Homilies

“Thus says the Lord, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah is addressing the exiles of Judea who had been deported to Babylon. This was a dark time in their history. Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed. God’s people were forced off their land. In the midst of such despair, the prophet becomes God’s voice of consolation and hope, assuring them that God will make a path through the wilderness to aid their journey.

Do you perceive what the Lord is doing in your life? The Pharisees and scribes didn’t. He was interrupted when they dragged a woman who had been caught in adultery. The gospel doesn’t provide any details but that doesn’t matter. In Jewish law, grave sins like adultery, murder and idolatry warranted the death penalty by stoning.

With mock reverence for the teacher, her accusers put the case to Jesus. “So what do you say?” If Jesus argued that the woman should not be stoned, he violates the Mosaic teaching and the community tradition.  If he says she should be stoned, he would violate his own compassionate teaching and hence be regarded as a charlatan who didn’t practice what he was preaching.

Eager to throw their stones, her accusers demanded, “So, what do you say?” Bent over, Jesus silently began writing on the ground. In response to their callousness, he finally stood up and said, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” When he resumed writing, the Pharisees and scribes realized that they, not the woman, were the ones on trial. None dared to claim they were sinless in front of the crowd, so one by one they dropped their stones and drifted away.

After the crowd dispersed, Jesus and the woman were left alone. With compassion, Jesus asked her, “Has no one condemned you?” When she replied, “No one, sir,” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

Imagine how she felt being treated with such respect by this revered teacher, such tenderness and kindness overturning the scorn of her accusers.

As you can see, this was no moralizing lecture. Jesus cared about her as a person, while her accusers did not. Instead of condemning her to death or condoning her wrongdoing, he showed her great respect yet admonished her to move on and sin no more. “Thus, I am doing something new.”  Jesus empowered his followers to experience God’s forgiveness in a way that had not been felt before.

Pope Francis has commented that Jesus is the human face of the Father’s mercy. Imagine God saying to you, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, for I am gracious and merciful.”

Like the Pharisees and scribes, we are all sinners but how do we deal with that aspect of our lives? Do we brush it under the carpet, focusing instead on the sins of others like the angry mob did? Or do we claim that we don’t sin? The saints didn’t do that. We can’t be forgiven for something that we don’t acknowledge as our sin. The first step in seeking forgiveness is to honestly examine our conscience, which I wager every saint did often.

Blessed are those who do so nightly, reflecting on their activities of the day and the times they were not as loving toward others as they should have been. Some of us do so during the penitential rite at Mass when we ask the Lord to have mercy on us.  When preparing to confess our sins to a priest, we examine our conscience beforehand. Humbly, we admit our wrongdoing with the intent to sin no more.

Jesus comes to save and rehabilitate us and to give us new life, which we experience when we hear the words of absolution. Those words spoken by a priest give us the human objective assurance of God’s forgiveness. They are soothing to any troubled sinner who feels guilt and yearns to be set free.

Such is the good news I heard from my confessor a few days ago. “Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.” How freeing it is to hear the words of absolution. No longer need I remember the events of the past that shamed me. Instead God places before me the opportunity to do something new by resolving not to sin anymore.

God desires to forgive even the worst sin for our salvation. He sent his son to aid us on our life long journey to the promised land of his kingdom. His son reveals God’s mercy in countless ways through the sacraments, scripture, prayer, and words of wisdom, such as what the woman heard, “Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.” Repentance means turning away from sinful behavior because one has encountered the author of truth and holiness, Jesus.

When God forgives us, he “shuts and seals the book” on our past wrongs. Assured of that, we can relate to what Paul tells us, “I give no thought to what lies behind but push on to what is ahead. My entire attention is on the finish line as I run toward the prize to which God calls me, life on high in Christ Jesus.” 

This well-known parable begins with the younger son demanding his share of the family fortune with the intent of leaving home and being prodigal, that is, wasteful and reckless with his inheritance. He squanders his inheritance in a foreign land then returns home ashamed, and is warmly welcomed by his father, who runs to embrace him. At the tale’s end, we meet his brother who refuses to be reconciled.

The son had done the unthinkable, demanding his share of the inheritance as if he wanted his father to drop dead. Why did he want to leave home in the first place? Perhaps he needed to fill the hole in his heart that would not receive a father’s love. Feeling unloved by his family, he opts to leave home and live extravagantly. Depleting all that he had, he desperately returns, even willing to be a slave. He never expected the warm joyous reception his father afforded him.

