Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

Today’s famous passage from Second Isaiah assures that God’s word is efficacious.  It always achieves its purpose.  As God is altogether good, His word only brings about benefits.

In the gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to pray for forgiveness of their sins.  Being God with power to effect what he wills, Jesus is assuring them that their guilt will be abolished.  However, he makes one proviso.  Sins will be forgiven on request as long as the sinners involved willingly forgive their offenders.

We long to be forgiven for mistakes we have made and for full-blown sins that we have committed.  There is no need to fret.  All that is necessary is to ask for pardon and to show willingness to forgive others.  We still may not receive the desired forgiveness from other humans.  But God’s forgiveness, which counts the most, is guaranteed.

Monday, March 10, 2025

Monday of the First Week in Lent

(Leviticus 19:1-2.11-18; Matthew 25:31-46)

The Scripture readings today strike a balance between negative and positive actions.  Leviticus emphasizes the former with a list of “You shall not(s).”  The gospel, on the other hand, accentuates the positive.  It predicts Jesus reminding the nations at the end of time that they are being judged on what they did for the little people of the world.  If they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the imprisoned, they will be judged worthy of salvation.

We might ask which is more important, to avoid doing what is wrong or to do what is right?  In medicine, at least, an answer to this question seems to emerge.  The Hippocratic Oath, which physicians have taken for centuries, clearly sides with the need to avoid evil.  After promising to offer dietetic measures to heal the sick, budding physicians swear not to do a series of evils: hasten death, induce abortion, and molest patients or householders whom they visit. 

It is fair to conclude that avoiding harm is essential but insufficient.  If love is the supreme virtue, it entails that we act positively toward others.  If we cannot do anything directly to support them, then we should at least pray that their needs be met.  During Lent we redouble efforts to examine our lives daily with two questions in mind.  We ask ourselves, “What evil have I done today?” and “What good have I failed to do?”

Sunday, March 9, 2025

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT, March 9, 2025

(Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13)

We began Lent last Wednesday with the reception of ashes, fasting, and abstaining from meat. But it seems to me that this week we begin it in earnest. Lent is more than a one-day performance to put us into the spirit of humility but an extended time to achieve it. The season proposes that we become more willing to love God with our whole heart.

The readings of each Mass during Lent usually focus on one aspect of the paschal mystery. Today they emphasize trust in God. Let's deal with the first reading quickly and give more attention to the gospel.  There we will observe not only Jesus' success over the distorted desires of the human heart but also his solidarity with humanity. Finally, we will see how the reading from the Letter to the Romans signals the accessibility of salvation to the entire world.

The first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy gives the striking phrase: “My father was a wandering Aramean…” It refers to Jacob, son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, who left his homeland to seek refuge in Egypt. Without land to protect them from both hunger and enemies, Jacob’s descendants lived in precarious conditions for centuries. However, God blessed them so that they grew into a great nation. In time, God freed them from Pharaoh’s tyranny and established them in the land of Canaan.

As great as freedom and land are, God eventually gave Israel nation a far greater gift. He sent his only begotten Son to fulfill the nation’s destiny to be a “light to the nations,” the source of salvation for the world. In the gospel, Jesus arrives in the desert “filled with the Holy Spirit,” which he received through his baptism in the Jordan River. It was a gratuitous act of solidarity with humans since having never sinned, Jesus did not need baptism.

Again, like other human beings Jesus suffers temptations engineered by the devil. In preparation for his ministry, Jesus faces the great desires of the human heart. First, he must overcome sensual longings represented by the temptation to break his forty-day fast. Second, he must subdue the ambition for power and glory in the devil's offer of lordship over the kingdoms of the world. Finally, Jesus must master the human will to manipulate God for its own benefit. At each turn he dismisses temptation with a phrase from Scripture. Jesus proves himself consistent with his teaching throughout the gospel that humans are on earth to serve the Lord God, not to be served.

Jesus' solidarity with humans here at the beginning of the gospel will continue to its end. On the cross he will show its depth when he suffers death as the sacrifice of the sinless for sinners. Only such self-giving can redeem humans from their offenses of doing their own will rather than God's.  Having left behind all earthly ambition, Jesús can truly say, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.”

In the second reading, St. Paul assures us that being included among those redeemed by Jesus Christ is not reserved for a few. We have only to submit ourselves to Christ with an act of faith. We ask, “What about those who have never had the opportunity to know Christ?” Vatican II teaches that all who seek God’s will with a sincere heart will not be abandoned. God will not allow non-Christians who do His will to be lost. But they, like us, must humble themselves before Him.

Friday, March 7, 2025

Friday after Ash Wednesday

(Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matthew 9:14-15)

Needless to say, today’s readings involve fasting.  The first calls into question the fasting of Israel in the sixth century before Christ.  The gospel questions the purpose of fasting with the supreme call to joy present.

Fasting is an outward sign of an interior disposition of humility.  It indicates one’s willingness to do God’s will and not one’s own.  Trito-Isaiah chastises the nation of Israel for putting on a show as if they intended to keep God’s commandments.  In reality, however, they mean “business as usual” with just lip service to justice as God commands.

We say Lent is a forty-day fast.  In most years, however, there are only thirty-eight or thirty-nine days of fasting.  The difference is accounted to a suspension of fasting on March 19, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, and March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation.  Both days call for celebration, not signs of humility.  Besides Sundays, on the other days of Lent we should not only fast but make up for the times in which we have not rendered full justice to God or neighbor.

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

(Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 9:22-25)

In a “Faustian bargain” one sells his or her eternal soul to the devil in exchange for temporal goods.  The term originates from a legendary man who bargained with the devil for unlimited knowledge and possessions.  Unfortunately, many people forfeit their souls at a much lesser price.  The readings today exhort us to avoid all such arrangements.

 Moses is speaking to the people just before they enter the Promised Land.  He says that God will give them “life,” i.e., prosperity for them and their descendants.  They only have to keep to His ways.  In the gospel Jesus offers an even greater life.  His followers can secure an eternal reward by focusing on him rather than their own desires.  They are to live without complaints doing good for others. 

 The purpose of Lent is to reinforce the habits of self-denying love in order to have fullness of life.  Like any exercise worth our while, it takes effort.  But we share the experience with one another in the Church and with Christ.  The burden becomes, paradoxically, a joy in such good company.