you now see by the light of Christ. After your baptism, you will be presented with a candle, lit from the Paschal candle, which is a symbol of Christ. The candle is presented with these words: “Receive the Light of Christ.”

My dear Elect, today these words from Ephesians are addressed to you:

Awake, O sleeper,
      and arise from the dead,
      and Christ will give you light¹²

---

1 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation [Dei Verbum], sec 18.^↩
2 “Introduction to the Lectionary,” sec. 97.^↩
3 1 Samuel 16:7.^↩
4 Psalm 23:1.^↩
5 Romano Guardini, L’essenza del cristianesimo [The Essence of Christianity], Morcelliana, Brescia, 1981, p. 12.^↩
6 John 9:2.^↩
7 John 9:3.^↩
8 Romans 8:20-21.^↩
9 Roman Missal. The Easter Vigil, sec. 18.^↩
10 Luigi Giussani. Speech before Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square for the Meeting with Ecclesial Movements and New Communities, 30 May 1998.^↩
11 Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, sec. 167.^↩
12 John 9:39.^↩
13 Ephesians 5:14.^↩

"You don't know what you've got till you lose it all again"

This Tuesday is April Fool's Day. With the beginning of April begins the second quarter of 2025. With no exaggeration whatsoever, I can say that the first quarter of this year, which itself marks the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, has been discombobulating and difficult for me. Don't worry, I am not going to rehearse here a list of my woes.

While at work earlier this week, I decided to go to lunch on my own. I went to a local taco place. I usually eat lunch in my office. So, going out is nice once in awhile. As I was waiting for my order after placing it and making a trip to the salsa bar, a song came on that struck me in a very lovely way.

"Evocative" is a good word to describe music. On this sunny early Spring day, Bruce Hornsby's "Mandolin Rain" sounded nice to my ears and resonated in my heart. I can't claim to be a great Bruce Hornsby fan, though, during his few years of popularity, I liked his music just fine. "Mandolin Rain" along with "The Way It Is" (a song that should resonate right now) are his biggest hits. Apart from those songs, I can't say I know his catalog very well.

The day after I heard the song, I ran into an old comrade. We spent some time reminiscing about days long past. We joked about getting to be sentimental old guys. Maybe we are but, then, isn't it good to look back on your life? It's seems fitting when you realize that you have more life behind you than in front of you. It's always bittersweet to stroll down memory's lanes. Gratitude for what was and perhaps longing for what wasn't.

Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Seems a good shout our to Lent. By the way, I hope yours is fruitful

It's not too hard to guess that our Friday traditio is Bruce Hornsby & the Range with "Mandolin Rain." After a week of sunny days with mild temperatures, it's a cloudy day here. Looks like rain. But as Pope Benedict XVI once said at an outdoor audience at the Vatican that happened on a rainy day- "Rain, too, is a grace."

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

Readings: Isa 7:7-14.8:10; Ps 40:7-11; Heb 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38

At the earliest Easter can fall on 22 March. The latest Easter can occur is 25 April. We generally celebrate the great Paschal feast somewhere between these two poles. So, along with the Solemnity of Saint Joseph on 19 March, which always occurs during Lent, the Solemnity of the Annunciation is almost always observed during this penitential season.

The best years are when one of these two solemnities happen on a Lenten Friday. When this occurs, the obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent is abrogated. To the extent possible, solemnities are to be observed as Sundays.

Often confused with the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord is proof that liturgical arithmetic works. Today is nine months before Christmas.

Even during Lent, Sundays remain celebrations of the Lord’s resurrection, just as throughout the year, unless there is a solemnity, each Friday is a penitential day on account of Christ’s crucifixion. And so, this evening and tomorrow morning the Church will sing the Gloria, which we don't say or sing during Lent, and recite the Creed.

In her celebration of Morning Prayer for each of the first four Sundays of Lent, the Church reminds those praying of the sacred and celebratory nature of Sunday. This is done by means of the scriptural reading, taken from the Book of Nehemiah: “Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”¹

Speaking of the Creed, whether we recite Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed, as we confess the incarnation of God’s Son in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we bow. In his Letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul wrote:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”²

The incarnation is an earth-shattering, cosmic-altering, event. As our reading from Hebrews clearly points out, it is necessary for God’s Son to become human so that he could really die and be bodily raised from the dead. For His sacrifice to be an acceptable one, He also had to be truly divine. Being human, unlike an animal that is sacrificed, the Son had to freely offer Himself.

It was necessary for Jesus to say to the Father, “I come to do your will.” As the inspired author of Hebrews insists, “By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”³

Just as Jesus’ sacrifice was made efficacious by His freely abandoning Himself to the will of the Father, so Mary’s fiat, her “May it be done to me according to your word,”⁴ was also necessary. Her fiat was risky, potentially lethal and at a minimum perceived as shameful- a young, unmarried woman, turning up pregnant with a child who was not conceived with her betrothed. Mary, too, freely offered herself to God.

