1. Year A / Lent  / 4th Sunday
    Readings: 1 Samuel 16.1b, 6-7, 10-13a / Psalm 23  (R/v 1) / Ephesians 5.8-14 / John 9.1-41


    If the forecasters are right, spring is in the air, and summer is not far behind. The days are beginning to slowly warm up. Daylight is ending later. And the rent—a—ride Hubway bicycles have been put into racks all around town—a sure sign that we’re in spring time. 

    Anticipating this, some of my brother Jesuits have packed away their winter boots and winter jackets. Others have begun to plan for the coming summer. And in our community garden, the crocuses are sprouting and the kingfishers are belting their song in the mornings. (The tulips have yet to bloom but they will in good time!) 

    You might say that change is in the air. And the world as we have known it in wintertime is being re-created. Re-creation is in fact a theme in our readings on this 4th Sunday of Lent.

    In our First Reading, we hear the story of God choosing David to be the new king for Israel. Working through the prophet Samuel’s anointing, God re-creates David; he is no longer shepherd boy but king. 

    In our Gospel Reading, we hear the story of Jesus healing the man born blind. He now not only sees physically but with eyes of faith. He comes know Jesus as Lord. Working through Jesus’ healing, God re-creates this man; he is no longer a blind man and an unbeliever but a believer and a follower of Jesus.

    These stories invite us to consider our Lenten journey in terms of re-creation. As David and the blind man were re-created by God, I believe God wants to re-create you and I this Lent. I believe this is God’s deepest desire for us at this time.

    But why does God want to re-create us? 

    Our Psalm explains to us that God wants to re-create us so that we can be with him eternally. God wants to walk with us through our darkness and to free us from those things that oppress us. God wants to set us on right paths that lead to no other space but to his table for us to feast with God. And in a remarkable sign of God’s love, he will anoint our heads, fill us with all that is good and kind, and let us stay with him all the days of our lives.

    But this eternal life is not something we have to wait for as a future event, nor is it something that God will give us in return for our rigid obedience of the Church’s rules and regulations. 

    In our 2nd Reading, Paul assures us that this life of goodness and kindness is already ours. It is truly and rightfully our inheritance that God has already given to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection. God has already saved us from the sin and death, and brought us into eternal friendship with Godself. We have already been re-created as God’s own. This is who we are now—children of light—and this is how we are to live—as God’s light in the Lord and for one another. And God has freely and generously done this for us because of love.

    But if we are honest to God, to one another and to ourselves, you and I know that we don’t always live as God’s re-created children. We sin. We sin in so many big and small ways. We even sin when we choose not to do what is right and good and just. And perhaps, even as our holy desires this Lent are for a change to walk with God more closely and to walk in God’s walks with others, like Jesus showed us how to, we have sinned, haven’t we? Indeed, who amongst us here is not a sinner? And, who amongst us does not need God’s mercy and loving forgiveness as we continue our Lenten journey?

    I’d like to suggest that today, at this mid-point of our Lenten journey, God is graciously merciful to us. Through our readings, God  is offering us a time to pause and to reflect on the quality of our Lenten journey thus far. And if needs be, to make the necessary adjustments to finish our journey well. 

    How are we living our life and faith as God’s re-created children this Lent? 
    Do we need to let God further re-create and perfect us to become more God’s own? 
    Is there anything more you and I need to do to cooperate with God to be re-created anew?
    I’d like think that what God is offering us is the grace of halftime. 

    If you’ve played soccer or basketball or hockey, you know how important halftime is. It’s a time to take a short rest to refresh and to recharge. It is a time to look at what worked well in the first half, and to stay the course if all is going as planned. Or, if we’ve played the first half badly, to take stock, to evaluate and to admit honestly to what went wrong. This halftime review gives us a chance to plan anew how we want to finish the game. We have the opportunity to consider a new approach, to reposition ourselves, and to regroup. We can return to the game with greater focus and clarity, and with a renewed energy for this next half.

    At this halftime mark of our Lenten journey,  God is inviting us to do likewise. God is inviting us to be honest about our Lent life. God is asking us to examine our openness to change, our willingness to cooperate with God for change, and our enthusiasm to make this Lent journey one of changing in God’s ways. More radically, God is asking us to consider, in the depth of our conscience, the truth of what we know is God's desire for us to change our lives, and confessing this, to admit the more embarrassing truth that we might have remained blind to God, now and again this Lent, if not, maybe throughout these past weeks.