He had no idea how deeply his father loved him. When the son asked for his inheritance, his father granted his wish instead of responding angrily. He did so hoping that his son’s heart would later stir up memories of the love and mercy that he was shown. The father hoped his son would recognize in his gut, “My old man loves me. All this time I had him wrong.” As desperate as he was, the son still believed the lie that his father would not take him back and that their relationship would never again be what it once was.

Why had he not felt his father’s love to begin with? Like his brother, he felt that he had to make himself lovable to be loved. If he couldn’t love himself, he couldn’t expect his father to love him either. But his father does love him dearly and shows that love by embracing his wayward son, putting a robe on his shoulders, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet; signs that his status as a son was restored and hosting a banquet to welcome him home.

The son had abused himself and others by needlessly thinking he was unwanted. Upon seeing him, his father proves that he is very much wanted by racing to meet and embrace him lovingly. You are here with me always and I’m so glad you came back. I imagine the father whispered those words and more. I remembered you with such love, my son, and I always knew that someday you would come home.

Like the prodigal son and his brother, we just don’t realize that our Father unconditionally loves us and that we can always come home to his embrace. Like the younger son, some of us might be stuck in a cycle of self-indulgence, shame, and self-pity. When we sin, all we care about is ourselves. When that happens, our guilt surfaces, we swallow our pride and come back home.

And when we do, God comes running to embrace us, no matter how distanced we may have been or how grave our sins were. Believe it or not, God is always paying attention to us. God can’t stop thinking about each one of us even if we stop thinking about him. Like the father in the parable, God is looking out for us, eager to embrace us whenever we have wandered away. Because God is all knowing and loving, he knows us intimately and pays attention regardless of how we feel about ourselves, others and him. God’s mission is to fill our hearts with joy. Are we willing to accept his invitation?

Traditionally this is known as Laetare Sunday; the name comes from the Latin for rejoice. Undoubtedly, joy is what the prodigal son felt as his father embraced him. Joy is the feeling we get when we possess something good. The feeling of joy lasts only as long as we have the good thing. It goes away when we lose it or it wears away or we get tired of it. No earthly joy last forever but the joy God gives us can last forever. Joy is what the other son didn’t feel at all.

We can experience that joy when we seek to be reconciled to self, others and God. The journey of reconciliation begins with believing that God never gives up on us. Then we need to look into our hearts. What we find may surprise us. Some things will be good and others not so good. We must have the courage to correct those traits that hinder us from being holy. Once we have forgiven ourselves, then we can begin to forgive others and ask others and God to forgive us.

Reconciliation is complete when we put the sins of our past behind us and start anew, just as the prodigal son did. The beauty of the sacrament of reconciliation is that the words of absolution enable us to let go of our baggage of guilt, move on and try to do better. As Pope Francis said in his penance service last Friday, “The sacrament is about God, who liberates us and puts us back on our feet.” When we celebrate this sacrament, we allow God the Father to once again embrace us with his love, yet so many shy away from this opportunity.

The Pope added, “Dear sister, dear brother, if your sins frighten you, if your past worries you, if your wounds do not heal, if your constant failings dishearten you and you seem to have lost hope, do not be afraid. God knows your weaknesses and is greater than your mistakes. He asks that you not hold your frailties and sufferings inside. Bring them to him, lay them before him and from being reasons for despair, they will become opportunities for resurrection.”

Our need to seek and discover the joy of reconciliation is the lesson here. Since God willingly forgives us, we must be willing to forgive others and ourselves. By doing this we remove the reproach of our transgressions, affording us the perfect opportunity to celebrate that God is indeed with us.

What is it in human nature that we feel the need to blame the victims for their fate? In today’s Gospel, a very unfortunate incident is brought to Jesus’ attention. Roman soldiers had killed some Jews in the temple and then mixed their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. The talk of the town was that God punished the victims for sins they had committed. This prompts Jesus to mention the incident of 18 people who died when a tower in Siloam collapsed on them.

Because the awareness of death became a part of life when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, people in Jesus’ day thought there was a link between sin and suffering, believing sickness and death to be God’s punishment for sin. This conclusion sounds logical but Jesus quickly rejects it.

In the story of Adam and Eve, pain and death became their experience and ours not as a punishment for sin but as a consequence of their wrongdoing. The distinction between punishment and consequence is crucial if we are to grasp this gospel passage.  This example illustrates the difference.

Driving his new luxury automobile, a drunken driver speeds down the street at 80 mph, fails to stop at a stop sign and runs into a power pole as he swerves to avoid a pedestrian. He suffers a broken leg and totals his new car. A judge then suspends his license and orders him to pay a hefty fine. The broken leg and the totaled car were consequences of this drunken driver’s actions but the fine and loss of his license are the punishments. Consequences flow from one’s action while someone else imposes the punishment. Suffering and death are not punishments from God for something we do. Rather, they are the consequences of our choices in life.

When my mother died, some people tried to console me with the line that her death was God’s will. I came to view her untimely death from a heart attack as a consequence of poor choices she made that impaired her health, not as a punishment from God. 

God gives and sustains life. God also gives us free will so that we can freely love. Thus God cannot decide the manner or the time of our death.  For the victims of any tragedy, for example, what Ukrainians are enduring now, I can’t believe that God would want people to suffer such a fate.  Death strikes some people unexpectedly because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

None of us can predict our future. That death could happen unexpectedly is rarely considered yet that does happen.  Don’t dismiss the possibility that you might die suddenly as have many victims of heart attacks, accidents or war.  If death were to greet you unexpectedly, would you be ready?

That is the caution Jesus airs, not once, but twice in this Gospel. He is concerned about our eternal fate.  Many of his listeners had the mindset that the absence of misfortune in their lives meant they were living virtuous lives pleasing to God.  Rather than commending them, Jesus warns, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

The examples Luke uses of people dying unexpectedly are a sobering reminder that our time to respond to Jesus’ warning is here and now.  In his letter, Paul cautions that not all the Israelites made it to the land of milk and honey. Instead, they “were struck down in the desert.”  We are on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land, that place we call heaven. Our culture likes to think that everyone is going there, but Jesus cautions otherwise. Unless we acknowledge our sins and repent, we too may fall short of our desired destination.

The bottom line is this: where we spend eternity depends on our response to Jesus’ call to repentance. All of us stand in need of repentance. The most obvious advice I can offer is for you to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation during this season of Lent. But there is more to reconciliation than a sacramental encounter with your confessor. Reconciliation also means setting ourselves right in our relationships with others and with God.

Jesus’ call to repentance is not just a call to turn away from evil; it’s also a plea to produce the fruits of good living. In his parable of the fig tree, Jesus is asking if our love of God is evident in the fruits we produce by loving and respecting others. Each day God gives us another chance to do so.

There are so many ways of showing love. How appreciative, how respectful, how loving are we toward others in our lives? We meet God by caring for the poor, the sick, the lonely and the elderly. Are we also making time to worship God by attending Mass and praying in our inner room? The warning about the unfruitful fig tree is not given to frighten us but to remind us that our time for doing good is limited. We can’t keep putting off good works indefinitely for someday there will be no tomorrow for us to get our act together.

Lent is the season for taking a hard look at our lives and asking how we stand before God right now. Like the fig tree, we are expected to produce good fruit. It isn’t too late to change our ways, but someday it will be. 

For years Peter, John and James journeyed with Jesus. They recognized him as the Messiah, but their notion of Messiah was not what God had in mind. They envisioned an earthly leader who would free their land from the Romans. Eight days earlier, Jesus told them of the exodus he would undertake, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” He then took them up on the mountain to pray and while they were there, what happened clearly changed their perception of Jesus.

Perception is what comes to mind as I pondered this significant event. We usually make assumptions about a person based on what we perceive, passing judgment instead of trying to enter into that person’s situation. If you have ever read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey, you may be familiar with this experience he once had on a New York Subway on a Sunday morning.

People were sitting quietly. Some were reading newspapers, some were dozing, while others were contemplating. It was a calm, peaceful scene. At one stop a man and his children got on. Soon the children were yelling, throwing things, and annoying other passengers. Their conduct was annoying yet their father just sat there and did nothing. Steve, feeling quite irritated, could not believe the man could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild and do nothing about it.

Finally, after much restraint and patience, Steve said to the man, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little bit more?”  The man looked up as if becoming aware of what was happening and said, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it, either.”

“Can you imagine what I felt at that moment?” Steve said, “Suddenly I saw things differently. Because I saw differently, I felt differently. I believed differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior. My heart was filled with this man’s pain. Feelings of compassion and sympathy flowed freely. ‘Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?’”

Steve finished his observation with this reflection. Nothing changed in that subway car. All was the same: the same people, the same irritation, the same kids. What changed was his way of seeing it all and, with the seeing, a change of attitude and behavior.

Today we hear the story of the Transfiguration. The word, transfiguration, means a metamorphosis. Yet, