A Homily for Passiontide

 

Isaiah 43:15-21

Ps 126:1-6

Phil 3:8-14

Jn 8:1-11

 

We are rapidly approaching the singular event in Jesus’ life. It is the sole reason

for His Incarnation that we celebrated a few weeks ago on the Solemnity of the Annunciation.  Next Sunday we will bless and distribute palms to commemorate His triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  We will hear the chilling introduction: “The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.” 

 

Throughout the rest of Holy Week we will recall the most important events in the history of the world.  On Holy Thursday the Church will commemorate the institution of the Eucharist. We will be reminded of the Passover in the first reading from the Book of Exodus. The second reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians includes the words of the formula for the consecration of the bread and wine at Mass.

 

The Good Friday liturgy does not include Mass. Following the reading of the Passion According to John, the cross is venerated in solemn fashion. We will then receive communion using the bread consecrated at Mass the night before. 

 

Holy Saturday is marked by a peculiar emptiness. That emptiness is highlighted by a reading in the breviary that begins: “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth, a great silence and stillness.  The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep . . . God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.”

 

During the vigil Mass of Easter we will be reminded of the forging of the Old Covenant

and will sing Alleluia, He is Risen, in celebration of the New Covenant. 

 

The covenant God formed with His people was not and is not a pact between equals. 

It was not, is not, and never will be a democracy.  God decided in freedom to grant His allegiance to Israel.  He dictated His own conditions.  Similarly Jesus dictated the conditions of the new covenant. We are free to accept or reject those conditions.  We are not free to negotiate them to suit our taste or current social trends.

 

God chose Israel without any merit on her part.  Similarly, God has chosen us. Like Ancient Israel we are sinners.  Like the Ancient Israelites we are sinners loved by God,

a love that God gave freely.  The parable of the woman caught in adultery is well-known and extraordinarily complex. The motif of the adulterous woman is used throughout the Old Testament as a metaphor for Israel’s recurrent infidelity to the covenant. But there is one question that will never be answered. What did Jesus’ write in the dirt?  There is no indication.  We will never know

 

During these last weeks of Lent we hear much about how the authorities tried to trap Jesus into saying something that could be used against him in a charge of blasphemy. 

The question about what to do about the woman presented Jesus with a choice: Contradict the law that deemed stoning the penalty for adultery or make an exception to God’s law, a very popular activity today.

 

Either of these arguments could have been against Jesus. Yet, once again, the authorities could not trap Him.  The interrogation continued for a bit whereupon Jesus said what has almost become a figure of speech in English, “He who is without sin cast the first stone.”

 

The accusers dispersed slowly until only Jesus and the woman were left at the scene.

 

Jesus chose not to condemn the woman caught in her sin and told her to go.  But then he added an important condition: “sin no more.”  Important advice, particularly during this Passiontide. 

 

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Two photos taken during Lent 2011 while our tertian class was on the thirty day retreat.  It ended on Palm Sunday. After a day in Adelaide half of us made the two-day drive back to Sydney.  The Outback is very different.  We made the retreat at the Sevenhill retreat house.  Both photos were taken there.  

 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Rejoice Jerusalem: Homily for Laetare Sunday

 

Jos 5:9a, 10-12

Ps 34:2-7

2 Cor 5:17-21

Lk 15:1-2, 11-32

 

Laetare Jerusalem:

et conventum facite omnes

qui diligitis eam:

 

“Rejoice Jerusalem

and all who love her. . . “

 

The name Laetare Sunday comes from the first word of the entrance antiphon, Laetare. Rejoice.

 

It is an important Sunday that visibly marks the progress of Lent.  In one of his many essays, the late Jesuit Father Jim Schall a long-time professor of political philosophy at Georgetown wrote, "Laetare Sunday is a respite. It makes us feel the nearness of the Passion and the Resurrection, but with a reminder that even amid the Lenten fast and the coming remembrance of the Crucifixion, we are not to forget that Christianity is a religion of joy.” 

 

He goes to explain that "Christianity is a religion of joy since it knows this world is not all there is; (it knows that ) there is something precious beyond the world." Today's readings remind us that joy follows sorrow. 

