1st Sunday of Lent (Year A )

We often play down the possibility that we may stray from where God calls us, or where the teachings of Christ lead us, by failing or refusing to acknowledge that we are tempted to stray.

Our current culture and society stress the importance of being ‘independent’ and ‘free-thinking’, and so as a consequence, we become the final arbiters of what is or is not ‘right’; what does or does not lead to ‘Truth’ – God being the ultimate Truth.  We can cite physical or material ‘wants’ as ‘needs’; we can rationalize our actions easily by determining what is ‘best’ for us (meaning ourselves alone); we can conclude that we alone have the final say on what is or is not right.

The easiest way to fall into this ‘trap’, particularly for those who profess to be Christians, is to deny that we are engaged in a spiritual war in this lifetime; a war in which the very fate of our souls, and those we influence, is determined.  To deny this ‘struggle’ is to deny that there is a possibility of going in the wrong direction, of succumbing to ‘temptation’.  If we convince ourselves that we are the final authority in what is right and wrong, we have already surrendered to temptation. We may even convince ourselves that there is no such thing as temptation, because right and wrong are very subjective terms.  I might here offer a quote attributed to Pope Francis in 2014 which may bluntly explain what is wrong with this view; “If you believe you have never been tempted, you are either a little angel come down from heaven, or you’re an idiot” (I won’t vouch for the authenticity of this quote, but you get my point).

In today’s gospel, we see Jesus engaged in that very battle of temptation – the ultimate personification of Good in Jesus facing the personification of Evil in the devil; this episode in St. Matthew’s account occurs after Jesus has been fasting in the desert.  He’s no doubt very hungry, tired, and alone.

The three temptations as offered, though, speak to a very common progression in our own lives as we battle temptations – the first is to tempt Jesus to address bodily wants (we can argue whether the bread was needed or wanted here, but the point is that Jesus in deliberately choosing to fast as part of his ‘retreat’ saw the bread more as a ‘want’ than a ‘need’).  Jesus quotes Sacred Scripture in responding that the need for God supersedes any momentary ‘wants’ or ‘comforts’.  In fact, satisfying that ‘want’ in the moment may lead us away from God, if we are serious about our pilgrim journey.

The next temptation is to suggest that we can manipulate God to suit ourselves; ‘if you are the Son of God throw yourself off this cliff, for God will send His angels to bear you up…’  God gives us a rational mind in real, physical world – we shouldn’t need to somehow expect God to provide supernatural proof of how important we are to Him, and we certainly shouldn’t be calling on Him to perform ‘parlour tricks’ to satisfy our own egos how important we are to Him.  He loved us into existence. If that isn’t sufficient proof of His love for us, then we need to seriously examine ourselves.

Finally the devil offers power and fame in exchange for Jesus bowing down to him.  Here, we see the devil tempting Jesus with his own sin – the sin of pride.  How prevalent this ‘root sin’ is in our own day and in our own lives; ‘I don’t need anyone else to tell me when I am doing something wrong,’ or ‘I don’t need some old-fashioned rule in my modern life because they are so outdated’; we move and act as if we alone are the wisest of all creatures since the beginning; as if centuries of saints and scholars, theologians and teachers couldn’t hold a candle to our own wit and wisdom (which all too often is formed by questionable or outright false information we find on the internet).

The message in this Gospel is that temptation is very real; it happened to Christ Himself – and it is hardly surprising that it should happen to those who would follow Him.  The difference is that we are called to resist it, just as Jesus did; not by pretending that it doesn’t exist, but by confronting it wherever we see it in our lives, and calling it what it is.  Rather than presuming that we have all the answers, perhaps it is with a sense of humility that we acknowledge that we don’t know ‘everything’. Perhaps we need to be humble enough to seek the actual information we need to properly form our conscience and to know how to properly make informed decisions.

Perhaps, after all, we need to rely on God to deliver us from temptation.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

6th Sunday Ordinary Time ( Year A )

Our society seems to have a really difficult time when it comes to admitting that sometimes one thing is better than the other (unless it’s a sports competition like , say, the Superbowl).  Rather than encouraging our young people to strive to excel at school, for example, we minimize the achievements of some, so that others won’t feel less successful; instead of holding out the example of excellence, we celebrate mediocrity so that no one ‘feels bad’ – as if we can shield them from disappointment or struggles their entire lives.  This attitude permeates our entire culture.

