Tempting

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost-Commemoration of St. Lawrence

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  St. Theresa of Calcutta, aka Mother Theresa, famously once said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.  I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”  Given that this is also the feast of St. Lawrence, who is commemorated today, this seems fitting as both this comment and St. Lawrence’s famous quote while being burned alive on a grill (“Turn me over, I’m done on this side,”) can elicit a chuckle.
    But when we’re in the midst of temptations, it doesn’t seem so funny.  And today’s words from St. Paul, that God does not test us beyond our strength, may not seems funny or may seem discouraging.  Temptations, which, by the way, are not sins in themselves, can sometimes seem overwhelming that clamor for our attention like a petulant child.  It’s one thing when it’s just that draw to say something about another and we catch ourselves before we actually say anything.  It’s another when that temptation just seems to take all our attention and won’t let us go.  
    There are different approaches to try to fight temptation.  Many saints of course will recommend turning to prayer when you are being tempted.  And for some people and for some temptations that can work really well.  Pious phrases like, “Jesus, deliver me!” can help us focus away from that which tempts us and calls upon divine assistance to open us up to the grace that will keep us from giving in to that temptation and committing a sin.
    For some people and some temptations, prayer doesn’t seem to work as well.  I think this can certainly be true with sins of the flesh.  Many people when facing a sexual temptation find it difficult to focus on anything else, even just being able to say a quick prayer.  St. Francis of Assisi famously jumped naked into a rose bush to fight temptation (though some say it was to fight discouragement, not sexual sins), and that rose bush no longer has thorns.
    But no matter what the temptation and how we fight it, it may seem odd that we even have to undergo temptation.  I mean, isn’t original sin washed away in Holy Baptism?  So why, to paraphrase St. Paul, do we not do the good we want to do, and we do the evil that we don’t want to do?  Why would a loving God allow us to have to choose between Him and sin more than just once in our life?
    While Holy Baptism does wash away original sin, that original disobedience that was passed down to us from Adam and Eve from their choice against God, we are still left with concupiscence, or a disordered affection for that which is contrary to God.  Concupiscence is not a sin in itself, but is the fomes peccati, or the tinder or fuel for sin (and the dating app Tinder is often a fuel for sin).  
    But concupiscence is part and parcel of a system where we have free will.  Our proper use of free will allows us to choose the good.  But baked within that free will is the ability to use free will poorly and choose the bad.  But we can’t love without free will, which is the main desire of God: that we love Him and grow in our relationship with Him so that He can configure us more and more to Himself.  God does not want us to fall to sin, but He also loves us enough to allow us to exist in a system that allows us to love Him, but also allows us not to love Him.

Church of Dominus Flevit, where Christ wept over Jerusalem

    And as we look to the Gospel, as we look to Christ weeping over the city of Jerusalem, we see Him weeping over the misuse of that free will.  The Chosen People had been prepared as best as God could to welcome the Messiah who was not simply a human leader of the Jews but the very Son of God Himself.  While He worked many miracles to back up His claim that He was God, many, in the end, would not accept that revelation, which would lead to the very destruction of the Holy City itself.  
    And we are more important even than the City of David.  Yet God demonstrates His love for us time and time again, just like He revealed His divinity.  In the midst of our temptations God never abandons us or leaves us to temptation.  In fact, the Church teaches us that God always gives us sufficient grace, the grace we need to respond to His will and avoid all mortal sin.  But we do have to accept that grace.  Grace never forces itself upon another.
    Part of our response should be to avoid what we often call the near occasion of sin.  If we know that we are tempted in certain circumstances, we should do our best, whenever possible, to avoid those circumstances.  It should be no surprise that when an alcoholic goes to a bar, he or she is more likely to have a drink.  The alcoholic can’t really complain that temptation is so hard to fight when he or she goes to a place where the temptation is readily present.  Or, if a young man and a young woman who are dating go into a bedroom when no one else is home and sit on the bed, it’s not so surprising if they end up giving into grave sexual sins because they put themselves in a near occasion of sin.  They not only have the kindling for the fire of sin, they brought a butane lighter and poured lighter fuel on the kindling.  
    With other sins like judgement, we cannot always avoid other people who tend to upset us or make us want to judge them, but do we have the foresight to pray before we get into that situation, or maybe even just finger the beads of the rosary that we keep in our pocket to help us remember to whom we belong and what He wants for us to thrive spiritually.
    In order for us to love God as He wants us to love Him and in return for His love for God, God does trust us to choose the good in a situation where good and bad are two different options for us.  God does trust us to choose Him even when sometimes we find that very difficult.  May we lean into the grace of God that helps us to fight temptation and avoid sin, and so come to enjoy the bliss that St. Theresa won by her charity to the poor and St. Lawrence won by the shedding of His blood for Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Hearing or Listening