As the first Joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary, the fruit of the Annunciation is humility. Our blessed mother couldn’t quite figure out why God had chosen her. We, too, are chosen by God. One of the worst lies of the present age is that we somehow choose or decline God, take or leave Him. This despite Jesus’ insistence that He has chosen us. Faith is a supernatural virtue, a gift from God. Because faith is a gift from God, it is dynamic and remains mysterious.

Like any gift, you can receive, reject, or neglect faith. But for a person who has truly been given the gift of faith, while there are always alternatives, they tend to pale in comparison. The fourth Joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary is Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple to fulfill the Law. In the Temple, the Holy Family encounters Simeon. Recognizing Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the old man tells Mary, “you yourself a sword will pierce.”⁵ Suffering produces hope or despair.

The fruit of this mystery is obedience. One way to think of obedience to God is as hope through suffering. Obedience to God is an act of faith. Being the flower of faith, hope blossoms through life’s trials. And so, to and through our Blessed Mother, we pray:

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears

---

1 Nehemiah 8:9-10.^↩
2 Galatians 4:4-6.^↩
3 Heberws 10:9-10.^↩
4 Luke 1:38.^↩
5 Luke 2:35.^↩

Third Sunday of Lent- Homily for First Scrutiny

Readings: Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95:1-2.6-9; Romans 5:1-2.5-8; John 4:5-42

It is hardly a novel insight to point out that you can live much longer without food than without water. Think about a time when you were really thirsty, when your mouth was dry and your throat hurt, and you were on the verge of a very bad headache. I don’t know about you, but at such times the only thing I want to drink is water, just plain, clear H2o.

One our Lord’s Seven Last Words as He hung on the Cross, which, like our Gospel this morning, comes from Saint John’s Gospel, was, “I thirst.”¹ While John’s account does not feature the Lord’s cry from Psalm 22 found in the Synoptics- “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”- His thirst likely refers to another verse of this Psalm:

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death²

John’s Gospel also uses this psalm when, earlier in the same chapter, he tells of the Roman soldiers dividing up his clothes.³

Saint Teresa of Calcutta (i.e., “Mother Teresa”) based the spirituality of the religious order she founded (the Missionaries of Charity) on Jesus’ words “I thirst.” Sisters of Charity spend a great deal of time praying before the Blessed Sacrament.

In each of their chapels, over the tabernacle, is a crucifix, with the words “I thirst” featured prominently near it. Mother Teresa said, “We have these words in every chapel of the M[issonaries of] C[harity] to remind us what a M[issionary of C[harity]is here for: to quench the thirst of Jesus for souls, for love, for kindness, for compassion, for delicate love.”⁴

There can be no question about whether God desires you. He desires you so much that sent dearly beloved Son to save you, to redeem you, to bring you to Himself. To quote Saint Paul from our reading from Romans: God “proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”⁵ This is the grace in which a Christian stands, the source of our hope.

On their trek through the hot, dry Sinai, the Israelites grew thirsty. Knowing they could perish for lack of water, many began to wonder, “Where is God?” Thirst nearly led them to rebel against Moses. Slavery in Egypt seemed better than death from thirst in the desert. Setting aside their general lack of trust in Him, in His mercy, God made water flow out of a rock in the middle of the desert.

The scrutinizing question, therefore, is do you thirst for God? With the psalmist, can you say, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”?⁶ This is the question to ponder as you prepare to enter the life-giving waters of baptism at the great Easter Vigil.

In our Gospel, the Samaritan woman at first doesn’t seem particularly thirsty for water from the spring that wells up to eternal life. It’s hard for her to understand that in offering this water, Jesus offers nothing apart from Himself. The reward for following Jesus is Jesus.

Jesus + nothing = everything. This becomes clear when we consider the sacraments of Christian initiation, does it not? Christian initiation culminates with the reception of Holy Communion, with receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, by which you become fully incorporated into His Body, the Church. You become part of Him.

Perhaps given the multitude of intimate relationships this woman has had, she’s grown a bit weary, a bit leery when it comes to promises of happiness. Given what Jesus tells her about herself, even among the Samaritans, she would’ve been looked down upon. Some have speculated that it was due to her ostracism that she comes to draw water in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or at dusk- the normal times for this activity.

It's difficult to tell in her response to Jesus’ request to go get her husband whether she’s being disingenuous, seeking to hide her less-than-ideal living arrangement. It doesn’t matter because the Lord knows her situation and lets her know that He knows. Yet, He does not utter one word of rebuke, correction, or condemnation. Rather, He offers her life-giving water.

Like Jesus, we have nothing to say to someone about morality until s/he has caught a glimpse of how much God loves them. “In this is love,” another passage of scripture teaches us in harmony with Saint Paul, “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”⁷ The best antidote for sin, as our Collect for today’s Mass indicates, is loving God through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

I admit that I sometimes think if others really knew me, they wouldn’t like me, let alone love me. I believe most of us are conscious at some level of our unloveableness. This can be a cause of deep insecurity, not to mention a lack of authenticity, which causes me to be someone I think I should be instead of simply who I am. God’s love given in Christ, God’s love “poured into” my heart, is my security, my rock, my salvation. Frankly, without this coming to this realization, the rest is futile.