    If we are blind to what God is offering us in Jesus this Lent, it might be because of such reasons as these: we are too familiar with what Lent is, and so we are not bothering enough; we are too apathetic or lazy to make this change; or, we are careless with our "take-it-for-granted" attitude that God will always forgive, so why bother. Perhaps, one of these reasons resonates with you; I know a blindness I have and need to work on. 

    If we have chosen to remain blind to God's desire to re-create us, then, I'm afraid that you and I might be missing out on the gift of God perfecting us this Lent. And, when we remain blind, we are sadly no better than the real blind men in today’s gospel, the Pharisees. Though they had sight, they would not see who Jesus is and what Jesus offered, and so they lost their opportunity to be re-created for life with God.

    In a homily Pope Francis gave at a penitential service in Rome on Friday, he reminded us that our Lenten journey is a journey towards becoming a new person. And the destination of this journey is to remain in the love of Jesus Christ that lasts forever. This is God’s hope-filled gift for each one of us. God bestows it on us in his mercy and compassion, Francis assured us.

    It is good to have this assurance at this halftime point in Lent. As we look back, we might see that we have lived out the first half of Lent well, and so we should stay the course. Or, if not, we might want to work harder with God to turn our lives around in the next three weeks. 

    No matter what the state of our first half of Lent has been, God is inviting you and I, once again, to make those changes we must in our lives, and so better carry on our Lenten journey with Jesus of being re-created even more in God's image and likeness. Let us do this with hope. The kind of hope we will experience as we move with certainty from winter into spring, and then into summer. In the same way, we can be certain that our Lenten journey will take us from the repentance of Ash Wednesday to the reality of our salvation on Good Friday, and to God’s joy in raising us with Jesus on Easter morning. 

    So, sisters and brothers, let us this finish this second half of our Lenten journey well. For as a good coach I once had say to our team: “the first half is gone, boys; there’s only the second half now. So, go out there and do some good! All is not lost. The best is yet to be!”



    Preached at Blessed Mother of Teresa of Calcutta Parish
    photo: internet; valley news
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Lent
    0

    Add a comment

  2. Year A / Lent  / 3rd  Sunday
    Readings: Exodus 17.3-7 / Psalm 95  (R/v 8 / Romans 5.1-2,5-8 / John 4.5-12, 19b-26, 40-42


    Give me a drink, please. 

    He asked the well-dressed lady who strode out of the door towards the nearby Macy’s. She walked by him. He looked fit but his shabby, tattered sweater and army fatigues, his unshaven stubble and his few bags of possessions told a different story. Many others were coming out, now nourished at Eucharist. Give me a drink, please, he asked. They looked at him. Some nodded but moved on briskly. Others crossed to the other side of the street to get away. Still others turned around and went back into the warm, safe space of the Shrine. He was left standing in the cold. And, he continued to thirst.

    Many saw in the thirsty man a homeless person. But if they had looked more carefully, they would have seen someone like them; he was seeking to be cared for; he wanted to be recognized as a person. This was his real need but they could not see it.

    I believe that in our own lives and in our interactions with one another, we have been both the one who asks in hope, Give me a drink, please, and the one who also turns away another, for whatever reason we know best in our consciences.  

    Our actions—whichever of these they might be—call to mind for me two images we find in today’s gospel passage: "thirst" and "conversation." 

    Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. He is thirsty. At first, she completely misunderstands what Jesus is really saying.  She is not able to see his question as an invitation to enter into conversation. She is enable to see that he has something to give her. What he is offering her is the gift of his very Self.

    She learns about this gift by conversing with Jesus. John portrays Jesus to be God’s life giving water that will lead her from a chance meeting to a divine encounter. It will change her from being a woman who attempts to deceive Jesus to becoming one who gives true testimony to Jesus as “the Christ.” Their conversation will challenge her expectations about who the Messiah is to be according to her Samaritan belief and open her up to confessing that Jesus is the “savior of the world” who has come. 

    Her encounter with Jesus transforms: she leaves her meeting with Jesus a different person. She is a now believer and a disciple to proclaims Jesus as good news to other Samaritans. 

    "Thirst" and "conversation" are then good images for us to prayerfully look at our Lenten way of life. What are we really thirsting for this Lent? Do we thirst to give another in need? Do our conversations with one another speak about God and do they lead each one of us into deeper intimacy with God who wants to love mercifully us beyond our sinfulness into the fullness of life?