First Sunday of Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  There would come times my youth when I was sitting on a Saturday morning, watching cartoons and eating cereal, and my mom would be talking to me, letting me know what chores I had to do that day or any special events that were happening later in the day.  I was sure I could do two things at once, so I would try to hear what she was saying while also not missing key plot points in my Saturday morning shows.  She would (often correctly) not believe that I was listening, and would ask, “Did you listen to what I said?”  “Yep,” I would reply, to which she would continue, “Then what did I say?”  My answer would betray whether I was simply hearing or whether I was listening.
    The Gospel we heard today, hopefully to which we listened, deal precisely with those two aspects of receiving sound: hearing and listening.  Maybe that was not clear, but as we heard about the temptations of our Lord, we could garner an important lesson about the difference between hearing and listening.
    To start, though, we should go back all the way to the Book of Genesis, to the beginning, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden [as we heard in our first reading].  God had told them that they could have any good fruit to eat, except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Perhaps Adam and Eve were listening to God when He was speaking thus, or perhaps they were not fully giving the attention that listening requires, and just responded, “uh huh.”  In any case, Eve certainly did listen to the serpent, the Devil, who asked, “‘Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’”  Eve seems to know what God says, but she has already agreed to listen to the Devil, and so she gives in to the temptation to disobey God.  She then brings Adam into her disobedience, and since Adam represented all humanity, all of humanity fell in Adam’s disobedience (as St. Paul states in his epistles).  
    Hearing means receiving the auditory stimuli.  Listening means understanding what is being said, and taking that understanding to heart.  Look to the Gospel today, and Christ, the new Adam, hears the Devil tempting Him, but does not listen.  The Devil three times tries to get our Lord to listen, by tempting Him with sins against temperance (a disordered desire for food), against trust (putting God to the test), and against humility (putting someone or something else in the place of God).  Our Lord certainly hears what Satan is saying, but pays no more attention to it than a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons when mom is talking.  What Christ does listen to is the Scriptures, as He is able to respond with God’s Word: “‘One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”; “‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”; “‘The Lord, your God, shall your worship and him alone shall you serve.’”  The Savior had not only heard what God said, but understood its deeper meaning and took it to heart, which allowed him to recognize the lies of the enemy, and to let them run off his back like water on a duck.  

    Temptation is hearing what the devil says to us, and we cannot help but be tempted, because the devil and his fallen angels so frequently do their best to draw us away from God.  He might say, “It’s not that bad”; or “it’ll feel so good”; or “no one will get hurt”; or even, “What you want is good, so go for it however you can.”  Those are the lies that seek to pull us away from God.  If we only hear them, then there is no sin, just as our Lord did not sin when Satan tempted Him.
    However, if we believe those lies, if we listen to Satan, that is when we act on those temptations, and that is when we sin.  Parents, teachers, coaches, and others probably told us when we were younger that we can only listen to one thing at a time.  When it comes to the spiritual life, that is true.  We either listen to God and take in what He tells us, or we listen to the devil, and take in what he tells us.  If we’re listening to God, we may hear the devil tempting us, but we don’t fall away.  If we’re listening to Satan, we ignore the voice of God in our hearts, what we call the conscience, which helps us know what to do and what not to do.

Tomb of St. Benedict in Monte Cassino

    Listening is so important in our spiritual life.  In fact, the first word in the Rule of St. Benedict is “Listen.”  The full sentence is: “Listen continually with thine heart, O son, giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master.”  Again, listening means taking something into the heart, and making it our own.  To what should we listen?  To the precepts of our master, the laws of God our Father given to us through the Scriptures, and the laws given to us by our Holy Mother, the Church.
    Lent is the perfect time to work on our listening.  What messages do we take in to our lives each day and each week?  To whose voice are we more attentive?  One of the great ways to make sure that we listen to God is to read His Word.  Yes, Satan could quote Scripture, but when we’re familiar with the entire story; when we take into our hearts the message that God has for us in the Bible, we can better recognize the lies that the devil tells us.  In fact, sometimes I’ll counsel people in the confessional that when they feel tempted, they should, whether outlaid or to themselves, simply say, “That is a lie.”  I use this sometimes in my own spiritual life when I am undergoing temptation.  I’ll say, “That is a lie,” or “That is not from God,” and often times the temptation flees away immediately.  Sometimes I have to repeat it a few times.  But the key is that my mind and my heart are able to block out the sounds of Satan, but hold fast to the Word of God.  Yes, I may have no choice but to hear the temptations, but I do not have to listen to them and give them credence.
    This Lent, let’s work on our listening.  Be attentive to “every word that comes forth from the mouth of God,” so that we do not “put the Lord, your God, to the test,” and do worship and serve him alone [through our Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen].

