Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Many of you probably remember my attempt a few years back to practice with the Powers Catholic boys soccer team, and how I broke my thumb in a drill. Certainly it was a humbling experience in my life. But it happened because I wasn’t ready. 34-year-old me thought (quite incorrectly) that I was still 20-year-old me, and could simply run around without having really exercised in quite some time and still have the same ability and stamina. Was I ever wrong!!
So as we sit today only a few short days away from Lent, we may think that we can just pick-up this Lent where we left off last year, without any real preparation. Or maybe we’re just procrastinators who live by the motto: don’t do today what you can put off till tomorrow. But if either of those are our approaches, I’m going to suggest that Lent might not be that fruitful for you.
And Lent is supposed to be fruitful. We often think of it as a time of negation and less, but in terms of our spiritual life, it’s a privileged time of growth. Lent is meant to help us more and more to do what St. Paul said in our second reading: to imitate Christ and the saints. And we do this in three primary ways during Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Prayer is key to our life as followers of Jesus and in imitation of Him. The lepers today in the Gospel spoke to Jesus, and asked Him for the favor of healing. That’s what prayer is for us, whatever our physical or spiritual needs. We talk to God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–and present what’s going on in our life to Him. Sometimes it’s asking for ourselves, sometimes it’s thanking, sometimes it’s praising, sometimes it’s interceding for another. In the comedic Will Ferrell movie, “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” the coach says, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” For prayer, I adapt that to say if you can talk to a friend, you can talk to God.
But prayer is also listening. How much time do you spend listening to God? How much time do you make for God in silence? We offer beautiful times for silence before the Blessed Sacrament, almost every Friday from 7-7:45 a.m. and every third Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. But besides that, our church is open usually until 3 p.m. or so each day. Even if you don’t want to come to church when there are crowds, pick out a time during the day, and for the most part, the church is empty or almost empty. You can visit the Lord, speaking, listening, and being close to him while social distancing from everyone else.
Fasting is something we’ve gotten away from in the Church, and I would say to our detriment. We all have a sickness, not leprosy, but concupiscence, which draws us to avoid good things that should do, and draws us to do bad things that we shouldn’t do. Our body sometimes draws us in ways that are not in accord with God’s will. Just like in sports, we have to train our body and soul to perform at its best levels. Fasting is a great way of training our bodies and souls to reject the bad, but denying ourselves even good things that we don’t necessarily need.
When we talk about fasting specifically, we’re talking about not eating certain amounts of food, like we do on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the two days that the Church requires us to fast. We eat one main meal, and two smaller meals that, combined, equal or are less than the one main meal, and at the same time don’t snack. But fasting in a broader sense can include what we call abstinence, which, in the case of our penitential practices, means abstaining from beef, pork, and chicken on Fridays, but especially Fridays of Lent. Many of you are old enough to remember not eating meat on any Friday, and that’s a practice I have taken up, and I do find that it has helped me draw closer to God, choose good things more and bad things less. Fasting can also mean giving up a particular type of food or drink, either for a time or permanently, in order to help our spiritual life.
Fasting also is meant to give us solidarity with the poor. There are so many people in our world, and even in our very rich nation, that don’t eat because they don’t have money to buy food. Or they rely on the generosity of neighbors and food banks to give them their daily bread. Fasting reminds us that we are no better than them, and that we are all children of our heavenly Father. My plan is to give up alcohol this Lent as a sign of solidarity with all those who struggle with alcoholism.
Almsgiving means giving money or goods. Almsgiving is, in its original sense, money or goods given to the poor. It is an imitation of our loving Father who gives blessings to many people, no matter who they are or what they do. Almsgiving is also stretched to mean giving money to the church or to another charitable organization. As I mentioned in our annual stewardship report a couple of weeks ago, I am very appreciative of your generosity to the parish, to help us continue to serve you. This current fiscal year, our Sunday and Holyday collections have accounted for 77% of our income. Because of your generosity, I don’t talk about money that much, but, as expenses continue to grow each year, we need to keep our weekly income at least at the $7,700 per week level. Your almsgiving to the church will decide what our staff levels and office hours are for next year. We can only give what we can, but it’s a way of sustaining not just ourselves, but our entire faith community.
I would encourage you not to “stumble” into Lent this year. Take these next few days to really consider how the Lord is asking you to pray, to fast, and to give alms. Don’t make Lent a quick diet, but by your planning and prayerful consideration of what God is calling you to do, make it a great time of spiritual growth and development!