Like the Samaritan woman, Jesus knows everything about you and, because of, not in spite of, your unloveableness, He died and rose so that you may have life in and through Him. Just as it easy to love humanity because it is an abstraction but hard to love the person in front of me, so it is easy to say something like “Jesus died for the sins of the world” because that, too, is an abstraction.

C.S. Lewis nicely summarized the realization a Christian must have: “When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only [person] in the world.”⁸ Let that living water sink into the desert of your soul and the desert will bloom, teem with life.

Mother Teresa made Jesus’ statement “I thirst” so personal that she urged the sisters to imagine Jesus saying those words directly to them. She encouraged them to put their own name before “I thirst.” And so, today Jesus says to each of you, "I thirst." And the Church asks, “Are you thirsty?”

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1 John 19:28.^↩
2 Psalm 22:16.^↩
3 John 19:24.^↩
4 Mother Teresa, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Where There is Love, There is God (New York: Image, 2010), 51.^↩
5 Romans 5:8.^↩
6 Psalm 42:2.^↩
7 1 John 4:10.^↩
8 C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chap. 3 “Time Beyond Time.”^↩

Mistrusting and fearing God's kingdom

As part of my morning prayer time, I have been reading slowing through the Gospel According to Saint Luke. I'm reading Luke, of course, because the Church is currently in Year C of the Sunday lectionary. Year C primarily features Saint Luke's Gospel. It's always amazing to re-read scripture and be drawn to aspects of the text that I've previously just read over.

Yesterday, I began reading the twenty-second chapter of Luke. I am using the original edition of the Jerusalem Bible. I like this because it is kind of non-standard. The first pericope found in this chapter consists of its first sxi verses. These verses have to do with the desire of "the chief priests and the scribes" to do "away with" Jesus. As the Jerusalem Bible translates it, they wanted to do away with Him "because they mistrusted the people" (v. 2). "Mistrusted" here is a translation of the Greek word efobounto, the root of which is the verb phobeo. It is the Greek origin of our word phobia.

In reality, this word is best translated as "they feared." Mistrusted is an interesting and, I think, insightful choice. In verse 6, Judas goes to the chief priests and scribes to freely offer to hand Jesus over to them "without the people knowing." Normally, that final phrase is brought into English as something like "in the absence of the crowd." I think the focus on things being done in an underhanded, opaque, and autocratic way highlights something important.

Jesus teaching in the Temple, from Standard Bible Story Readers, Book Five (1928), authors: A. Stemler and Bess Bruce Cleaveland

In the Jerusalem Bible's rendering, I think "mistrusted" is connected to Judas entering into his deadly pact with those who wanted to do away with Jesus without the people, who were gathering each day in the Temple precincts to listen to this Galilean knowing anything about it. The Lord's words against these religious figures and their corrupt institution were, to put it nicely, unsparing. His teachings clearly resonated with the people. This is what caused the authorities to fear the people in their desire to put a stop to this troublesome Galilean.

These same authorities clearly mistrusted the people who were hanging on Jesus' every word, who believed Him and in His authority. The people of Jerusalem seemed to be treating this peasant nobody from backwards Galilee as though He might be the Messiah!

Keep in mind, in the synoptic Gospels Jesus only journeys to Jerusalem once. In Luke 9:51, the inspired author writes that Jesus "resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem." He set out at once. He didn't take the typical route, which avoided Samaria. Instead, He went right through Samaria.

Without getting into the intricacies and complications of it, there is the sensus fidelium- the sense of the faithful. This very concept is mistrusted by many. Of course, this sense is not reliabliy expressed by opinion polls or through voting. In my view, one of the biggest issues with synodality as it's currently understood and practiced is that it is seen as a kind of parliament. At least to this point, even if it were meant to be a legislative body, it cannot be said to be anything close representative of the Church. It is important for the voice of the faithful to matter and to be heard, not dismissed.

Linking this up with Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, those who proclaim God's kingdom in all of its world-upending purity are still seen as troublesome. In the first section of an essay he wrote for a book on Christology- Who Do You Say That I Am: Confessing the Mystery of Christ- entitled "The Kingdom of God and the Theological Dimension of the Poor: The Jesuanic Principle," Fr Jon Sobrino, SJ noted "Forgetting the poor has gone hand in hand with forgetting the Kingdom of God." He goes on to point out that "By the time of the fourth-century conciliar debates it is clear that the Kingdom of God plays no role whatsoever in Christology" (page 113).

In short, by that time the transcendent had eclipsed the immanent, essence overshadowed existence. While since the Council there has been some attempt to recover the immanent, led primarily by liberation theologians, like Sobrino (even methodologically, "liberation theology" is far from monolithic), it seems hard to strike a better balance.

Being largely a bourgeois phenomenon, Christianity these days tends toward the metaphysical to ease the angst, the boredom, the monotony of the materially comfortable. This is the kind of self-absorption that Pope Francis has sought to identify, criticize, and lead us beyond during his pontificate. His urging us to go to the margins, to be good stewards of creation, to seek peace and reconciliation often don't land well in prosperous parts of the world or among many who belong to the theology guild. Monty Python's "Christmas in Heaven" from their movie The Meaning of Life comically sets forth a version of bourgeois heaven.