Justice and Mercy

 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  The saints are often known for pithy quotes that make one think, or sometimes chuckle.  For example, St. Theresa of Avila is quoted as saying to the Lord, “If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few!”  Or St. John XXIII, who had a particularly good sense of humor, would say to God each night before he went to bed, something to the effect of “Dear Lord, it’s your Church; you take care of it.  I’m going to bed.”  Or St. Theresa of Calcutta, who said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.  I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”    I bet we all can or have once had the same feeling.
    St. Paul reminds us today that “God is faithful and will not let [us] be tried beyond [our] strength.”  This is a good thing to remember in our day-to-day life.  We do not have to give in to our temptations; we do not have to sin.  God gives us what the scholastics called sufficient grace, or the power of God which is required to say no to temptation.  Certainly, venial sins may pop up which are simply due to weakness of our character or pre-dispositions, but when it comes to knowingly being tempted to commit a venial or a mortal sin, we do not have to give in to the temptation and act contrary to God’s will.
    But how often do we call upon that grace?  How often do we call out to God to save us in time of temptation?  Or how often do we rebuke the temptation as having no power over us?  In our daily temptations, we can turn to the Lord, and then rebuke, mentally or verbally, that temptation as not being from God.  Sometimes out-loud is especially effective, because it gets us out of our head.  
    The other option, giving in to temptation, leads to consequences.  It’s a kind of spiritual law of physics.  Just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so in the spiritual life, for every sin to which we acquiesce, there are consequences with which we might have to deal.  It is true that sometimes God can withhold that consequence, for a time or for ever, but He can also let the consequence of sin (which is death) affect us.  
    St. Paul mentions that in his epistle as well.  He mentions the fall of the twenty-three thousand as a consequence of immorality, or those who died by serpents on the way to the Promised Land.  And in our Gospel, we hear our Lord prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, because the city did not recognize the time of its visitation.  
    We tend to look at these things as punishments.  We think that God is striking this person or that person down because of evil.  But, from other parts of the Gospel, it’s not quite that simple.  Our Lord himself, when talking about the tower that fell, or those who were killed by Pilate, argued that they were no more guilty than others.  Only God knows how, why, and when to allow the consequences of sin to catch up with a person or a group of persons.  And His patience is always for the purpose of allowing for conversion, as St. Peter says in his second epistle.  
    There’s a rather horrible contemporary hymn that was written, and which was very popular in my first assignment, called “The Canticle of the Turning.”  It’s a kind of very, very loose paraphrase of the Magnificat written to the melody of an Irish bar song (sort of the example of everything wrong with contemporary hymnody).  The refrain states, “My heart shall sing of the day you bring / Let the fires of your justice burn.”  I don’t know about you, but if I have the choice between God’s mercy and God’s justice, I will take God’s mercy every day, and twice on Sundays, as the saying goes.  
    But what we want to receive, we need to give to and desire for others.  Our Lord’s teaching on loving our enemies is one of the tougher teachings of the Gospel.  It’s easy to immediately want what we consider to be justice, for the other person to get their just desserts.  How often when I am driving do I see a car run a red light, and I opine, sometimes out-loud, that I hope that there’s a cop around to pull them over.  I can tell you it’s not so much because I’m concerned about my own safety or the safety of others that I want that person pulled over (which would be fine), but because I want that drive to be punished for breaking the rules, which I strive so hard to follow.  If we want to receive mercy, we need to show mercy.  If we want others to have Divine Justice, then we need to be prepared for it to fall upon us as well.

    There is a small chapel on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem from the west, called Dominus Flevit, which, for those whose Latin isn’t that sharp, means The Lord Wept.  It’s called that because it is the place (or at least it’s around the place) where today’s Gospel took place and the Lord wept over Jerusalem.  It’s one of my favorite chapels, because as you attend Mass, you see the present-day city of Jerusalem.  But you see it through a wrought-iron image that includes a cross and a host over a chalice.  Outside of pandemics, I would guess that chapel is used every day.  It’s a great reminder for us that the Mass is the prayer of reconciliation of Jesus to the Father, pleading for, not just Jerusalem, but the world, which should be seen through the mystery of the Eucharist.  May our hearts be moved daily to show the mercy of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Into the Desert

First Sunday of Lent

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus…was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.”  Did you hear that first line of the Gospel, or did it go by unnoticed?  Listen to it again: “Filled withe the Holy Spirit, Jesus…was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.”  If we’re listening to it, it should jostle us a little.  It should lead us to ask, ‘Why would the Holy Spirit lead Jesus into the desert?’  

The desert, after all, is a place of trial and death.  It’s the opposite of the place God first intended for humanity, which was a garden, the Garden of Eden.  God also led the Chosen People through the desert, but the desert wasn’t a happy place for them.  The goal was the Promised Land, the “land flowing with milk and honey.”  The desert was where they had to wander due to their lack of faith in God, and it is the place where they grumbled against God, even though He was providing for all their needs.  So why would God the Holy Spirit lead Jesus (God the Son) there?

Jesus goes into the desert to show us how to fight against temptation.  Jesus was like us in all ways except sin.  He shows us that, when we unite our humanity, our nature, to the divinity of God, God’s nature, we can resist in the desert what Adam and Eve did not resist in the garden.  While not for Jesus, for us, the desert is a time of purification, helping us to grow in our relationship with God and to trust in Him to provide all that we need.

Lent for us is that time of purification, of growing in our relationship with God, of trusting in God to provide for all our needs.  It is the desert.  It is not the destination, not the goal, but the way by which we reach our destination and goal.  It is the place where God puts to death temptation and sin, and prepares us for the life of paradise.  It is what makes us ready for the life of paradise, the life of the Promised Land.  And the Holy Spirit leads us there, not to stay there, but to get to the Promised Land.

Right now we are in the desert as a Church.  We are in a time of purification, where temptation and sin are being put to death.  We could talk about the different issues that are plaguing the Church right now.  But those are simply symptoms of the problem.  The heart of the problem is that we, as a society, have given in to the second temptation of Satan from today’s Gospel.  

The enemy tempted Jesus, “‘I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish.  All this will be yours if you worship me.’”  We, as a society, and therefore as individuals, have decided to worship false gods, mostly the self and pleasure, for the sake of power and glory.  We abandoned the worship of the true God who leads us to paradise, and we have reveled in the worship of false gods who lead us to death and destruction.

We see it in politics, where money and power have become ultimate goods, and people are told what they want to hear, not what is right.  The personal pleasure of each individual has become the supreme good to which everything–the child in the womb, the elderly who are sick or dying, the natural law written into our very human nature–has to be subjected.  So many politicians, across party lines, do whatever will get them money from donors and reelected, not what is best for the country and its citizens.

We see it also in our sacred liturgy.  My formative years were where most of the songs and most of the focus at Mass was on me: what makes me feel good; how can I be affirmed as a person; and how much God loved me as I am.  Now, feeling good can be good; personal affirmation can be good; and God does love me unconditionally.  But feeling good is only good when it comes from doing good and avoiding evil.  Affirmation of what is noble is good, but we should feel shame for doing what is base.  God loves me as I am, but He loves me too much to leave me there; He calls me each day to conversion.  We are tempted to narcissism, exercises on focusing on the self, rather than God.  But, as Jesus reminds us, “‘You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.’”

How often do we hear: I don’t like the music, so I’m leaving the church.  I don’t like the preaching, so I’m leaving the church.  I don’t like the priest, so I’m leaving the church.  The common denominator is that the person is not going to church for God, but for what he likes.  But we don’t come to Mass because of what we like.  We come to give thanks to God for what He did by giving us Jesus so that we could go to heaven.

The Holy Spirit has led the Church into the desert because we have given in to temptation to worship false gods, often the self.  We need to be purified from societal narcissism and be drawn back to the transcendent God, who draws us from ourselves to Him who satisfies all our needs.  Following God doesn’t always feel good; the desert is dry and hot.  Following God doesn’t always affirm our actions; the desert requires us to put away what is ancillary.  Following God means that we say no to the temptations that arise in our daily life which look enticing, but which really keep us out of the garden and paradise.  But, if we follow God through the desert, if we say no to the temptations, especially the false gods we make in our life, then it leads to the Promised Land, to the garden, to place that God has prepared for those who follow His Son.  So during this Lent, follow the Holy Spirit into the desert and fight temptation, empowered by that same Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is one God, for ever and ever.

These Aren't My Pants

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Probably the weirdest thing I’ve heard working with law enforcement, is when we had a driver out of a car and the Troopers were making sure he didn’t have any weapons or drugs on him.  As they looked in his pockets, they found some drugs.  We asked the person why he had drugs on him, and he said, I kid you not, “These aren’t my pants.”  Now, I know that I live a sheltered life, but I don’t have any particular memory in my 34 years of life, or at least since I was responsible for dressing myself, that I ever wore someone else’s pants, and certainly not with drugs in them.

“These aren’t my pants,” may sound crazy as an excuse, but we’re good at excusing ourselves and rationalizing our behavior.  We’ve been doing it almost since the beginning of humanity.  God called Adam on the carpet, Adam, who represented all of humanity, for eating the fruit that we were forbidden to eat, and what did he do?  “These aren’t my pants.”  Well, not so much, because he was wearing a fig leaf.  But he did the same thing: “It’s not my fault!  The woman made me do it!”  Then God goes to Eve, and, anticipating by some millennia the Flip Wilson Show, she basically said, “The devil made me do it!”  

We’re so good at dodging responsibility.  These aren’t my pants, someone else made me, it’s the Devil’s fault, and so many more excuses come to mind.  But sin is always our fault.  We have free will, and we only sin when we make choices that go against God’s law, natural law, and just human laws.  Temptations, however, are not sins.  Sin is only when we make a choice.  

If I desire to eat that quarter pounder on a Friday of Lent, my desires are not rightly ordered, but I haven’t sinned unless I pull through the drive-thru lane and take a bite into the burger.  If I’m laying in bed Sunday morning, the birds chirping, a cool 68 degree and sunny day, wanting to play nine holes instead of going to Mass, I’m not wanting to be where I should be, but I haven’t sinned.  If I’m cut off in my car by someone who needs remedial driving lessons and my desire is to lay on my horn and raise a certain finger to greet them, the emotion of anger is probably getting the better of me, but if I don’t act on that emotion, I haven’t sinned.  It’s only when we make that choice, in thought, word, or deed, when we exercise our free will in a negative way, that we talk about sin.

The Good News is that Jesus came to conquer sin.  The people in our Gospel today didn’t recognize that, and the scribes claim that Jesus is casting out demons by the power of demons.  But as Jesus points out, if Satan is fighting against himself, how does he expect to win?  Jesus comes to destroy the reign of Satan, and does so as God.

That’s why it’s so important to turn to Jesus when we are tempted, so that we don’t give in to that temptation and sin.  We shouldn’t wait and figure that we’re strong enough; let’s be honest, we’re weak.  Almost every time I have thought: I’m strong enough; I can handle this, I end up giving into temptation.  When I realize that I am weak and that without God I can do nothing, it is then that God conquers sin through me.  

Another thing that can be very common in our spiritual life and spiritual battle with sin is to “flirt” with the temptation.  We say no at first, but then we might return to the temptation a little later, and then maybe we say no again, but then we go back to it.  And eventually it conquers us.  But if we nip the temptation in the bud, and call on God to help us at the beginning, then God will preserve us from falling into temptation.  

There is only one sin that God cannot forgive, and that’s the sin against the Holy Spirit.  While there are different theories, what I was taught in seminary is that the only unforgivable sin is the sin that we don’t allow God to forgive, because God does not force His grace upon us; He respects our free will.  If we think that this sin or that sin is so bad that God cannot forgive it, then He won’t; not because it’s so heinous, but because we don’t allow Him to.  

The other key to fighting sin comes from our second reading.  St. Paul exhorts us not to be discouraged.  That can be easier said than done, especially when we’re struggling with the same sin over and over again, no matter how big or how small.  But God will give us victory eventually if we persevere in His grace and keep fighting.  It’s only when we give up, when we decide it’s useless, that Satan wins and gains mastery over us.  If we keep fighting, no matter how many battles we lose, God can still win the war.

When we sin, don’t blame others, don’t be discouraged, and do call on Jesus to help us.  Jesus came to free us from sin, and will do exactly that if we allow Him to and cooperate with the grace He gives us through the Sacrament of Penance and the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

You're Killing Me, Smalls!

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sometimes there are quotes from different things that we have read or seen that stick with us and come to mind.  In the move “The Sandlot,” there’s a line that often gets used among people of my age: “You’re killing me, Smalls!”  Or a series of books that I read called the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan includes a line from the protagonist that has stuck with me: “duty is heavier than a mountain; death lighter than a feather.”  When Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the “Harry Potter” series died, his one word response to Dumbledore, “Always,” becomes an oft-mentioned word.  And, on a lighter note, anyone who has seen “The Lion King,” is sure to say, at least once in a while, “Hakuna Matata.”

Scripture is also a great place to find quotes that can and should stick with us.  Bishops, and popes often have mottos for their ministry.  Bishop Mengeling’s phrase was “He Must Increase,” which is from St. John the Baptist in the Gospel according to John, when John says, “He must increase; I must decrease” in reference to Jesus.  Bishop Boyea’s motto is “In manus tuas,” which is Latin for “Into your hands.”  This comes from Psalm 31, and says, “Into you hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.”  It was also the words that Jesus said as He was dying on the cross, and is part of a response that consecrated men and women, and those in holy orders say before they go to bed each night.  In seminary, we had a classmate who was joking about becoming a bishop.  We said that his motto should be, “And Jesus wept.”

Today in our readings, we have four Scripture passages that might stick with us.  From our first reading: “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped”; from the responsorial psalm: “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God”; from our second reading we have two options: “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” and “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”; and from our Gospel: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Each of these has its own context.  In the first reading, Jeremiah is fed up with God, because all Jeremiah has done is tell the people what God told him, and yet everyone hates him.  Jeremiah suffered greatly, because the people didn’t want to hear that they needed to change, or else they would be exiled by the Babylonians.  Jeremiah feels compelled to say what God wants him to say, because Jeremiah loves God, but that love of God leads to suffering, and Jeremiah feels like he was tricked, but he can’t stop speaking for God.

In our Psalm, the author talks about how he wants God, desires God, like parched earth for water, so he looks toward the sanctuary to see the power and glory of God.  This is a psalm that is said on every special celebration in the Church’s life by those in religious communities and holy orders, so it’s one that comes to my mind often.

Our second reading with its two passages are from St. Paul, who is urging the early Roman Christians to be faithful to Jesus Christ.  St. Paul encourages the Romans to not simply let Catholicism be a religion of the mind, where we think about holy things and quietly commune with God in our souls, but even to offer our bodies to God, as a form of worship, as a way of giving God praise, so that what we do with our bodies and our souls may both be acceptable to God, whom we worship.  The second phrase, though, guards the Romans against becoming to comfortable in a pagan society, and being modeled on the outside world.  Instead, St. Paul says that they should be transformed by the conversion of what they think is good, so that they might do what is good and pleasing and perfect to God.

Lastly, our Gospel, which sounds like a good admonition to get rid of temptations, is spoken to St. Peter.  This passage follows after the one we heard last week, where Jesus calls Peter blessed and the rock upon which Jesus will build His Church.  This week, after Peter says that Jesus should not suffer, die, and be raised, Jesus says to Peter, “‘Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.’”  Jesus insists to Peter and the other apostles that suffering is part of the plan of God for the redemption of humanity, because suffering is part of the human condition, and Jesus must take it all upon Himself in order to redeem the entire human condition.

There are other passages in Scripture that we can use.  Memorizing little bits of Scripture can help us as we go throughout our day, in good times and bad, to praise the Lord or ask for His help.  When we feel like nothing’s going right even though we try to do God’s will, we might say, “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped.”  When we feel like we need God to be present to us, we might say, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”  When we need to remember that being Catholic is not simply about the prayers we say in quiet, or the thoughts in our head, or that we should not let ourselves become like our fallen, hedonist culture, we might say, “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” or “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”  When we are tempted by Satan in any way, or when we are afraid to follow God’s plan because it’s not the one that we want, we should say, “Get behind me, Satan!”  The Word of God can help us in any situation.  Let’s be familiar with it so that we can turn to Jesus, the Word of God, when we want to thank God and ask for His help, in times of sorrow and times of joy.

Untying Knots

First Sunday of Lent

Have you ever had a string or a chain that seemed to be tied up in knots, so much so that it feels like it’s impossible to untie?  Of course, we always find those knots when we have the least amount of time, and need that chain or that string to be used without it being all bundled up in knots.  Sometimes the knots can be the result of lots of jostling in the pocket or in a backpack, and what started out as two individual sides to the chain or string, suddenly appears to be inseparable without breaking it.

In our first reading today we hear about a familiar story.  Adam and Eve tie themselves up in knots.  We all know the story: God gives them every good thing on earth, but forbids them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Of course, that’s the tree that Satan tries to get Eve to eat, which Eve then gives to Adam.  That was the first knot.  And then Cain murders Abel: the second knot.  And the knots keep on getting more and more entangled with each other as human history unfolds.  Sure, there are some Godly men and women who manage to untie a few, but the chain seems irrevocably tied up in such a way that it can never be returned to its original form.

Now, the story we heard, called The Fall, is usually presented as Eve’s fault.  Maybe some of you ladies received a little elbow nudge from your husbands during that first reading.  And certainly, Eve was the one who disobeyed God first.  But did you hear what St. Paul said in our second reading from his letter to the Romans: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned…”  St. Paul places the blame not on Eve, but on Adam (this is where you ladies can give a little elbow nudge back to your husbands).  Adam was the head of the human race, and in Adam’s good choices or bad choices, all of humanity was to receive blessings or curses.  

So what does Jesus do in our Gospel?  He starts to untie all the knots.  Jesus, the new Adam, the new head of the human race, who was also fully God, starts to untie the knots that sinful humanity, starting with our first parents, had created.  And Jesus starts by taking it to the one who really caused the mess in the first place: Satan.  

In one sense, Jesus begins at a disadvantage: he has a human nature, which is subject to temptation.  Jesus had also been fasting for 40 days in the desert, so that human nature was weak.  But Jesus was proving that, even in our weakness, united to God, humanity can defeat Satan.  Satan, for his part, gives the three most common areas where humans fall: physical desires, not trusting in God, and worshipping false gods.  How many times have each one of those (or even all of them together!) been the downfall in our lives?!?  How many times has it taken far less tempting than Satan did to Eve to get us to fall?!?  And yet, Jesus stands firm and rebuts Satan’s temptations with the Word of God.  

Jesus unties the knots by resisting the dominion of Satan.  The final knot is untied when Jesus offers Himself, the unblemished Lamb, who knew not sin but took sin upon Himself, and sacrifices even the good of life for the lives of all of humanity.  And the gift of the new Adam, as St. Paul reminds us, far outweighs the punishment that the first Adam brought upon us.  “For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one [Jesus], the many will be made righteous.”

What knots have we tied ourselves in?  How have we so entangled ourselves that we can’t seem to get things straight?  How have we given in to the Tempter’s seductions?  Whatever they are, they do not stand a chance against Jesus.  Jesus knows how to untie each knot, but we have to ask Him to do so.  It is evidence of the evil one to force himself upon us.  God always invites us to accept His way, but never makes us do anything.  

We are not condemned to a life where we constantly give in to the temptations which seek to tie us up, to bind us in the chains of slavery.  If we are baptized, we have all the grace we need to say no to the major temptations of life: misuse of physical desires, mistrust in God, and giving more attention to lesser goods than to the One who is Goodness Himself: God.  