    We all thirst for something. The image of the woman thirsting for water and coming to the well is a metaphor for the different things we need in our lives: acceptance, forgiveness, affirmation, comfort, friendship, life, love. 

    And because we thirst, we naturally reach out to others who are around us. We seek someone to understand us and to walk with us in difficult times. We seek a friend to laugh and to cry with us, to pray and to play with us. We seek a soul mate who can love us as we are and who we can love in return. We may even seek an employer who can provide us with job satisfaction, or a classmate who can help us study better. 

    Whoever we seek out, we usually we do so in and through conversation. Conversation is the space that allows for honest talking and grateful sharing. It is where people can spend time with each other, come to know one another, and even challenge each other to be better persons for life and in faith. Conversation—especially, honest, life-giving conversations—can nurture ordinary, everyday relationships into friendship that really matter. 

    But sadly, we often simply “talk at” one another in daily life. We don’t really talk with one another. 

    Consider, a man who says to his wife, "I love you." He might mean it. But saying this as he rushes by his wife without a kiss or a hug, ever so often, to watch the basketball game sends a different message. Or, a woman who writes emails and sends text messages that declare her friend to be her best buddy. But she keeps her distance, doesn’t care enough to make time for her friend, or invest in growing this friendship. Her actions tell a different truth.

    Genuine conversation is hard work, but it opens those who really converse—heart to heart—to a freeing and intimate encounter with each other. Such a conversation brings about a life-giving transformation. This is the kind of conversation Jesus and the Samaritan woman had. They both thirsted. The woman thirsted to receive God’s love. And Jesus thirsted to give God's life to her. In their conversation, God was present and God quenched the woman’s thirst.

    Conversing about God with one another. I believe this is what you and I really thirst for. Whatever we thirst for in human ways speaks more honestly of a much deeper thirst; every one of us is really thirsty for God. We thirst for God because we want God’s mercy to forgive our sins, God’s love for our salvation, and God’s life for our eternity.   

    Today’s gospel message is about Jesus giving the woman the gift of himself and transforming her life for the better. The good news is that our own conversations can be transforming encounters in which we meet Jesus in one another.

    The homeless man was left standing in the cold. He continued to thirst. Then, he felt a tug. An older homeless woman began to chat with him; they shared about their needs and their dreams. Give me a drink, please, he asked quietly.  She offered him her own cup of hot coffee that a kind person bought for her from the nearby 7-Eleven store. Nodding her head, she invited him to drink.  Perhaps, in this moment of their shared conversation and their thirsting to receive and to give, they made real the beauty of what Jesus gave the Samaritan woman—not just water, but God’s life.

    Preached at St Peter's Parish, Dorchester, Boston
    photo: cnn.com

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Lent
    0

    Add a comment

  3. Year A / Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Patron of the Society of Jesus
    Readings: 2 Samuel 7.4-5a, 12-14a, 16 / Psalm 89 (R/v 37) / Romans 4.13, 16-18, 22 / Matthew 1.16, 18-21, 24a


    "Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ."

    This opening line from our gospel reading offers us the reasons for today’s celebration. We celebrate Joseph who cares for, nurtures, and protects those entrusted to him as spouse and child. We also join all Christians to give thanks that his protection extends over the universal Church. And, as people of faith, we commemorate his obedient and trusting love in God, the wellspring for his faithful and selfless love for others: “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded and took his wife into his home.”

    Earlier today, at his General Audience, Pope Francs spoke about three aspects of the life and mission of St Joseph. He was the ‘guardian’ of the Holy Family. He was the teacher of the young Jesus. And he was a guide who helped Jesus respond to the working of the Holy Spirit.

    Guardian; teacher; guide. These explain who St Joseph is for many of us. We seek his protection as guardian to walk humbly with our God, and so, many churches invoke his patronage. We want him to teach us to to do what is just and right in our lives and in our world, and so, many schools bear his name for students to emulate. We want his guidance to love God with total surrender and trust, and so, many religious congregations have him as the exemplar for religious life. Perhaps, this is why St Joseph has remained a popular saint throughout the ages.

    Throughout our history as the Society of Jesus, we too have recognized St Joseph as our patron saint. Today’s celebration must be especially meaningful for us, who bear the name of Jesus and whom Joseph helped grow, on a human level, in his understanding and appreciation of his relationship with his heavenly Father. 