When it comes to the transcendent and immanent it is not either/or. But attempts to achieve a balance are resisted mightily by the mighty; plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. But this, as no less than Pope Benedict XVI noted in his very first encyclical Deus caritas est, only lends credence to what is perhaps the main Marxist critique of Christianity: get people to worry about life after death instead of the here and now. This way you can exploit them much easier.

I am writing this Thursday evening. As soon as I completed writing what is above, I prayed Evening Prayer. The first and second Psalm for this office for Tuesday, Week II of the Psalter, is Psalm 72 (it is split up for use in the Liturgy of the Hours). This Psalm is about the reign of the Messiah, who "shows pity to the needy and the poor and saves the lives of the poor" (v .13). One of prayers in the Intercessions is

Teach us to restrain our greed for earthly goods
    -and to have concern for the need of others

Either that or you can focus on resisting chocolate or beer, right? Something about rending your heart, not your garments... the interior work instead of the exterior show.

Our traditio is a song off Sinéad O'Connor's Christian album, Theology. Listening to her album this week reminded me of a lovely article written at the time of her death in 2023 by another Jesuit, Fr. Matthew Cortese: "How Sinéad O’Connor taught a Catholic priest how to pray." Our Friday traditio is "The Glory of Jah"

Year C Second Sunday of Lent

Readings: Gen 15:5-12.17-18; Ps 21:1.7-9.13-14; Phil 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28b-36

Sacrifice has been an act of worship, an act of thanksgiving, an act of petition across many times, places, and human cultures. Our first reading from Genesis tells of Abram (not yet Abraham), our father in faith, making such a sacrifice at God’s request.

Israelite sacrifices were but shadows of the ultimate sacrifice our Lord made for us on the cross. While God still desires sacrifice, in light of Jesus Christ, these are not bloody rituals involving select animals. Rather, God seeks bloodless self-sacrifice. Turning to Psalm 51, known as the Miserere, which is recited as the first Psalm of Morning Prayer for Friday during all four weeks of the Psalter, we make this offering:

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn¹

We can’t leave it there, the psalmist, in the verse just before, says to God:

For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it;
a burnt offering you would not accept²

Making external sacrifices is easier than offering God a contrite and humble heart, which consists not only of a willingness to change, but a deep desire to be converted, to be more conformed to the image of Christ. Lent is easily taken up with the static of what you give up, which can amount to giving God what He doesn’t want, withholding what God really desires.

We live in a society and culture in which sloganeering often passes for thoughtful discourse. As Catholics we seem enamored of a slogan that passes for a eucharistic theology: through the consecrated bread and wine, the Lord gives Himself to us “body, blood, soul, and divinity.” I do not dispute this in the least. However, it is vital to point out how woefully incomplete this is. The Eucharist is an exchange according to the economy of gift, not a repeatable magic trick.

When properly grasped, the sacrifice God desires happens in the Eucharist. Yes, He gives Himself to you whole and complete, but He asks you to freely offer yourself whole and entire, that is, body, blood, soul, and humanity. What this amounts to is not so much a commitment as it is the expression of a deep desire, or a desire for a deeper desire to love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength by loving your neighbor as yourself.

Lent is a time of healing; a time to express your desire for wholeness, for holiness. Hence, Lent is a time to seek, with God’s help, to overcome disordered attachments. A disordered attachment is anything that gets in your way of loving God and neighbor. Hence, Lent is as much about what you take up as it is about what you give up, as much about what you do as what you choose not to do.

The Transfiguration altarpiece, Raffaello Sanzio, 1516-1520

Many years ago, in an Ash Wednesday homily, Passionist Fr. Harry Williams very forthrightly made the point I am trying to get across:

It is a pity that we think of Lent as a time when we try to make ourselves uncomfortable in some fiddling but irritating way. And it’s more than a pity, it’s a tragic disaster, that we also think of it as a time to indulge in the secret and destructive pleasure of doing a good orthodox grovel to a pseudo-Lord, the Pharisee in each of us we call God and who despises the rest of what we are³

Far from despising you, God loves you unconditionally. This is fundamental to Christian life. After all, "God is love."⁴

The point of Lent is conversion. To be converted means to be changed. Considering today’s Gospel, we might say to be converted is to be transfigured. This does not mean to be changed from one thing into something or someone completely different. Rather, it means to become who God, out of love, created and redeemed you to be. This is the process of sanctification, the process of becoming holy, becoming who you really are.

In its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council made clear that “Christ… by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself…” Far from annulling or cancelling our humanity, through His incarnation, we have “been raised up to a divine dignity.” Through the incarnation, “the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every [single person].”⁵

For a fleeting moment on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as He really is and for who He really is. As the appearance of Moses and Elijah indicate, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the full realization of God’s plan for creation. Listening is more than hearing. To listen is to heed. And so, Lent is a time to listen to Jesus, God’s chosen Son.

I say who Jesus is, not who He was intentionally. It makes all the difference in the world whether you think of Jesus as a historical figure who lived a long time ago, in a land far away, in an incomprehensible culture, or as being alive and, through the Holy Spirit, palpably present until He returns. Faith is an experience, not an assent to propositions and formulas, as important as these are in certain respects.

On the mountain, Jesus’ closest disciples not only encountered reality as it is meant to be, they saw things as they really are and how they will be forever. One might say, they beheld what is really real. We pray for this each time we pray the Our Father, when we ask, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven.” And so, rather than seeing it as a dream deferred, Christians, as so many saints show us, live God’s kingdom as a present, if not yet complete, reality.

It is an article of Christian faith that when He returns, the Lord “will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.” According to Saint Paul, He will do so “by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”⁶ What is that power? What that power is not and could never be is coercion, manipulation, or violence.

The power that enables Christ to change our lowly bodies to conform with his glorified body is the power of divine love, which, as the apostle sets forth in the previous chapter of his Letter to the Philippians in what is called the “Kenotic Hymn,” is self-emptying and self-sacrificing.⁷ Love cannot be forced.

Lent is a time for freedom. It is the to freely cooperate, out of love, with God in His on-going work of transfiguration.

---

1 Psalm 51:19.^↩
2 Psalm 51:18.^↩
3 Owen F. Cummings. “The Spirituality of Ash Wednesday.” Emmanuel magazine, 2007.^↩
4 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
5 Vatican Council II. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et Spes], sec. 22.^↩
6 Philippians 3:21.^↩
7 Philippians 2:5-11.^↩

Memories and mortality

Here we are on the Eve of the Ides of March! The river of time keeps on rolling. March has been quieter here than January and February. This is not by design because nothing on my blog has ever been by design. While far less spontaneous than in my early years of blogging, I remain a pretty intuitive blogger (I don't claim the moniker writer).

This past week marked what would've been by maternal grandpa's birthday. 11 March 2025 was 110 years since the birth of Evan Lamar Stark. He died on 12 March 1976, just a day after turning 61. I was 10 years old at the time. Nonetheless, my Grandpa Stark and I were quite close. I have many memories of our times together, which are probably some of my earliest memories. We did interesting things, like like picking wild asparagus from irrigation ditches and putting our pickings into paper grocery sacks, taking it home, preparing it, and having some for supper.

Next will mark 50 years since his passing. His death was my first experience of someone dying. There was a young girl in our small town, Julie Rose, who died suddenly at about this same time. I remember going into the funeral home, to the room where my grandpa's body was laid out and seeing him. There was an overpowering smell of roses. Ever since, when I smell roses, my mind goes right back to that moment. These days, as opposed to when I was younger, it doesn't seem a bad memory.

Wild asparagus

12 March was also the one year anniversary of the death of Michael Knott. Knott also passed away at the age of 61. Post-mortem, he is usually dubbed an "alternative Christian musician." I suppose the "alternative" adjective is meant to denote that he was not a mainstream CCM musician à la Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, The Newsboys, etc. Indeed, he was not part of that crowd.

What makes Knott's music Christian in my view is that it is real, grittier than the light pop stuff. In addition to recording 35 albums as part of various groups as well as solo, Michael founded two record labels: Blonde Vinyl Records and Tooth and Nail Records. In an interview, he said something that has stuck with me: "Basically, I'm a human being and I believe in Christ, period. It doesn't make my life rosy, it doesn't make my life terrible, it doesn't do anything with that. I know Christ." Michael, too, battled with alchohol. He did so honestly. I've used this in a homily. If you're interested, you'll want to check out Knottheads.

It bears noting that Knott was raised Catholic and died a practicing Catholic. During what turned out to be his last years, he served as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, taking the Eucharist to the elderly, the sick, and the homebound.

These seems fitting reflections given that on Ash Wednesday you are urged to consider your own mortality, invited to find life's meaning through the Paschal Mystery, the meaning of your own birth, life, and death. A good Christian understanding of death is, by, through, and in Christ, it is God's ultimate healing.

Being a time for repentance, Lent is a time for healing. Lent, as Trevor Hudson describes it, is "a time gift." Written long before Pope Francis famously calling "the Church as a 'field hospital,' concerned more with those who suffer than with defending its own interests, taking the risk of novelty, in order to be more faithful to the Gospel," our traditio for this Friday of the First Week of Lent is Michael Knott singing his song "Hospital"-

The temptation of "all this power and glory"

Reading: Luke 4:1-13

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). I think perhaps the inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews had our Gospel for today in mind when he penned this line. Indeed, during His earthly sojourn, the Lord was truly tempted, as any human being is. The big difference, as noted, is that He did not succumb to any temptation, He didn't fail any test.

You might say, "Sure, it's easy to resist temptation when you're God." Without ceasing to be God, Jesus became fully human. He's not half human and half divine. He is fully human and fully divine.

Christians, maybe especially Catholics, tend to get so hung up on Jesus' divinity that His humanity sometimes falls by the wayside. We know from the Gospels that Jesus experienced hunger, fatigue, anger, joy, sadness, the full range of human emotions and moods. You know what, from time-to-time, as He walked along the dusty roads of His native Galilee and later Judea, He had to step off the path go behind a bush. Shocking, I know!

The real question is, can someone be truly tempted if they simply do not find what s/he is tempted with in any way appealing? "Can I tempt you with a sriracha-covered apple?" In other words, if there is no possibility whatsover that said person could or would give in to the temptation, does that count as being tempted?

In light of this question, we must ask if there was any possibility that Jesus might've turned stones into bread to feed Himself, to seize worldly power to more effectively and efficiently establish the reign of God by coercive means through the state, or to hurl Himself, in a display of power putting His divine Sonship on full display, headlong off the parapet of the Temple, trusting the angels to catch Him before He hit the ground?

Sticking with the inspired author of Hebrews, I am going with there not only could've been, but must've been at least some attraction for Jesus in such temptations. Otherwise, these are not temptations, that is, tests. Are we simple spectators to a divine puppet show?

Since we're reading from Saint Luke's Gospel, the same goes for the Blessed Virgin Mary: she could've declined to bear God's Son, which, for her, was a risky proposition. It was her fiat, her "Be it done to me according to your word," her free consent that makes her so wonderfully special and worthy of our hyperdulia, our super-veneration. God desires this same emphatically loving response from each of us, a response so loving that it overcomes fear. Love is always a risk.

Getting back to the second of the temptations from our Gospel, it is a perversion of the Gospel to seek to impose the Lord's teaching by coercion through the state. This is the way of Caesar, not of God. Sometimes these are difficult to disentangle.

For several centuries beginning in the fourth century, the Church drank deeply from the well of the Roman imperium. We are still disentangling ourselves from it- Vatican II was a big step in that direction- but that is to digress. It seems a perennial temptation for Christians and even the Church at times to seek "all this power and glory," to fall for that with which the devil tempted our Lord.

This is not to argue against Christian involvement in politics. Far from it. Applied to political involvement, this has to do with the means to be used in service of achieving desired ends. Those things that are harmonious with the Gospel and that appropriately belong to politics must be argued for in a persuasive way and freely accepted by those who are governed and not simply imposed.

Integralism and so-called Christian nationalism are to be rejected on Christian grounds, rooted firmly in the teaching and example of Jesus Christ during His life and ministry. Like Christians of the earliest centuries and even many in recent centuries, we must be willing to live our faith not only in hostile situations but in situations of indifference towards what we believe. Doing the latter may ultimately prove more difficult.

Between Jesus' Ascension and His glorious return God's kingdom is only present in kernel form, here and there, wherever Jesus' teachings are freely lived out, motivated by love of God and neighbor, not fear of punishment. In fact, being motivated by love, agape, caritas, in many contexts means that love outweighs the very real fear of punishment. Wasn't this the case with Jesus Himself?

"... renew within me a steadfast spirit"

For Roman Catholics, Ash Wednesday and the three days that follow are something of a warm-up for Lent. What we call the three days following the start of Lent indicate this. For example, liturgically, today is Friday after Ash Wednesday. By contrast, next Friday is the Friday of the First Week of Lent.

Hearkening back to my homily for Ash Wednesday, Psalm 51, the Miserere, is the first Psalm of Morning Prayer for today. Along with Evening Prayer, Morning Prayer is a "hinge" hour of the Liturgy of the Hours. Morning and Evening Prayer are the hinges on which the other five hours (or offices) swing. At least in the United States, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, the hinge hours, are what deacons are obligated to pray.

There are times, especially during Advent and Lent, when I mix this up a bit and pray the Office of Readings and Night Prayer, thus maintaining my ordination promise to faithfully pray the Liturgy of the Hours with and for the people of God. I start praying the Office of Readings on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, when this office consists of reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, which is one of my favorite books in all of Sacred Scripture. This goes on through Holy Week.

It bears noting that except when a solemnity falls on Friday (I include Friday in the octaves of Christmas and Easter in this), Fridays throughout the year are days of penance. So, just as every Sunday, even during Lent, is a little Easter, each Friday is a little Lent. As my long history on this blog shows, I believe this practice to be very important.

In Psalm 51 we pray: "A clean heart create for me, God; renew within me a steadfast spirit" (v. 12). I don't know about anyone else, but the plea for "a clean heart" is for me a constant plea. But especially this Lent, I am asking God to renew in me a steadfast spirit. If I had to describe 2025 thus far in one word that word would be destabilizing.

Being destabilized is not all bad. I've been struggling through the gateway to a new season of life. This has meant discerning where it is the Lord is leading me, where He wants to me go. I am a bit like the rich young man, except I am no longer young and not terribly rich. Following Jesus always comes at a cost. What is the reward for following Jesus? Jesus!

Lent is a blessed season. With everything going on, all the rancor, vitriol, uncertainty, and, yes, what seems like destabilization, it probably seems to many people that Lent began early. This is understandable. For many, Pope Francis' health crisis only adds to the cloudiness of the present moment. It seems we all need to be renewed with a steadfast spirit.

