Baptism is very much in the foreground during lent. As we reflect on our relationship with Jesus during this season, we do so in the light of our baptism and the commitment it requires of us. Today’s scripture appropriately highlights baptism. As we read of Moses providing water for the exodus journey, St Paul reminds us that hope does not disappoint and the Holy Spirit has been poured forth in great abundance, and in our Gospel from John, Jesus refers to himself as the source of living water in his conversation with the Samaritan woman.
The Samaritan woman sees that Jesus is a prophet and is confirmed in faith by Jesus. That faith gives her the courage to move without hesitation, so much so, that she even leaves the water jar behind! Her faith moved her to evangelize, perhaps not knowing what that meant or entailed. The beautiful thing about her encounter is that she was accepted by Jesus in her sinful state, and that no longer seemed to bother her. She was gifted with an understanding of who it was who spoke to her, and the only thing that remained was for her to bring that Word to others. She turned away from the chores of everyday life and back toward the village where she now had a new role to play, as witness to Christ. Jesus accepts us as well. We are similarly called to be witness through our baptism.
The Samaritan woman was graced with a personal, firsthand encounter with Jesus. What Jesus did for the woman He also does for us, if we allow ourselves to be honest in our lives of reflection and prayer. Jesus thirsts to bring all of his children back into the fold, not only the alienated. He offers divine life to the entire world. We all thirst for the Word of God and our baptism is only the beginning of the well-spring of living water that Jesus offers to us. Jesus knows where we have been and lovingly guides us back. The Samaritans came to believe because of the heartfelt testimony of the woman. Our faith is not something to be guarded or hidden. It calls for conviction and courage.
Pope Francis stated during his Lenten message in 2021 that “Fasting, prayer and almsgiving, as preached by Jesus, enable and express our conversion. The path of poverty and self-denial (fasting), concern and loving care for the poor (almsgiving), and childlike dialogue with the Father (prayer) make it possible for us to live lives of sincere faith, living hope and effective charity.”
The first pillar of Lent is prayer. Lent is a time of spiritual renewal, and during Lent we put special time aside to be prayerful and reflective. Good communication is a sign of good relationship. Lent calls us to renew our relationship with God, by communicating with God each and every day. Some may like to pray with the Scriptures during Lent. Others like to pray the Rosary, or another devotional prayer. Others still may prefer to just find a time to sit quietly each day in God’s presence. There are as many different ways to pray or communicate with God as there are prayers. We encourage you to find your way of connecting with God this Lent. Here are some ideas:
Experiment with a new form or way of praying; Lectio Divina, the Rosary, etc.
For one week, set your alarm 10 minutes early, and spend that time in prayer before starting your day.
For one week, examine your conscience before you go to bed, reviewing your day.
Set up or decorate an intentional space for prayer; a quiet corner, a comfortable chair, a place in nature.
Participate in the Stations of the Cross, or pray the Rosary each week (as little as a decade a day).
Celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation this Lent.
The second Lenten pillar is fasting and abstinence. Fasting is the practice of limiting the food that we eat on certain days. You’ll know that we fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, meaning we only eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together do not equal to a full meal. Abstinence is the practice of not eating certain types of food. Beginning with Ash Wednesday, and continuing with each Friday in Lent, we abstain from eating meat. Fasting and abstaining remind us of our total dependence on God. These practices help us to remember that it is only through the love of God that we are fed, nourished, and sustained. The practices also reflect the opportunity each of us has to remove the vices of our lives that pull us away from being the people God wants us to be. These ideas may help you extend beyond the standard obligations of fasting and abstinence:
Forego eating out once a week, and donate the money saved to a food bank.
Choose an unhealthy habit or vice, whether it be junk food, smoking, gossiping, or inactivity, and abstain from the behavior for one week (or more).
Abstain from buying any new clothing during Lent, and purge your closet of disused items that could be donated.
Abstain from social media for one week (or more), and spend the time saved reading scripture or in spiritual reflection.
Abstain from complaining for one week (or more), and write down five things each day for which you are grateful.
The third and final pillar of Lent is almsgiving, also thought of as “acts of mercy and love.” Almsgiving and acts of mercy are ways in which we tell God that we will not be possessed by our possessions, but are ready and willing to share our possessions and time in the service of others. During Lent, we make a special effort to do acts of charitable service or take up collections of food or clothing for those in need. Our parish is taking up that call this Lent in support of the Hillsborough food pantry of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul through the “40 Cans in 40 Days” drive, but that does not have to be the extent of your charitable efforts this season:
Volunteer once a week to help others; serve at a soup kitchen, assist a neighbor with yard work — reach out!
Stop by a nearby nursing home, and spend an hour visiting with the residents.
Make cards for those who are sick, homebound, closed off, or incarcerated. Let them know someone cares.
Perform one random act of kindness every day for a week (or more).
While Pope Francis’ 2021 message lays out “the what,” his 2014 Lenten message provides us with “the why” for our actions during the season. “Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance.”
I’m writing to you on the eve of Ash Wednesday, dubbed “Fat Tuesday,” a day to celebrate before the Lenten season. Many of us will have been thinking about what we’ll give up for Lent on Fat Tuesday, potentially indulging one last time in what will be sacrificed for the next six weeks, whether it’s a common vice like chocolate or wine, or something a bit more procedural. I hear some folks try to give up cursing, though I also hear that is one of the more difficult options.