    What can we learn from St Joseph for ourselves and for our own Jesuit way of helping others to grow in their relationship with God? 

    I’d like to suggest we will find an answer not only by looking at St Joseph’s active, apostolic outreach. We will find it too in the quiet of his solitude with God, in his contemplative life our gospel passage hints at. 

    And it is perhaps best that we do this with one who contemplates about St Joseph in God’s quiet stillness. The Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux writes about St Joseph as the great exemplar in faith and faithfulness. Joseph is so because he stayed with the difficult questions at this time of his life and trusted God. 

    Even though Joseph was brokenhearted, disappointed, surely confused at the news of Mary’s pregnancy, and grappling with questions such as--"What kind of woman is this?  Whose is this child?  Am I a fool for trusting her and my dreams?  What does this life of mine amount to?"--he trusted God and he trusted Mary. He trusted that he would find God there, amidst the swirl of questions he had no reasoned answers for. 

    For Bernard, Joseph’s fidelity to stay with the questions allowed God to turn his life around. For it is through his fidelity, as he wrestled with the questions, that God could entrust His dearest secret, Jesus, to Joseph. And it is God's entrustment that moved Joseph to embrace Jesus, and to nurture him into wisdom and maturity as God’s Son.

    What about us?

    Isn’t it in staying with the questions we have about our Jesuit life and faith and finding God breathing onto us his Spirit to carry on, that we can better understand how Joseph can be our worthy patron?  

    And isn’t it in our staying with another’s questions and trusting that God will help us minister to them, that we can turn to Joseph to ask for his saintly intercession in ministry? 

    And finally, shouldn’t our ministry be like Joseph's--a ministry of being a guardian, a teacher and a guide to whomever we serve, whether in our apostolates, in our school,  or even here amongst ourselves? Shouldn’t our ministry be to help them also stay with their questions, and so, find God always already present there with them and for their wellbeing and happiness?

    Perhaps, with Joseph, it will do us good to always stay with the questions we face first before we act, we speak, and we minister. I think we can because, like Joseph, we do not need to run away from these questions in our lives, or ignore or rationalize them. We don't even need to spiritualize them. All we are being invited to do in these moments is to enter deeply into them—in obedience and with trust—because God is already and faithfully awaiting us there. All God wants is to meet us and to turn our lives around, and so, lead us onward for others and onwards into the fullness of life with him.

    The graced challenge for you and me this evening is this: will we let ourselves enter more freely, more trustingly, more fully into these questions that are really God’s questions for our maturity into wisdom, not just as Jesuits but first and always as God’s own?




    Preached at St Peter Faber Jesuit Community, Brighton, Boston
    photo by david niblack

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Jesuitica
    0

    Add a comment

  4. Year A / Lent / 2nd Sunday
    Readings: Genesis 12.1-4a / Psalm 33 (R/v 22) / Timothy 1.8b-10 / Matthew 17.1-9

    Hope in God and intimacy with God. 

    The first is a disposition of how we relate to God and the second is our practice of being in relationship with God. Our readings today present us with both these images of Christian life.

    They are relevant to how we live our Christian faith. And, Lent is a good time to reflect on the quality of how we are living out the relationship between our hope in God and our intimacy with God as people of God.

    Our first reading from the Book of Genesis presents us with the image of hope. We hear about God promising Abraham a new land to go and to live in. In this new place, God will bless him with a new identity; he will become the father of a great nation. And Abraham, in turn, will discover that his new mission is to be a blessing to others. 

    I’d like to think that God is offering us the same gift of hope today, as God offered Abraham long ago. This is the gift of hope in new beginnings. God offers us this hope for our Lenten journey to Good Friday, and through it to Easter. 

    God offers us this hope as we continue our Lenten journeys. God offers this hope to accompany those of us of whom this time can be long and arduous because we are seriously searching our souls to turn our lives around. God also offers this hope to those  who are seeking to mature spiritually as open ourselves up to let God enter more fully into our lives. This hope is God’s way of helping us to embark on and to persevere on this Lenten journey, which is really a time of transformation and a movement to a new space in our lives. This might be a space of reconciliation with God, or with someone who has hurt us. It might be a new beginning of honesty and warmth in relationships with family and friends. It might be about having more confidence to surrender ourselves to God’s will in daily life. And, it might even be to let go of our attachments and to move on with our lives.