Since I've already invoked Hebrews, let us not lose sight of this revealed truth: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (13:8). Jesus is Lord is much more than an empty, that is, political, slogan.

All political slogans are ultimately empty. All ideologies contain the seeds of their own destruction. They cannot deliver on their promises because what they promise is ultimate and politics are provisional, transitory. When it comes to political engagement, it is vital for Christians, eschewing ideology, to exercise prudential judgment. Being, in the words of Jesus, "shrewd as serpents" and, at the same time, "simple as doves" (Matt 10:16).

What is more worrisome about ideologies is that they can destroy their adherents and decimate socities. Christians need to resist those that seek to co-opt Christianity and/or the Church in the service of an ideology. I believe there is an inverse proportionality between how loudly a politician proclaims his/her Christian allegiance and the actual Christian nature of their politics in one way or another. If nothing else, such a stance lacks humility.

Don't get me started on politicians parading around with ashes on their foreheads. It would be far more convincing if they also sported sack cloth suits. So much American Christianity is performative these days. We put the scribes and Pharisees to shame. "Show your ash," indeed!

I think of a story of the late Msgr Lorenzo Albacete, who, on a visit to St. Peter's Square, pointed to the Egyptian obelisk and said something to the effect that it is flipping the bird to all the ideologies of the world. This is an interesting "take" to be sure.

It should come as no surprise that our traditio for this Friday after Ash Wednesday is the Miserere. Specifically, sung by The Sixteen, it is the Miserere composed by Gregorio Allegri most likely in the 1630s, during the pontificate of Urban VIII. It was intended to be used exclusively in the Sistine Chapel during Tenebrae services of Holy Week.

Ash Wednesday

Readings: Joel 2:12-18; Ps 51:3-6.12-14.17; 2 Cor 5:20-6:2; Matt 6:1-6.16-18

Our responsorial Psalm is Psalm 51. Known traditionally as the Miserere, this Psalm is penitential. Because Fridays throughout the year are days of penance (unless a solemnity falls on a Friday), the Miserere is the first Psalm for Morning Prayer for all four weeks of the Psalter.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me¹

Only sinners, those who have done wrong, need mercy. Penance is how we cooperate with God in his redemptive work of setting the world aright. The world needs to be set aright because of sin, because of your sin and mine. God’s invitation for us to repent, God’s desire for us to reconcile with Him and one another, is a great kindness.

In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul insists that “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.”² In 1 John, the scriptures make clear that “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”³

These scriptural passages make it clear that all of us need God’s mercy. In a long interview given at the beginning of his pontificate, the first question the interviewer, a fellow Jesuit, asked was, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio.” To this, the Holy Father replied:

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 sinner⁴

If you do not think yourself a sinner who needs a Redeemer, then you simply cannot be a Christian. Knowing one’s need for a Savior is fundamental to Christianity. On a personal level, it’s easier to discuss the perceived sins of others. But during Lent, God urges you to confront yourself. Looking back to last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Lent is the time for each of us to remove the beam from our own eye.⁵

Ash Wednesday Masses have no penitential rite at the beginning. This is due to the imposition of ashes. Receiving ashes, which we will do in a few moments, is the penitential rite for this Mass. To receive ashes in good faith, you need to be resolved to heed the words said as they are imposed: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”⁶

Repentance, which is a translation of the Greek word metanoia, refers to much more than acknowledging and being sorry for your sins, which is only the beginning of repentance, just as fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.⁷ This where this “Gospel” you are to believe in comes into it. This good news assures us that perfect love drives out fear.⁸

To repent, then, means to literally transform your mind. Turning again to Romans, Saint Paul urges

not [to] conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect⁹

It is the Spirit of God by the grace of God who transforms you. Nonetheless, a Christian isn’t content to keep living the way s/he lived before encountering Christ. Even in confession, one must not only express genuine sorrow for sin but be resolved, with God’s help, “to sin no more and avoid whatever leads me to sin.”¹⁰

Lent is a word from old English meaning “springtime.” This is the time of year when seemingly dead things “spring” back to life. A Christian life is a penitential life. Far from a life of misery, a penitential life is a joyful life, a happy life, a life immersed in the love of God, a life of loving your neighbor.

Lent isn’t for making yourself miserable in some piddling way for several weeks. Neither is it the time when you try to atone for your own sins. When you consider prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which should characterize Christian life, focusing on one, like fasting, especially when it takes the form of giving something up, to the exclusion of the others, is an exercise in missing the point. What good is it, for instance, just to give up chocolate for Lent, especially when chocolate abounds at Easter?

Almsgiving is about what you are going to take up for love of neighbor. Right now, in a society in which more and more people are struggling in some way, what you do is probably more important than what you choose not to do. Prayer is opening yourself to God to be transformed so that you can discern God’s will and receive strength to carry it out.

Spiritual disciplines, of which prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the foundation, are means to the end of loving God with your whole being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

The irony of Ash Wednesday, which is not a holy day of obligation (though it is obligatory to fast and abstain), should not be lost on any one of us. We hear from Saint Matthew’s Gospel not to draw attention to our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving and then come to Mass and receive a big black smudge on our foreheads.

It bears noting that receiving this smudge is not a universal practice even among Roman Catholics. In many places, as one comes forward with head bowed and has a few ashes sprinkled on the top of the head, as opposed to smeared on the forehead.

Regardless as to how the ashes are received, ashes mark you, not as a sinner, but as a penitent: a sinner who trusts in God’s love and mercy. As such, ashes are not worn as a sign of pride, let alone displayed in a righteous way. Neither are the ashes worn with shame, which would be a denial of the Gospel we profess to believe. They are worn humbly and with gratitude for what the Father as done for us in Christ Jesus. These ashes are a sign of hope, which is the flower of faith and love, agape, caritas, is their fruit.

Just as the penitential rite for this Mass is different, so is the dismissal. Rather than being sent forth to glorify the Lord by your life or to announce the Gospel, we pray that God will pour out upon those who bow before his majesty and who are committed to being transformed, “a spirit of compunction.” In this context, “compunction” refers to a feeling of guilt for one’s sins.¹¹ Just as guilt is good if it helps you to repent, Lent is good if it helps you to repent.

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1 Psalm 51:3-4.^↩
2 Romans 3:23.^↩
3 1 John 1:8.^↩
4 Antonio Spadaro, SJ. “A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis.” America, Vol 209. No. 8^↩
5 See Luke 6:41-42.^↩
6 Roman Missal. Ash Wednesday.^↩
7 Proverbs 9:10.^↩
8 1 John 4:18.^↩
9 Romans 12:2.^↩
10 Act of Contrition.^↩
11 Roman Missal. Ash Wednesday.^↩

Last Sunday before Lent

Readings: Sir 27:4-7; Ps 92:2-3.13-16; 1 Cor 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

I want to begin by making a clarification: the opposite of pessimism is optimism and optimism is not hope. One can be a pessimist and still have hope. I know because c'est moi. My hope is in God and in God alone. In the person of Jesus, God became human. God is one of us! As Saint Paul notes in today's "epistle" reading, it was by becoming one of us that He was able to die and rise. Jesus conquered sin and death. This is my hope.

Hope is made manifest in reality. Every Spring is a resurrection. Every morning that I awake is a resurrection. Every dark valley I have passed through and come out the other side verifies my hope. It also enhances my trust in the One who walks with me through valley of the shadow of death, which is a poetic way of referring to the One who walks with me on the journey of life.

As unrelated as it might seem to the other readings, as is often the case during Ordinary Time, when the lectionary seeks to explictly connect the Old Testament reading to the Gospel, thus, more often than not, leaving the epistle reading to fend for itself, there is a connection between our passage from the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians and the Gospel.

Eternal life doesn't begin after physical death. To live on that basis is to wish more than hope. Rather, eternal life begins when, after having died and been buried in the waters of baptism, you emerge, come forth, arise. From that point forward, your life should look different, should be different, a change from how you previously lived, a life characterized by Jesus' teachings.

In short, as Christians, our lives should look redeemed. As Nietzsche intimated, too often Christians don't look or seem redeemed.

Lent starts Wednesday. Ash Wedensday to the First Sunday of Lent is kind of a Lenten warm-up period. Lent is the time to repent. While repentance starts with acknowledging and being heartily sorry for one's sins, it does not consist only or mainly of that. Let's eschew what Bonhoeffer famously called "cheap grace." To truly repent is to endeavor, with God's help, to live a more Christ-like life.

Like Job, Eccelesiastes, Proverbs, Psalms, the Song of Solomon, etc. Sirach is a wisdom book. As such, it contains divine wisdom. Our passage from this wisdom book urges you to be careful what you say, to be patient in tribulation, to pay attention to what others say and how they say it.

When it comes to judging, it is important to clarify things. First, we inevitably make judgments all the time. Guess, what, this is fine, even necessary. This even extends to matters of good and evil. Let's face it, you can't live very long without making a judgment. But, in ultimate terms, judgment belongs to God alone. Whether applied to yourself or others, what Jesus says is true: "from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks." Speech provides a basis for judgment.

Be measured and prudent even when, maybe especially when, you're speaking critically on some matter about which you care deeply. By all means, speak the truth, call out lies, do so courageously, stand up for the downtrodden, warn others not to eat rotten fruit, but don't hate. Don't let your heart be contaminated with poison. Trust me, I understand that living in a toxic culture increases the risk of spiritual cancer. But you can take measures to ensure you don't get sick.

Here are some of Jesus' prescriptions to protect you from the toxicity that frequently engulfs us: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, especially when the latter takes the form of serving others. Especially this Lent, we should all focus more on what we're taking up rather than what we're giving up. The moment we're living calls for much more than making ourselves uncomfortable in some piddling way.

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are spiritual disciplines. These are fundamental to living a Christian life. Of course, disciples follow the disciplines taught by their master so as to become more like the master. Because these disciplines are aimed at making us more self-giving, more self-sacrificing, they are meant to make us more like Jesus. Living this way is meant to make you joyful, truly happy, not miserable. The extent to which practicing these makes you miserable is the extent to which you and I need to repent.