It would be easy if temptations were really two little angels, one of which looked light and glowed, the other of which was red, surrounded by fire, and carrying a pitchfork.  But that’s not the way life works.  The knots we get tied up are often knots that look good, that appeal to our lower appetites, that seem to attractive.  

But Jesus is always there to help us see temptations for what they are: empty, fleeting, and wholly unsatisfying.  And the same way that Jesus fought temptation is a sure recipe for success for us: knowing the Word of God and allowing it to illumine the path we want to take to find out if it’s the path God wants us to take.  Let Jesus untie your knots.  Find freedom in obedience to God’s way and friendship with Him.

Girl Scout Cookies and Temptation

First Sunday of Lent

One of the Lenten memories that stand out the most from my childhood, is how the Girl Scouts always seem to deliver their cookies shortly after Lent began.  For six long weeks a box or two of Samoas and Thin Mints would be sitting in the freezer, just waiting to be eaten, seemingly calling to me from their frigid home during Lent.  It was certainly a temptation to simply eat them during Lent, even though it was a family practice to avoid sweets, including Girl Scout Cookies, during the penitential season.

We hear about Jesus’ temptations today in the Gospel.  He wasn’t tempted so much by Girl Scout Cookies, but by the ancient sin whereby Satan tricked Adam and Eve: the sin of pride.  Satan tempts Jesus to show His power by turning stone into bread; to receive power over all if Jesus would just worship Satan; to throw Himself off the parapet of the temple because God will not let His Son suffer.  Pride is the sin where we put ourselves above God.  That’s how Satan had corrupted Adam and Eve, and that’s how he planned on corrupting Jesus.  Of course, we know that Jesus did not fall into those temptations.  He rejects Satan and rejects putting God to the test.

When we sin, it often happens in one of two ways.  Some sins we don’t even think about.  We react without any reflection of what we’re doing.  In one sense, these sins are most dangerous, because they are second nature.  It might be taking God’s Name in vain after a frustrating experience, yelling at someone when we are mad at them, or gossiping about a person with whom we disagree or whom we dislike.  In another sense, they are less dangerous, because we do not freely choose the action, but almost seem to go on instinct, even if the instinct has been created by us through habitual actions.

Other sins come through long thought.  We are tempted, and we give in, either after a short or a long fight.  These are the sins where an idea pops into our head to do something we know we shouldn’t: to watch a show or visit a site that we know we don’t need to and which could lead to further sin; to plot a way to get back at someone who has hurt us; to have just a small bite or just a sip of a food or a beverage that we know we shouldn’t.  In and of itself, that thought, that temptation, is not a sin.  But how often do we move from the thought to further action: going to the channel or the site; starting to think about what we would do to get back that that person; opening up the refrigerator or going to the bar.  Once we start going down that path, giving in to the temptation, it is much harder to get out of it.  The behavior, whatever it is, seems to take on a life of its own and grow, and we can end up feeling surrounded and smothered by that sin.  Even if these sins are small, they can be very dangerous, because we are using the God-given gift of reason, a way that we are made in God’s image and likeness, to reject God.  

So how do we avoid giving in to the temptations in our life, whatever they are?  How do we say no to temptation and yes to God?  The first key is to swat away and move on from the temptation when it first shows itself.  Treat the temptation like you would a mosquito, and move on to something else.  Otherwise the mind will easily go back to the temptation, and it will gain strength.

The second key is tied to our first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy.  It may have seemed simply like a nice story that the Israelites were told to recall, but at the heart of the passage today is remembering who we are and what God has done for us.  When we recall that we are children of God, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, we receive strength to fight the temptations that come our way.  Satan tries to have us forget who we are so that we need to rely on him to give us meaning.  In moments of temptation, we should recall that we are sons and daughters of God, and that God found us so important to Him that He would send His Son, Jesus, to die for us so that we didn’t have to fall into temptation and sin.  When our self-worth is based in God, we are less likely to turn to lesser goods to make ourselves feel better.  In the Gospel, Jesus knew who He was, and didn’t need to demonstrate that to Satan to prove it.  That helped Him to resist Satan’s temptations. 

The third key is also from the Gospel: turn to the Word of God.  When Satan tempts Jesus, Jesus quotes Scripture.  The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that the Word of God is living and effective.  It helps sort through the lies that Satan, the father of lies, wants us to buy.  If we have regular contact with the Word of God, it doesn’t mean that the temptations will stop, but we will know how to fight them, because we are familiar with the message of love and truth that God gave us through His Word.  

All of us have been, are, and will be tempted.  It is a part of our human condition after the Fall.  But, after Jesus redeemed us by dying on the cross, we also have the strength to reject temptation and sin, and say yes to God.  When we are tempted, in whatever way we are, may we remember that we are children of God whose worth is based in God, and turn to the Word of God to follow Jesus’ example of saying no to Satan and yes to God.  

Freedom without Consequence

First Sunday of Lent

            This weekend is not just the first weekend of Lent, but also is the opening weekend for the movie “300: Rise of an Empire.”  I had seen the last “300” movie, and given it’s importance at Michigan State University (if I yelled out, “Spartans, what is your profession?” I know I would get a particular response), I thought I would see the sequel which deals with the battle between the rest of the Greeks and the Persians.  It was very bloody, and earned the R rating that it received.  However, at one point, and I don’t think this gives anything away, the Greek general is speaking with the leader of the Persian navy, who says to the Greek: “I can offer you freedom without consequence, without responsibility.”

           

That is the seductive lie that our first parents were told, and which they swallowed hook, line, and sinker.  Adam and Eve had paradise in the Garden of Eden.  They were truly free.  They wanted for nothing, and everything responded to their will, because they responded to the will of God.  Their only responsibility was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But the serpent, the Devil, the Father of Lies, seduced Adam and Eve into believing that they could be God’s equal.  Satan convinced them that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, that they would be answerable to no one.  And so they ate.  And by Adam’s act of disobedience, death entered the world as the order that God planned for the world was disrupted.  Because Adam had disobeyed God, the plants and animals would no longer obey Adam and Eve; Adam and Eve’s body would no longer be subject to their mind and soul; and Adam and Eve would both work to dominate each other, rather than work in a loving partnership.  Adam and Even thought that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, and so sin and death entered the world.

            This is what St. Paul reminds us in our first reading when he says, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.”  One man represented all of humanity.  And in his exercise of freedom, we all received the consequences.  This is what the church calls original sin: not that we are born with a personal sin, but we receive the consequences of the disobedience of our first parents with the perpetual desire on earth to misuse freedom; to pretend that we can have freedom without responsibility, without consequence.  Who here has not experienced that desire, that temptation?  Who here has never wanted to do whatever he or she wanted and not have to worry about what would happen later?  We are born under the illusion that such a reality is possible, that there are actions that never affect anyone else.

            And because Jesus shared our human nature in all things but sin, Satan wanted to try to get the Son of God to fall.  Satan wanted to seduce Jesus into believing that He could use His power any way He wanted to, without any responsibility or consequence.  “Command that these stones becomes loaves of bread”; “throw yourself down”; “prostrate yourself and worship me”; in other words: “do whatever you want to do.”  But Jesus, as the new head of the human race, the new Adam, succeeds where Adam failed.  Because He is the author of freedom, He knows that freedom always has responsibility, always has consequences, and that freedom truly comes not from doing whatever we want, but from doing what is right.  He knows that to do whatever we want only makes us slaves to our passions and to the Evil One, whereas controlling our passions and resisting sin allows us to have true freedom by living according to the order God originally created for us. 

And so He rebukes Satan and the temptations he offers, and not only begins to undue the shackles of slavery which had formerly bound us (the shackles which will be definitively broken by Jesus freely submitting to the consequence of sin, though He did not know sin, and dying on the cross), but also, as our preface will say, “by overturning the snares of the ancient serpent, taught us to cast out the leaven of malice, so that, celebrating worthily the Paschal Mystery, we might pass over at last to the eternal paschal feast.”   He teaches us that we can use our freedom well and not be seduced by a false view of freedom.

Each day we are faced with countless opportunities to use our freedom that God has given to us.  We can use our freedom poorly, thinking that freedom does not involve responsibility or consequences and means that we can do whatever we want.  And when we do that, we lock the shackles of slavery around our necks, wrists, and ankles, and hand the key over to the ancient serpent.  Or we can use our freedom well, and claim “the abundance of grace and…the gift of justification,” so that we are not slaves to our passions and sins, but can “reign in life through…Jesus Christ.”  May our penitential practices this Lent purify our understanding of freedom so that we may share in the eternal freedom of the children of God in heaven.

***************DURING THE RITE OF SENDING ONLY***************

My dear Catechumens, I want to address you now, in a specific way.  You have been preparing, coming to know Jesus and accept the invitation that He extends to all people: to receive the benefits of His freedom and be cleansed from original sin through baptism; to be strengthened to profess His Name to all people through confirmation; and to come into full union with Him through the reception of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

My dear candidates, I also want to address you.  You are already one with us in baptism, which is no small thing, because you have been claimed for Christ already and washed clean of the stain of original sin.  You have also been preparing to know Jesus more deeply, and have been preparing to join the one Church of Christ, to receive that gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation by which you can spread the faith, and to come into full union with Jesus through the reception of His Body and Blood.

Catechumens and candidates, you are a witness to us of how Christ continues to call people into His Church, into the fullness of truth, and how to live freely.  You are a witness to the world that the lie that freedom is doing whatever you want is just that, a lie, and that true freedom only comes from life in Christ.  Thank you for your witness.  May you be upheld in that witness during this time of final preparation for the Easter mysteries and receive what Christ intends for each of you as you begin your new pilgrimage with us as full members of the Catholic Church.