Any of these would be great to forgo during Lent, but what if we considered some more emotional or introspective options, like gossiping, lying, cheating, stealing or being selfish. These are options which will cause us to truly evaluate ourselves, asking if we are truly being an imitator of Christ. Lent is a time for us all to spend in prayer, fasting and charity.
Prayer, an act of supplication or intercession directed towards God, can be healing and aid in our attempts to stick with our sacrificial commitments for the season. Through prayer we deepen our relationship with God. We see Jesus doing this throughout the New Testament, always seeking the Father before and after a healing. We, too, should seek the reassurance and refreshing shelter of God through prayer.
Our Lenten fasting does not have to focus on food alone. Abstaining from entertainment, like television and social media, can have quite an impact. However, the traditional view of fasting might sound sensational today, especially compared to the culture and norms during Jesus’ time. It was odd for a religious person not to fast. John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, often fasted. Jesus also teaches his disciples how to fast in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically telling them not to make a show of their fasting. Christians shouldn’t fast to look pious or religious. Fasting is a practice of humbling ourselves before God. Fasting isn’t about how God responds to our prayers, but how we bring our prayers to Him.
Charity is defined as the highest form of love, signifying the reciprocal love between God and man that is made manifest in unselfish love of one’s fellow men. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I have all things and yet do not have love, I’m nothing.” In a general sense, showing love, benevolence, good will, and a disposition of heart will incline others to think favorably of their fellow human being, and to do them good in turn. In a theological sense, it includes love of God, and universal good will to all. Over the years, the definition of Lent in the homilies I have given has changed from the simple thought to sacrificing something for forty days, to the thought of giving it up for good. The question I ask of myself is “What I am giving up and how will it cause me to grow in my relationship with God and my fellow neighbor?” I invite you to ask yourself this same question.
My brothers and sisters, it is my hope and prayer that this Lenten season truly becomes an awakening experience of God in our lives by our prayer, fasting and charity.
To fully appreciate today’s Gospel according to Matthew (5:38-48), we need to remember that he is writing to a primarily Jewish audience, to show that Jesus is the promised Messiah inaugurating the new Kingdom of God. While we, some two thousand years later, often call the time of Jesus living under Roman occupation “the Pax Romana,” it must be remembered that the peace of Roman rule was paid by a heavy price in both lives lost and heavy taxes.
The Kingdom of God will look and operate differently than the Empire of Rome, and this puts Jesus and those who follow him in a very dangerous position. Instead of the abusive use of power, revenge, retaliation, and greed, those in God’s Kingdom live the rule of forgiveness, pacifism, and generosity. As today’s first reading from Leviticus reminds us, this really isn’t a new teaching at all. If this sounds too good to be true, and an impossible way to live in the world, Jesus goes one step further by saying, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
YIKES!
Of course, left on our own, none of this is possible. However, Jesus does not ask us to do something without giving us all we need to carry out His holy and true commands. Today’s second reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians (3:16-23), St. Paul reminds us that we are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us. It is by yielding to the promptings and the power of the Spirit that enables us to live, here and now, how it will be in the Kingdom of God to come. Since the Lord is kind and merciful (Psalm 103) we can choose, one situation at a time, to be kind and merciful. Hence “be perfect” (perfect meaning ‘being whole or mature [in Christ]’).
This is the weekend before the start of Lent. Today’s readings, I think, point to the end result of what our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are all about: growing in love for our neighbor and love of God.
Let us all continue to grow in “perfect love of God which reaches to our neighbor.”
The wisdom of Sirach places a radical choice before us; it is a choice between life and death. The choice in favor of the law will lead to life, and rejection of the law brings along with it death. The authors of the Book of Wisdom remind us that there is always complete freedom to accept or reject it. It is important to remember that God does not constrain or force the will of anyone, God prizes too highly the freedom He has given us and sin never will proceed from God’s will, it is a consequence of human choice. God knows our hearts and our minds, yet our desires and our thoughts, however, do at times deviate from God’s will.
The lessons of today’s readings are multiple. There is continuity between the two laws, that of Moses and that of Jesus. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he is well aware that their sophistication is no match for “the deep things of God.” He urges, rather, the wisdom of the spiritually mature. It does take some level of maturity to recognize that the Sermon on the Mount is not there to cast us down, to be meant only as a list of things not to do.
While Jesus’ intention is not to abolish the old law, he promises to fulfill or realize the law in a new way. Jesus reveals all injustice in our human frailty, yet is firm in what He expects from those who choose to follow him. In matters of discipleship Jesus does not allow ifs, ands, or buts. He tells us to “let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything beyond that is from the evil one.” To read the Sermon on the Mount we should come away being challenged to the point of striving to make corrections in our own behaviors.
The Sermon on the Mount is our invitation to holiness. It hopefully resonates with our deepest sense of compassion in ways of loving ourselves and neighbor as a response to our most gracious God who has given us the true freedom to learn to love. Just imagine how different would our Eucharist be if we took Jesus seriously? The resentments we hold against others would have to dissolve before we approach the altar, lest we receive the sacrament unworthily. Perhaps that is why our Communion is aptly prefaced by the sign of peace. Just as we ask God, “look not on our sins, but on the faith of your church,” so also, we who have sinned against each other must see with the eyes of faith and forgive.