 

After thirty days of mourning Moses’ death, the Israelites had reason to rejoice. Joshua led them into the land toward which they had been traveling for forty years. “Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.”  Their punishment had ended. They ate a Passover meal from the produce of their own land.  The manna with which God had fed them was no longer necessary.  It never appeared again.  They were home. 

 

The parable of the prodigal son is more than familiar.  The Prodigal Son  is a figure of speech that is used and understood by Christians, non-Christians, and even those who are militantly hostile to all things of faith. It is a challenging parable  that is rich with characterization, motive, action and reaction.  Psychiatrists can have a field day using this gospel as a case study of personality types and disorders, sibling rivalry, loneliness, jealousy and anger.  We might even see ourselves in one the characters in the narrative.  

 

Perhaps we want the immediate gratification of the younger son. "Show me the money NOW."  Maybe we identify with the resentment of the dutiful elder son who felt unappreciated.  "He got a goat and clothes and you never even gave me a six-pack of beer." We may even identify with the man who said, “Sure kid, slop the hogs.  But don’t eat any of the slop.”  We all can identify at some point or another with the prodigal’s regret at having made some stupid decisions and taken a path that led nowhere but to a personal hell.

 

The prodigal son's story is like that of so many who were temporarily flush: the whores, hangers-on, and good time Charlies were there when the money flowed. They were gone the moment the cash dried up. Some things haven't changed in millennia.

 

The importance of the parable however, is not as a social or psychiatric case study or cautionary tale about acting stupidly. It is a case study of the depth of God’s mercy. The parable reveals God’s forgiveness once we realize that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and seek that forgiveness. The father loved the son enough to let him go out on his own well-financed and well-provisioned. He gave him every advantage. The rest was up to the boy. 

 

The son reveled in his new freedom He caroused and partied,  drank and slept around. The money went fast once a famine hit.  Only when he hit rock-bottomdid he yearn for his father’s love. Only when broken and wretched did he dream of the safety of home. After squandering everything he swallowed his arrogant pride, admitted his wretched state to himself, and made his way back to his father. To his credit, he was prepared to be treated as one of the hired help rather than a son. At least he would be fed, warm, and have a place to sleep.

 

He set off on his journey unaware that his father was desperate for his return. The son had been lost. He did not know he was about to be found.  Soon he was home.  But then what?

 

As is the case with Jesus’ parables the narrative does not have a neat ending. There is no real resolution. The parable does not end with "and they lived happily ever after."  Did the kid settle down, go back to school, get his degree, and begin an accounting practice?  Did he head out again for the sordid life again once he recovered?  We don't know.

 

The parable of the Prodigal Son is like seeing two acts of a three-act play or discovering that the last chapter of an Agatha Christie whodunnit had been ripped from the book.  We don’t know how the prodigal son behaved after the newness of his return wore off.  We don’t know if his angry older brother reconciled with the prodigal or if he apologized to his father for his rage.  Did the two brothers speak to one another again?   All we know for certain is that his father welcomed him back.

 

God endowed human beings alone with the gift of free will.  He allows us to go out on our own, well-financed and provisioned.  Like the prodigal son we sometimes mess up to the point of desperation and despair.  But like the father in the parable God forgives us and welcomes us back .He welcomes us back again and again, more effusively than the prodigal’s father.  He welcomes us back when we realize our need for His love, confess our sins in the sacrament, and amend our lives. 

 

For this reason Paul assures us, “God has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.”  In Paul’s words we can hear the beginning of the formula of absolution pronounced at the end of the sacrament of confession:

 

"God the Father of mercies

through the death and resurrection of His Son

has reconciled the world to Himself,

and sent the Holy Spirit among us

for the forgiveness of sins . . . "

 

In response we can only sing:

 

Laetare Jerusalem. . .

gaudete cum laetitia,

qui in tristitia fuistis

 

Rejoice Jerusalem . . .

Be joyful. 

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The time in Slovenia was the source of much of my photo library.  These three shots are from Ljubljana

The Cathedral.  I did not know it was a preview of coming attractions.  I took this photo on my first walk in the city with Fr. Jože a few hours after I arrived in the community after flying over night, laying over for a bit in Frankfurt, and then landing in LJ.

 

Ljubljana with a very wide-angle lens.  The white tower in the left background is sv. Jože where I staying.  It was a rather short though steep walk to the castle.  I made it often.  

 A devotional work on the outside wall of a private home.  

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

What Is Your Name: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

 

Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15

Ps 1031-4, 1-8, 11

1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12

Lk 13:1-9

 

The narrative of Moses and the burning bush is familiar.  It seems odd that Moses had to ask God's name. However, the Jewish Study Bible explains that Moses was not raised with his people.  He knew nothing of their religion.  Kind of like too many children today whose parents fail to give them any religious instruction so as to "empower" them to choose on their own when they are older. 

Ignorance is not always bliss, sometimes it is pathetic.

 

Moses had to undergo a conversion and had to learn if he were to become the leader of the people. When he asked to whom he was speaking he was told: I AM.  The Jewish Study Bible translates the Hebrew as "I Will Be What I Will Be."    It goes on to explain that this means "My nature will become evident from My action."  That nature did become evident.  Alas, the people didn't always get

or appreciate that nature.  

 

The gospel narrative is unique to Luke's gospel.  What are we to make of it?  It raises two questions: why do bad things happen to good people? why do good things happen to bad people?  The questions are those of theodicy,

 

There is a breathtaking arrogance inherent in the assumption that one can explain why or how a loving God permits or allows evil, disaster, death and suffering. The angry "WHY?" the desperate “WHY?” the faith-filled “WHY?”

have circled the globe since God created it.   It will continue to orbit until the world ends.

 

One can hear Eve screaming WHY? after Cain murdered Abel. 

 

One can imagine Noah shrieking WHY? when he surveyed the damage after the flood. 

 

If we listen closely we can hear ourselves groaning WHY? at the illness or death of a loved one, the loss of home and possessions through fire or flood, or the confrontation with mortality  upon realizing: I am dying. 

 

WHY? is perhaps the most frequently recited prayer in war zones.

 

Jesus' examples of bad things happening to good people are challenging because there is no historical record of them.

 

Yes, Herod was a crazed megalomaniac who did evil sadistic things so as to maintain absolute control of his kingdom. Crazed megalomaniacs continue today. It is true that towers did collapse and kill people.  Construction collapses caused by lust for money that drives shoddy construction practices continue today.

 

But, scholars cannot agree what the Tower of Siloam was.  There is no historical record of a sacrifice of Galileans at worship--though today there are too many examples of Christians martyred at worship, modern martyrs for the faith.

 

Jesus' examples were used to illustrate that evil, disaster, suffering, and death

happen to both the bad and the good, the just and the unjust.  The saying "only the good die young" is as appalling, inappropriate, and inaccurate a statement as was ever invented.  Appalling is also applicable to the Billy Joel song of the same title but that will be the topic for a different homily.

 

Jesus twice repeats the words "If you do not repent " in this short passage.  That demand implies conversion of heart.

 

Repentance and conversion are two sides of the same coin.  Repentance is an interior act. Conversion is evidenced by a change of behavior emerging from the act of repentance.   In His call to repentance Jesus is echoing the words of the prophets: Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and Ezekiel, each of whom preached repentance for sinand conversion of heart. 

 

Will bad things still happen in the world if we repent? Will bad things still happen to us if we repent?  Without a doubt.  Will we still suffer?  Of course, it is part of being human.  Will we still experience pain, despite conversion of heart?  Absolutely.

 

The risk is not that bad things will happen to good people. The risk is the temptation to defiance toward God when bad things, pain, and suffering do happen.  The risk is adopting the attitude, "God, if you don't shape up I'm shipping out." 

 

The reading from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians is a challenge on at least two levels.  First, it is edited down to  chapter ten verses one to six and verses ten to twelve.  The four missing verses are important to Jesus’ message as they described the kind of sin that called down punishment: idolatry, immorality, testing God.  Sounds like twenty-first century American life marked by: the odd idolatry of celebrity worship, the immorality of puberty blockers, abortion, and killing the ill elderly. And don’t forget testing God through greed, and lethal materialism.

 

I'm not sure Job would, or could, have taken much comfort from Paul.  We will never know why bad things happen to good people or why good things happen to bad people.  That not knowing, causes anger and the frustration that may drive maladaptive behaviors and actions.

 

Faith will temper pain and sorrow somewhat. Prayer will soothe the soul a bit.  But in the end we will never know the answers.   Despite that uncertainty we are called to sing with the psalmist in faith and hope,

 

"The Lord is kind and merciful,

He pardons iniquities,

heals all ills,

He redeems lives from destruction,

and secures justice,"

 

Nothing more need be added. 

 

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Carthusian Charterhouse, Pleterje, Slovenia

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Solemnity of St. Joseph

 

Mt 1:16, 18-21, 24a

 

Matthew’s description of the events leading up to Jesus’ birth contains fewer details than Luke’s Gospel. It does not include  the splendid prayers from Luke--the Magnificat, the Benedictus and others--that have become part of the Church's liturgy.  But it is as important as Luke's exquisite narrative. Matthew’s Gospel is filled with human drama and marked by pathos, anxiety, and fear.  Most significantly, we hear about Joseph and come to understand why he was called a righteous man. We learn of his compassion when he planned to divorce Mary quietly, unwilling to subject her to shame, and possible stoning for being with child. We hear of his obedience when an angel appeared to him in a dream, "do not be afraid . . .  it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived.  She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 

 

Not one word  is attributed to Joseph in scripture.  He remains silent throughout. We know that he was a good man, we know that he was a real man, who accepted the role of husband and father, doing that which was necessary.  But, we know this only through observing his actions rather than reading his words.  We know that he was righteous through his courage and obedience in doing what God commanded without complaint or protest.

 

Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation--“May it be done unto me according to your word”--changed the history of the world and continues to change the history of the world.  The sound of her yes still echoes throughout the universe to this very moment.  It will echo for eternity and beyond eternity.  Joseph’s yes was silent.  His yes was as important as Mary's.  Joseph's yes also continues to echo throughout the universe, but it echoes in its example rather than the sound of its words.  Joseph was righteous because his obedience to God was immediate and without question. 

 

An angel would again come to him in a dream after Jesus' birth.  In his obedience, in his role as protector of his young family, Joseph would take them to Egypt for an extended exile that would last until Herod’s death.  The 90-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a pregnant wife could not have been easy.  The flight to Egypt was probably even more difficult and filled with greater anxiety and complicated by the almost overpowering fear of a father whose son's life is threatened.

 

Pope Francis was inaugurated on 19 March 2013, the Solemnity of St. Joseph.  He asked the following question in his homily:  "How does Joseph exercise his role as protector?"  The pope then answered the question in a way that explains why Joseph must be a model for all men, men who are fathers and grandfathers in particular, as well men who are responsible for the care of others. 

 

The Holy Father explained that Joseph exercised his role, "Discreetly, humbly and silently, but with an unfailing presence and utter fidelity, even when he finds it hard to understand." Joseph did what had to be done.  He did what had to be done without question and without complaint.  He did it with quiet strength that grew from his trust in God. That is why he is credited as righteous.  That is why we celebrate him with such solemnity today.

 

St. Joseph protector of families, pray for us. 

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The Solemnity of St. Joseph represents a break from the austerities of Lent. The vestments are white and the Gloria returns briefly.

 

St. Joseph Trappist Abbey in Spencer, MA about a 75 minute drive from Boston, at least early Saturday AM. I go out there one Saturday per month for the day. Beautiful place. I made a number of retreats there in the past including the retreat that ended two days before making final vows.

The main entrance to the church from inside the enclosure. The structure to the right is the chapter room where the community meets for meetings and chapter talks from Fr. Abbott.

sv. Jože (St. Joseph) Church in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is where I lived while there. The image of Joseph with Jesus atop the altar is very different from the usual in that there is no Mary. We can see Joseph's role as the protector of the boy Jesus.

The photo was taken on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011.

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
 

Foreshadowing: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent

 

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18

Ps 27

Phil 3:17-4:1

Lk 9:28b-36

Todays readings, particularly the first one, include significant interpretive challenges.

The ritual described in Genesis is bizarre. It is the sort of thing that upon hearing in the pews one is tempted to say, “whatever,” and wait for the gospel. It does not resonate with modern sensibilities, and indeed, might send nervous prostration in members of PETA. What does slicing several animals in half and placing the halves on the ground opposite each other along with a scattering of dead birds mean? And what about the torch and smoking pot passing between the carcasses? In Dorothy Gale's words, we ain't in Kansas no more.

The Jewish Study Bible clear things up in the commentary on these passages by noting: “The ritual of cutting animals in half and passing between them is found in both the Bible and in Mesopotamia. . . It is likely that the meaning of this ritual is a self-curse such that those walking between the pieces will be like the dead animals if they violate the covenant.”

Equally odd is that the smoking fire pot and flaming torch symbolize that it is the Lord himself invoking the self-curse by walking between the dead animals.. The Lord is promising never to violate His side of the covenant formed with Abram. Oddly, nothing is said about Abram’s obligations in this covenant. God's fidelity is pure gift without quid pro quo; it is a reward for past loyalty without obligations on the part of the recipient.

Abram, who had not yet been instructed to change his name to Abraham, had been promised first, that his progeny would outnumber the stars and then that he would possess the land. Thus, his question “How am I to know that I shall possess it” That question was answered definitively through the ritual that was enacted. It was as if God responded with the common schoolyard oath, “If I am lying may God strike me dead” like these slaughtered animals.

The Jewish Study Bible makes another subtle point in its commentary on verse seven which reads: “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans... “ This verse resembles the beginning of the Decalogue in Exodus, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” This wording suggests that Abram’s life foreshadows that of his descendants, whose enslavement is predicted in the verses omitted from this reading.

The theme of foreshadowing continues through the second reading and the Gospel.

Paul is emphatic when he writes that Jesus will change our lowly bodies to conform with His glorified body—something that could not occur through ritual or magic incantation--but only through Jesus first conforming His body and life to ours by accepting death on the cross; like us in all things but sin.

We were reminded of this last Sunday as the Gospel recounted the tests to which the Evil One subjected Jesus in the desert.

The narrative of the Transfiguration appears in each of the three synoptic Gospels. Unlike most gospel passages it is proclaimed several times during the liturgical year. While there are some relatively minor differences across the three accounts, the main actors and content are consistent.

Jesus’ transfiguration points us towards a mystery and draws us into a mystery. A mystery beyond the reach of historical reconstruction, a mystery incapable of scientific explanation, and a mystery for which there is no geographic specificity. We are told of Jesus appearing in brilliant glory before three of his disciples. “While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.”

The apostles were confused and frightened. Peter was overwhelmed and began to speak out of anxiety without thinking what he was saying. Despite the fashion for apostle bashing in some academic circles, none of us would have responded any better than the flustered Peter. Most likely, we would have acted worse; doing something such as pulling out an Ancient Near East cell phone to take selfies with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah so we could then text them to the rest of the apostles. As the tension became unbearable the voice of God the Father confirmed that Jesus was who Peter had confessed him to be earlier in this chapter of Luke: the Christ of God, the anointed one, the one for whom the world waited.

God's command, "This is my chosen Son, listen to him" is unmistakably clear. We are to listen to Jesus' teaching in both word and deed. As we listen to Jesus; as we take His teaching to heart, try to live it, and allow it to transform us we move a bit closer to the eschatological glory foreshadowed in the transfigured Jesus.

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Phot of sunset over the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont. Given the gospel reading from Luke it seemed to be the only choice. The monastery is at 2600 feet elevation in the Greem Mountains. The summit is at 3600 feet. This was taken at about 3200 feet, the only place from which the Charterhouse is visible.

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

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."

 

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Ashes and holy water prepared for distribution.

 

  

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD