3/5/2017 1 Comment First Sunday of LentToday's Gospel is the reason we celebrate forty days of Lent. It is in imitation of Jesus' forty days of preparation in the desert before beginning His public ministry. His public ministry is all about making known the inner life of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He makes known to us the closeness of God. He makes known to us that "God is love." The revelation of God in Jesus demands a response from each of us. A response that is definitive - either yes or no. A response that says we are all in.
At the heart of the Gospel today are the temptations. Jesus is tempted in the desert and arises victorious undoing the fall of Adam in the garden. The heart of these temptations is to push God aside as a secondary concern to paraphrase Pope Emeritus Benedict. The first temptation deals with the physical pleasures and needs that we have. The devil tempts a hungry Jesus to push God to the side and let bread be His God. Do the needs and pleasures of the body take primacy in my life? Do I seek pleasure above all things? The devil tries again this time tempting Jesus to throw himself off the temple and let God's angels protect him if he is who he says he is. Jesus responds with Scripture that says do not put the Lord your God to the test. Do we tempt God with our actions? Do we see God as a vending machine? Do we get mad at him when things do not go our way? There is no doubt difficult situations and sufferings that we endure in this lifetime. And when we do not understand why they happened as they did, do we run away from God or do we move toward him and ask him for the answer to the mystery of evil in our lives? If you are angry with God then talk to him about it. Then the devil tries to get Jesus to worship him and he will give him the kingdoms of the world. Little does the devil know the kingdoms of the world are already Jesus'. Jesus says, "Get away Satan." I worship the Lord our God and serve him alone. Ahh! The crux of the story is that temptation tries to lead us to make idols of power, money, prestige, and the like. Do we worship God alone or have we allowed other things to be primary in our lives, making God secondary? Jesus is tempted like we are but never sins. In other words, God Himself shows us the way to overcome temptations. We overcome temptations in life by making God primary in our lives. God has to be the center or everything else is out of whack. Put into place this Lent those practices that make God primary in your life. Will you go all in?
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3/4/2017 0 Comments saturday after ash wednesday"Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do."
These words above of Jesus give us the reason for His Incarnation. God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son not to condemn the world but to save it through Him. There is no saving ourselves or pulling ourselves up by our boot straps when it comes to sin. I would say most of us recognize our powerlessness against our sins. They seem to rule our lives at times. When we misuse God's gift of freedom we become less free and more like a slave. If we cannot say no to something in our lives, especially when that something is sinful we are soul-sick and enslaved. One of the most important principles of the spiritual life is to know that I am a sinner and in need of a Savior. Pop-psychology (in no way am I diminishing good psychology and its usefulness) says I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine, but a glance around our world, heck around our immediate surroundings, points to another reality - the biblical reality. It is a strength, not a weakness to recognize ourself as a sinner. It is to truly live in reality. If our leg is broken pretending it is not does not change the reality. The same goes for sin, pretending we are not sinners changes nothing. Admitting that we are has the potential to change everything. The Catholic faith helps us recognize the truth of who we are. The sooner we recognize that we are sinners and in need of a savior, the sooner we can experience the healing of the Divine Physician. This Lent go to confession, no matter how long it has been. Do not be afraid the Divine Physician wants to heal you, to set you free to be truly who you were made to be. 3/3/2017 1 Comment Friday after ash wednesdayIn our first reading from Isaiah, the Lord wants our sacrifices and our fasting to lead to humble service and not to angry bickering. In order to lead to humble service and loving concern of others, we have to see the sacrifices as actions that unite us to Jesus. We must be intentional with them by offer the sacrifice to God with a prayer. Otherwise, we can tend to do these sacrifices for our own reasons and they lead us to be grumpy and bitter. When we combine them with prayer and the intention of growing in our relationship with Jesus, they become a means of spiritual growth. This spiritual growth should lead us from looking inward to looking outward to those around us in need.
There are those in need of the material necessities of life. There are those in need of our time and presence. There are those in need of God's love. St. Theresa of Calcutta said that the most profound poverty in this world is the poverty of love. Everyone is hungry for love. Love is a choice we make to seek and promote the good of the other person. We can be God's instrument of love in this world if we but offer our sacrifices in union with Christ's sacrifice on the Cross and allow it to be the source of humble service directed to those around us. Today, start by loving your family better and work your way out. Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for your sacrifice on the Cross, May we unite our sacrifices to you, so that we may grow in sacrificial love, and share it with those around us. We ask this in Your Holy Name. Amen. |
AuthorDaily Lenten reflections by Father Browning. ArchivesCategoriesAll Ash Wednesday Confession Cross Daily Mass Death Discipleship Discipline Divine Physician Eucharist Evil Exodus Faith Fasting Fear Forgiveness Freedom Good News Grace Happiness Humble Service Humility Jesus Jonah Lent Love Our Father Penance Persistence Prayer Pride Primacy Of God Providence Repentance Resurrection Sacrifice Savior Sin Soul-sick Suffering Surrender Temptations The Father Transfiguration Trust Unanswered Prayer Vice Virtue Wisdom |
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