First Sunday of Lent - March 13, 2011

1.a.lent.2011.stmb.temptations.and.demons

Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Matt 4:1-11

There are significant moments in our lives when we are forced to take stock of ourselves - to do our spiritual inventory. This requires that we recognize temptations which we have faced.  This requires that we name "demons" which have made their home within us: our bad habits and wrong choices which perhaps we continue making. They are the sum of all the times we have surrendered our will to what is not good, or have consider doing it. They are the sins we have committed, in what we have done and in what we have failed to do. Facing these temptations and demons and dealing with them is our first step on the long road of transformation.

Each year we are given an opportunity in a form of the season of Lent to face our temptations and demons, and do deal with them not the way Adam and Eve did, but the way Jesus did. We are not forced to do it by the circumstances of our lives but we are invited by the church to do it.

Lent is a time of repentance, spiritual renewal and conversion. We are called during this season to remove from our lives what keeps us separated from God and one another, what prevents us from being God's people. Three practices of Lent are to help us with that task: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.

There are some questions directed to each one of us on this first weekend of Lent:

1. What are the demons or temptations of our lives?

2. Are we willing to do something about them?

3. And if so what?

Ash Wednesday - March 9, 2011

Even though Jesus tells us not to make a public display of our religious activities, we will leave this church today with a black smudge of ashes on our foreheads. The whole world will see it as a mark of our piety, for everyone who will see us will know we have been to church today.

        But is it really a sign of our piety?

The season of Lent asks us to reflect on what it means to be marked with the cross of Jesus. We have been marked with it on a day of our baptism. We trace it every day as we sign ourselves with the cross admitting that we are frail and imperfect people who are in sore need of God’s saving mercy.

And so by wearing the sign of the cross on our foreheads today we proclaim not our virtue, but our intention to take a sobering look at ourselves and to make those changes which will allow God to be more present in our lives.

To achieve that goal we pledge to undertake some sort of Lenten resolution. We don’t do that to punish ourselves, for some of us probably have already done it by simply estranging ourselves from God and from each other in a result of our sins. Rather we undertake our Lenten resolutions in order to open our hearts even more to the transforming presence of God in our lives.

Lent calls us to conversion – from the Latin word for turning:

-        to turn away from those things that make us less than the people of God we are called to be;

-        to turn away from whatever unjustly and unfairly steals our time and energy from those we love;

-        to turn away from those idols of wealth and prestige that take the place of the Holy One in our lives.

9.a.2011.stmb.true.religion

              Wikipedia in one of its article indicates that there are more than 68 million registered Catholics in the United States, about 22% of our country's population. If the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life is correct approximately additional 10% of all Americans (about 30 million) are "former Catholics". It means about one third of our country's population have been connected with the Catholic Church in one or another point of their lives. Why than can't we see values of the Catholic Church, for example, believe in Sanctity of Life more permeating our culture?

      

       We hear different reasons why: secularism, materialism, individualism, consumerism, relativism, loss of church moral authority, mistrust of the institutions, the church mingling into politics, disconnect of the church from reality of people's lives, shortage of priests, bureaucracy, liberalism, conservatism, sexual abuse, etc.etc.etc. We hear many complaints and explanations why things are the way they are. And our country is not unique in that regard.

       This is perhaps why pope Benedict talks so much about the New Evangelization. He created the entirely new Vatican Department to promote the evangelization, the Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, has become its member. In October of 2012 the topic of the world wide synod of the bishops is supposed to be "New Evangelization."

      

       I have no doubt that the Vatican will come up with some solutions to help us to address the issue of why so many Catholics and Christians, including some priests and bishops, have lived completely unchristian lives. But I also believe that today's readings from the Holy Scriptures can aid us in that. As I read those readings I understand the following:

      

       There is only one way in which someone's sincerity can be proven and that is by someone's practice. This is why saying Lord, Lord is not enough. Fine words can never be a substitute for fine deeds. For example, there is no point in saying that we love person and then deliberately doing things which break that person's heart. It is so easy to recite a creed in the church, but it wouldn't be better not to recite it but to live the Christian life. We should never confess that we believe in God with our lips but to deny His existence with our lives.

       We all yearn for a deep relationship with God but so many of us get disillusioned when those who proclaim that have that relationship break our hearts and test our faith.

       The only way our communities and our world can be evangelized is not by creating new programs or regulations. Blaming others will not help neither.

       For each one of us here there is only one way - to live our lives in the ways Jesus taught us. Even if this would bring on us persecution or ridicule. The Catholic Church does the best it can interpreting Jesus' teaching for us and with us, and helping us to understand it in the reality of this present world and time. For most of us it is only within the church community and with the help of the church community where we can discern the will of God regarding our lives.

       The true religion is about love, honesty, truthfulness, and integrity in all aspects of our conduct. Without such virtues faith and worship lose their meaning and become lifeless formality. Perhaps this is the main reason why so many leave the Catholic Church? And perhaps this is why some decides to join the Catholic church?