    This journey and where it will end is not ours to plan; it is God’s choice to lead us on, and to unfold it for us. Indeed, God will lead us onward to God’s chosen land for you and me. And yes, it will be good, very good because the promise of making this Lenten journey is that we will die like Jesus but, more so, be raised like him to fullness of life. But you and I cannot arrive at this place of new life, unless we dare to trust God like Abraham did.

    I’d like to believe that Abraham could trust God because he had an intimate relationship with God. This is the source of his hope in God. Like Abraham, we cannot properly understand the hope of new life in Jesus that Lent offers us unless we also recognize how our hope in God is inextricably tied to the intimacy we have in our relationship with God. 

    Today’s Gospel passage from Matthew presents us with this image of intimacy with God. The setting of Matthew’s narration of Jesus’ transfiguration is an intimate one. There are no crowds, only Jesus and his closest companions. They climb the mountain, and there, they enjoy the intimacy of God. In the Bible the mountain is a privileged place of intimacy with God. In the Old Testament, God meets Moses on the mountain; they talk face to face. On the mountain, God meets Elijah in the kindness of a gentle breeze. In the New Testament, Jesus—God with us—meets the people to teach and feed them on the mountain. And it is on a mountain that Jesus will offer his life for you and me. Indeed, it is on a mountain that God discloses who God is and the depth of God’s love for us. 

    It would be good for us, then, to ask ourselves this Lent, what are the places of intimacy God is inviting us to, so that we can enjoy the intimate presence of God. 

    I’d like to suggest that the God we encounter in intimacy is not an idea or a concept, a “feel good” experience, or an abstract philosophical concept. Rather, we will encounter God as the mystery of intimate love. Jesus reveals this truth about God in the loving relationships he shares with the Father. We hear this truth proclaimed in today’s gospel passage when the voice from the cloud declares: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” These words, I would like to suggest, are not occasional; they are the Father’s eternal declaration of love. And as the Father always delights in the Son, so does Jesus, the Son, always respond to God in loving obedience. You and I are also being invited in this time of Lent  not only to worship God but to enter more fully into God’s love. 

    Indeed, entering into and dwelling in Gods intimacy is what you and I have been created for. This is the goal of our lives. This is what our Lenten contemplation on Jesus’ death and resurrection should remind us of. We are made to be one with God eternally. Peter’s words today, “it is good that we are here” give voice to this deepest desire in each one of us for intimacy. It is no wonder that Peter wants to build some tents and to remain in the mystery of God’s love. We however cannot prepare a tent for God. It is God who prepares a tent for us to dwell with him.

    Finally, what today’s Gospel really presents as our hope-filled destiny when we contemplate Jesus’ transfiguration is that we are bound for this same glory that shines in Jesus’ face and garments. It is the glory of being welcomed into and remaining in God’s hospitable intimacy forever.

    How can we have access to God’s intimacy? Our Gospel passage tells us that Jesus is the access to God’s intimacy: “Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain,” and there they met God, in and through Jesus. Moreover, it is God who tells the apostles, and us, to listen to Jesus because he is the way to God.

    Today’s readings give us a reflection on intimacy with God and a reflection on hope in God. These ought to remind us that Lent is indeed the right time to foster intimacy with God. And yes, we do need to be intimate with God so that we can become familiar with God’s hope for us—to be with God eternally, through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
    Hope in God and intimacy with God. These are gifts our readings offer us so that we can better continue our Lenten journey this week. The question we have to more honestly ask ourselves and respond to is this: How do you and I want to grow in intimacy with God this Lent, so that we can better embrace our hope in God for us one Easter morning?




    Preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcultta Parish, Dorchester, Boston.
    photo: early morning at long branch, new jersey by adsj

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Lent
    0

    Add a comment

  5. Year A / Lent / 1st Sunday
    Readings: Genesis 2.7-9, 3.1-7 /Psalm 51 (R/v cf 3a) / Romans 5.12-19 / Matthew 4.1-11


    What are we without a space to live in? 

    Our surroundings determine how we live, and interact, and go about our daily life and work. Just consider of some of the spaces you and I inhabit now. Perhaps, it is our homes, where we find rest and happiness with family. May be, it is our work space, where we are more honesty being challenged to move on to new employment. It might even be the neighbourhood pub or coffee shop, where we delight in the acceptance of friends, old and new.

    Our first reading from Genesis reminds us that we are meant to live in God’s space. Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden. God created it, not just to dwell in, but to share it with them. The Garden provided for their every need. But they lost it by disobeying God.

    Perhaps, you and I have also experienced a space or two, which has been God’s Garden of Eden for us. We may have enjoyed and thrived in it. But like Adam and Eve, we may have lost it because of our disobedience, or our ingratitude, or our carelessness in not caring for what God has blessed us with. It might be a space of friendship, a space of love, a space that gave us life and happiness. It could also be spaces of rest, of community, of fulfilment. What are some of these spaces you might have lost? For me, it is the loss of a Jesuit friendship I took for granted and didn’t nurture well enough with trust, care and thanksgiving.

    When we lose our space in such a garden, we will probably find ourselves in a space of barrenness, a space of desolation. A space where we find ourselves facing loneliness and harshness. It is a space of nothingness, even death perhaps. It is the experience of being in the desert, really. It is common when we inhabit such a desert space, now and again, to feel vulnerable. It feels like we are exiled from all our comforts and our securities, even from those we depend on to walk with us and to love us. 

    I believe none of us wishes to find ourselves in such a desert space in our lives, this space where life struggles to flourish. But don’t we sometimes find ourselves in the deserts of our lives, whether interiorly or externally?  May be, we are in such a desert space or two, as we begin Lent.

    It is perhaps providential that our Gospel passage on this 1st Sunday of Lent is about Jesus retreating into the desert.

    Jesus enters into the desert to pray and to fast. By depriving himself of the humanly familiar, comfortable and secure, Jesus becomes hungry in body, needy in want, and powerless. These are his vulnerabilities of being in the desert. And Satan tempts Jesus to overcome these by focusing on his own self, on his own needs, on his own power, not on God. But Jesus rejects Satan’s temptations. Led by God’s Spirit, his retreat into the desert is an entry into that graced space, wherein God empowers him to live more fully in God’s ways and with God’s life. 

    In the Old Testament, the desert is that anointed space where God calls a person out of the world. And there, with nothing but God and himself—in the solitude of their communion—God speaks intimately to draw him into the depth of who God is, who this person is, and what God’s love is really meant for, to save. Indeed, the desert is always God’s space to re-create anew.

    What we see in our gospel reading today is how Jesus in his weaknesses in the desert is in fact remarkably open to God, who is already at work in him.

    What can Jesus’ entry into the desert, and his discovery of God, mean for us as we begin our Lenten journey this year? I’d like to suggest that Jesus’ actions in the desert can teach us how to grow in spiritual authenticity. 

    Jesus’ example can do this for us because Lent is graced time to more honestly enter into the desert spaces of our lives. And there, in these desert spaces, for us to find God already waiting to help us reclaim the spiritual authenticity of who you and I are to God–more than sinners, we are God’s beloved, we are God’s own.

    But this authenticity is something we struggle to see, to know and to proclaim truly. This is because when we are in those desert spaces of our lives, we find ourselves caught up in a masquerade.  We put on and take off of masks that hide our truest selves. We pretend to be someone else for varied occasions and with diverse persons. We run away from our pain and suffering. We deny ourselves the happiness we should have. And sometimes, we even give up our birthright of who we are, God’s children.  

    If there is an invitation Lent is extending to us, it is to enter more honestly into these desert spaces where we are inauthentic. Lent invites us to retreat into our inauthenticity with Jesus, so as to recover our true selves. 

    The Lenten practices of prayer, alms-giving and fast can help us do this. They can help us to more honestly re-examine our lives before the loving God who dwells within us, and whose only desire is to save and perfect us for the fullness of life with Him. 

    Yes, it can be a challenge to practice prayer, alms-giving and fasting. Sometimes, we do them well; other times, we do them miserably. But, practice them we must because they can help us to strip ourselves of all those masks that we wear in our desert spaces. And stripping ourselves completely, they enable us to stand naked before God.  

    Isn’t nakedness, in turn, the remarkable reality of who we are authentically—God’s little ones, created in innocence and holiness? Created to do nothing less than to love, to praise and to serve God? And like every child's father, doesn't God want to nurture and strengthen us in our nakedness to live life well and happily together with God in God's garden? 

    If you, like me, answer these questions with a “yes,” then, wouldn’t it be good for us in these Lenten days to retreat more courageously and more honestly into those desert spaces of our lives, and there, reclaim our spiritual authenticity as God's own, always worthy for redemption?  




    Preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Dorchester, Boston.
    photo: Internet

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Lent
    0

    Add a comment

"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Faith & Spirituality
Loading