Temptation Eyes: Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent

 

Lk 4:1-13

 

“Come let us worship the Lord 

who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.”  

 

Every morning during Lent the liturgy of the hours begins with this antiphon.  It reminds us that Jesus was like us in all things but sin. He knew hunger, thirst, grief, sorrow, and profound fatigue. He knew temptation and suffering which are part of what it means to be human, they are part of the human condition.  Were our lives free of temptation and absent of suffering we would be incapable of experiencing joy.

 

The use of tempted in Luke's gospel presents a challenge for English-speakers.  Many automatically define temptation  as negative, illicit, something we cannot resist, and synonymous with sin. But the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek  roots of the word translated as temptation are neutral.  Those roots include “trying,” “testing,” or “proving.”  Indeed, some versions of the Our Father pray 'do not put us to the test' rather than the more familiar, 'lead us not into temptation.'

 

Unlike Adam, Jesus, the New Adam, was obedient to the Father in all things, even to accepting death on the cross.  Satan offered those temptations when Jesus was hungry from fasting, tired from prayer, and disoriented by the harshness of the desert. 

 

The Evil One tests us when we are in similar states of hunger, fatigue and confusion.  We are tested when disoriented by the unfamiliar geography of the personal deserts in which we find ourselves: newly widowed, diagnosed with a terminal disease, the confusion when abandoned by others.  We confront these temptations when we are dissatisfied with the status quo, when we are frightened or angry, when preoccupied or overwhelmed with things of the world.

 

The challenge to create bread from stones was not simply to relieve hunger.  It was the temptation to arrogant self-sufficiency and illusory freedom.  It was the temptation of taking care of oneself to the exclusion of all else.  That temptation to radical self-sufficiency looms large in our lives in ways that are unique to each of us.  

 

Putting God to the test is an all-time favorite indoor sport.  God is not a divine puppet master  who pulls our strings so as to make us dance.  Nor is he a marionette we can control with long strings of prayer.  God does not "cause" things to happen for the entertainment value  of watching us struggle.  And yet we ask . . .

 

"Why did God give me cancer?"  

"Why is God allowing this or that war?"

"Why did God take my child?"

"Why?  Why?  Why?" 

 

We cannot control God through prayer. “If my prayer isn't answered in the way I demand, I am through with God.”  Those understandings of God are appropriate only to a child. How often do we test God in this way?  How often do we demand that God answer our prayers in very specific ways, according to a highly detailed script of which we hold the only copy?

 

Dostoevsky wrote in  'The Grand Inquisitor' section of The Brothers Karamazov:  “. . . man seeks not so much God as the miraculous.  And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft.”  The late Jesuit Father Stanley Marrow,  accurately observed that, '. . . our appetite for signs is insatiable.  We are forever testing to see if God is still there, to check whether our prayers are getting through.'

 

The Faustian bargain, “Sell your soul."  I will give you great power.” was the final temptation. Power.  Prestige.  Money.  Control.  Being a celebrity, or at least an influencer.  These idols have replaced God in many lives.  The lust for power drives both major political parties in this country and indeed most of the world.   The false idols of power and prestige, money and control have contributed to diminishing the quality of our lives in many dimensions with both parties equally to blame.  

 

Despite the attractive temptations offered him, Jesus freely chose to obey the will of God the Father. In so doing, he made it possible for us to imitate Him in our own exercise of freedom and free will, the gifts that, along with speech, set humans far above all lower animals at a distance that will never be diminished. 

 

Freedom is wildly misunderstood.  It is not a release from restrictions, rules, or responsibility.  This is freedom as understood by a college student away from home for the first time.  Freedom is not the opportunity to choose anything whatsoever, whenever, and to make those choices without consequence or criticism. Dogs, monkeys, and all lower animals have no free will and, as they are driven by instincts, they bear no responsibility for their actions.  Freedom is not the ability to adopt individual or idiosyncratic attitudes toward life or morality.  Human freedom is not the right to decide who shall live and who shall die, at the beginning of life, the end of life, and anywhere in between.