This attitude is often reflected in our personal relationships with God.  We seem to act as if we can be minimalist in our approach to our Creator.

We may hear someone say, ‘well I’ve never sinned; I haven’t killed anyone or robbed a bank’ as if this is the threshold of acceptable behavior or sin.  I’m sure we can all agree that there are things short of killing someone that are not acceptable – or other ways of stealing that may be less than robbing a bank; and I’m sure we can all agree that these ‘lesser’ offences are no less offensive.  But if we continually use the extreme as the example or threshold of what we can ‘get away with’, then we do the opposite of what we are called to in our spiritual life (and indeed in our Christian journey); we fall into a trap – a mindset where we rationalize our own words and actions to minimize the damage they do to our own relationship with others, and to somehow fool ourselves into thinking that we are not distancing ourselves from a relationship of deep love with God.

We know the consequences of our actions, whether we choose to openly admit it or not; if we continually speak in anger or uncharitably to another, eventually that relationship will be beyond repair – if we look outside our relationships with lust, eventually that will have a damaging effect on the relationships we are in.  And God allows us to freely choose; in the first reading from Sirach, we hear, “Before each person are life and death, good and evil, and whichever one chooses, that will be given.”  God doesn’t force us to truly love him or to truly love others; but there is a responsibility we face for all of our choices and an accountability for them; it says a little later in this same passage, God “has not given anyone permission to sin.”

Perhaps we need to reacquaint ourselves with the word ‘sin’; we don’t like it (however we have come to know its meaning); but just ignoring it because we don’t like it doesn’t deny its existence.  In its simplest terms, sin means anything – thoughts, words, actions – in which we deliberately choose those things which draw us away from God, towards our selves.

In today’s Gospel Jesus gives pretty serious examples – and then shows how much higher that bar should be raised; he refers to the Law of Moses, and says it basically presents us with a threshold for our exterior actions; but it’s a minimum threshold if we are truly serious about living a life in complete and total union with God.  The Law says not to commit adultery, but then Jesus says if we look at another person with lust, we have already committed adultery in our hearts; the Law says not to murder, but then Jesus says if we are angry or insulting in our words to others, we will face judgment.  It sounds like an impossible task for our fallen human nature – and it is. This whole Gospel passage underscores our need to rely on God’s grace in helping us to live and act in union with Him and with each other.

While these words from Jesus sound very harsh, there is also great love in them.  He is reminding all of us that rather than satisfy ourselves with some ‘minimalist’ threshold of thought or action, we are called for nobler, greater, and far more wondrous things than we could possibly imagine; and it all starts with the intentions of our hearts.  If our thoughts and words and actions constantly center on ourselves, our wants, our personal desires, then eventually we will find ourselves drawn deeper into ourselves and further away from God and others. If our desire is fixed on God, and we nurture that desire, then we will be drawn more and more towards that union of great and deep and awesome love; and that union will find itself expressed more and more in our own thoughts and words and actions; and those external expressions will find us growing more deeply in our relationship with all of those around us. 

While Jesus’ words are words of warning, they are also words of encouragement and support; rather than trying to rationalize selfish behaviours (and that’s very hard work), we can simply admit to ourselves that we cannot possibly attain God without His love and the help that Christ holds out to us.  That admission frees us from all of the other ‘work’ and ‘weight’ of trying to rationalize our own actions and opens us up to the grace of God’s strength and love.  And we cannot imagine what that relationship holds out for us.  Because as the author of 1^st Corinthians tell us, “… no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

5th Sunday Ordinary Time ( Year A )

Sometimes we hear people make comments about others, like,’ she’s so pleasant, she can light up a room full of people just by walking in,’ or ‘he’s so honest and hardworking, he’s just the salt of the earth.’

Because these are used in our day as compliments, sometimes it’s difficult for us to see past the surface of these analogies, ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light of the world’ when we read the particular passage from St. Matthew that is our Gospel reading today. We have to understand that in this context, Jesus, speaking directly to his disciples – anyone who is his follower – is not simply paying a compliment or patting them on the back.  He’s giving a command – giving direction; he’s calling on them – and us – to live out fully the potential his followers have; to be a force for good in the world and to continually draw closer to God, and bring others closer to God by a lived example.

In other words, Jesus is saying to anyone who claims to be his follower – be authentic – don’t just say you are my follower; live as one of my followers.

Live an authentic life in witnessing to the Gospel.  To be authentic means not to say one thing and do another, but to live out the two greatest commandments; to love God above all else, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. 

To fulfill the potential we have as sons and daughters of God.

In Palestine, at the time of Jesus, the salt used was a course, large crystalline substance, something like the salt we use to melt ice…and it wasn’t used to season food to taste – it was used to preserve foods like fish and meat – this was long before refrigerators and vacuum sealed plastic packaging.

The trouble with this type of salt, was that if it was left in the open, or exposed to the elements, it could lose its ‘saltiness’ – its ability to preserve fish and meats from spoiling, from becoming corrupted.  And once this salt lost its effectiveness, it was tossed outside on the ground; somewhat like crushed gravel that we have in some driveways and walkways.  The only thing this salt was good for at this point, was for walking on –‘trampling underfoot’.

While the use of the salt metaphor in this parable may not be quite clear to us today in its context, the meaning was very clear to the disciples of Jesus in first century Palestine.  The world is in need of ‘preservation’ – is in need of something to protect it from ‘spoiling’ – from ‘decay’, from ‘corruption’.  The absorption with worldly possessions and power, displacing love of God and neighbour, this is the true corruption or spoilage of humanity in the world.  Jesus tells his disciples – all of his disciples; from St. Matthew’s audience to us today – that we are to be that ‘salt’ – that ‘preservative’; influencing all people for good, by our lived example in coming to know and love the One True God. 

But there’s a caution here in being called ‘salt’; in essence, Jesus is saying, “you are my disciples – go be a sign of my love to others, and don’t give up; persist and persevere. “

Because like salt, if we lose our ‘flavour’, the interior zeal for God that gives us purpose, then we lose our effectiveness.  And if we have lost our effectiveness, then, Jesus asks, how can we authentically spread the Gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God? 

That can sound rather daunting – but that is why we need to keep these two metaphors of salt and light together in this particular passage. 

We may feel at times that it’s almost a lost cause to keep struggling with living the Gospel in our world – in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Church, to Christ, to God Himself.  How can we each persevere and persist in trying to participate in Jesus’ mission of salvation for all people, when the world doesn’t seem to want or care about God?  How can we be authentic disciples in the midst of this?

Because Jesus tells us that not only are we the salt of the earth…He calls His followers the light of the world; he paints a picture with words of a city on a hill that cannot be hidden; of a lamp lit on a stand giving light to a whole room – those things which give light in the midst of the darkness cannot be contained; their light always shines forth.

The love of God cannot be contained…it will shine forth, whether we want it to or not….it can’t be concealed, but will show itself in all sorts of wondrous ways in our own lives and encounters with others.

All we have to do is think of a time we have been in love.  We might deny that there is anything different about us, but those around us, particularly those who know us well, will say there is something different about us; how we react when a ‘certain someone’ comes up in conversation; when we are in the company of that ‘special person’; love always reaches out beyond the one in love.

It is the same when we open ourselves to the love of God; the love we have for God will transform our interior life, which in turn will transform our exterior actions; This transformation will become self-evident in the love we have for those around us: it will increasingly show in our words and actions.

Then we will bring light to the world; we will be the salt of the earth – maybe not in grand, dramatic gestures; but at the very least to those immediately around us in our own small circle – and living as authentic sons and daughters of God, all we have to do is bring that light to just one other person; because that light will spread – it’s the nature of light against the darkness.

One of my favourite saints, St. Catherine of Siena, summed it up quite nicely this way,

“If you are what God intends you to be, you will set the whole world on fire…” 

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!