 

Rather than being freedom from, human freedom is freedom for.  It allows us confront the temptations the evil one or the world,  throws in our way.  Free will allows us to say yes or no. It allows us to decide for or against ourselves. It allows us to maintain our integrity or to choose to sabotage it.  Only we can decide for or against God in freedom.  Only we have sufficient understanding to choose to reject sin.

 

In describing her adolescence, St. Edith Stein wrote: "I consciously and deliberately stopped praying so as to rely exclusively on myself; so as to make all decisions about my life in freedom."  Years later, now a Carmelite nun, she described how she had been  released from the self-imposed shackles of atheistic pseudo-freedom to find radical freedom in the science and shadow of the cross.

 

“Come let us worship the Lord 

who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.” 

   

We were reminded on Wednesday "remember your are dust and to dust you shall return." Eventually there will be no memory of us. The men here are buried without a coffin, anonymously with a cross marking the grave but no name, date, or other information.

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

Ash Wednesday

 

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-18

2 Cor 5:20, 6-2

Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

 

Fasting, ashes, and sackcloth have signified sorrow, mourning, penitence, atonement, and humility since the Book of Genesis.  We read in this opening book how, when Jacob was told that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal he "tore his garments, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned his son for many days."  From Joel we learn how,

when the prophet announced the fate of Nineveh, the people . . . proclaimed a fast  "and all of them, great and small,  put on sackcloth . . . and the king sat in ashes."  Fasting cannot be a goal unto itself.  If undertaken without the desire for interior conversion if our fast is divorced from prayer it is nothing more than Weight Watchers without the points or annoying advice from Oprah.

 

We read in Isaiah:  "This is the fast I desire . . . to unlock the chains of wickedness . . .to let the oppressed go free . . . to share your bread with the hungry . . .  and not to ignore your own kin."  Lent’s fasting, prayer, and alms giving must be accompanied by inner conversion.

 

In his book God or Nothing  Robert Cardinal Sarah of Guinea wrote: "The relief we must bring to the poor and to afflicted people is not just material but spiritual."  He goes on to quote Pope Francis' exhortation Evangelii Gaudium "I want to say, with regret, that the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care."  Proof of that discrimination was obvious in the sins of our public health officials, hospital and nursing home administrators, and the legion of medical amateurs who forced the dying elderly to die alone, terrified, uncomforted by the presence of even one family member at the bedside, and desperate for a human touch. There was no reason for that.  None.

Those sins were shared by bishops who meekly collaborated.

 

We will never know the number of  patients who were deprived of confession, absolution, the Eucharist and perhaps the opportunity to reconcile with the church before death. Hysteria, hyperbole, and health care do not mix well.  Much the same can be said for school closures that damaged many, particularly the poor, irreparably.

 

As was true of the prophets before Him,  Jesus' call to conversion and penance is not to be visible only in outward signs such as ashes, sackcloth, and fasting.  All three are hypocritical when divorced from interior conversion, when they are nothing more than a form of virtue signaling, rather like a drug dealer wearing a large crucifix and he or she peddles wares on the corner. 

 

Lent is not meant to be a season of 'give ups.' It is more important that it be a time for taking on, taking on extra time for prayer, time reading the gospel, or time spent in contemplation.  The time required need not be dramatic.  Ten or fifteen extra minutes

are perfectly adequate in the context of overly busy lives.  Our ability and desire to care for others, our willingness to attend to the needs of others, needs that are both material and spiritual, can only grow from prayer and meditation on scripture. 

 

Before washing your face tonight look at the smudge of ashes on your forehead, no matter how faint it has become. Ask what it means to you.  What does it mean for the next forty days? And then pray the words of the responsorial psalm, the great Miserere.

 

"A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me. 

Cast me not out from your presence

and your Holy Spirit take not from me.”

 

Indeed, reciting this short psalm daily for the next forty days would be a good Lenten practice that would yield much fruit, could easily be fit in with a commute

or coffee break and, as a bonus, would allow you to eat chocolate throughout lent, having taken on rather than a ‘give up.’

 

“O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise."

 

________________________________________________________

Ashes and holy water prepared for distribution.

 

  

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

 

 

 

From the Heart: Homily for the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Sir 27:4-7

Ps 92

1 Cor 15:53-58

Lk 6:39-45

 

The readings from Sirach and Luke pose the same question, arrive at the same answer,  and offer the same warning. Sirach advises:  "Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested."  Luke observes:  " . . . from the heart the mouth speaks."

 

Throughout the book of Sirach the author uses images from daily life and experience as a means of instruction in how to live. Here we are reminded that the results give the measure of the person. Publicity, an air of bravado, and good looks count for little except in the worlds of celebrity and politics.  Instant communication and social media have created treacherous minefields that did not exist in the past.  Today Sirach might write,  "Praise no one before he instagrams"  and Luke might observe that the heart reveals itself in the sound bite.  Remember the advertising campaign, "Friends don't let friends drive drunk?" Excellent advice at all times.  Thus, it was no surprise when the riff on this theme appeared as: Friends don't let friends text drunk. Similarly excellent advice.

 

It is always amusing to watch a celebrity or political figure—to say nothing of a talk-show host—spout off an opinion and then have to retract, grovel, and apologize.  Indeed, the offender oftentimes quotes the gist of Sirach during the apology when whining:  "But that's not who I am."  Perhaps it is.  It is difficult to retract an ill-advised comment in the current cancellation culture dominating the U.S, especially if that comment is misattributed, misquoted, taken out of context, or manipulated to fit an accuser's agenda. 

 

The power of speech is unique to humans.  No lower animal possesses anything approaching speech. True, each species has a repertory of squeaks, squawks, shrieks, growls and other primitive sounds that allow for a type of communication. But only humans have the gift of words that can be combined into sentences and  paragraphs, poetry and prayer, words that can foster peace or precipitate war.  Words that can explain complex scientific principles or ease a grieving soul. 

 

In scripture speech is frequently symbolized by the tongue, the extraordinary organ that gives humans the ability to form words consistently and intelligibly. Both Sirach and Jesus advise control of the tongue, control of what one says and how one says it.

 

Babette's Feast is a 1988 movie that won the Best Foreign Film Oscar. It is a perfect film. It most definitely is not, as one idiot critic described it, a semi-comedic food movie.  It is a profound meditation on the Eucharist and the importance of the Eucharistic banquet in creating community, maintaining that community, and, most critically, healing the rifts that inevitably develop in any community or family. In one scene during the titular feast a woman tells the splintering community:  "The tongue, that strange little muscle, it has accomplished great and glorious deeds for man.  But it's also an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."

 

There is nothing one can add to describe the power of human speech, the effect of what we say, how we say it, and to whom we say it. That strange little muscle, can caress the words of the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the many prayers that we utter in times of distress and sorrow as well as in times of celebration and joy. That strange little muscle can also destroy another's happiness or ruin a reputation in moments.  We are, and will truly be, known by our words.

 

The psalm assures us: "The just one shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow. . . They shall bear fruit even in old age; vigorous and sturdy shall they be . . ." Yes, even in old age.

 

We are two more days away from Ash Wednesday. Lent gives us an opportunity to examine our lives, to evaluate our deeds, and to reconsider our words, those things that tell the world what we are, who we are, and how we are. Those things that reveal the stores of goodness in our hearts or allow the evils we harbor there to spill forth.

 

The gospel antiphon gives us all the instruction we need:

"Shine like lights in the world

as you hold on to the word of life."

 

_________________________________________________________

Last Sunday before Lent begins on Wednesday.  Much to prepare for the Lenten and Easter seasons.  The photos aare not quite as random as they would look, all having been taken during tertianship in Australia from the long retreat, that we were doing around now in 2011 and the short experiment  which, in my case was Warrnambool, Victoria.  Both were important and deeply consoling experiences   

Taken in Sevenhill, South Australia during retreat.  It was an unusually cool (cold) and rainy time.  Toook these at night while standing on the covered porch of the house in which some of stayed.

 The Jesuit IHS logo suspended over the cemetery in Sevenhill. 

The pond I walked by several times per day when going from the house to the retreat house.  The main house wasn't large enough for all. 

The loft and organ in the church in Warrnambool.  Spent three weeks there giving retreats. 

The beach in Warrnambool.  It was a bit of a walk from the church but worth it every time I made it.  

 

 

FrJack, SJ, MD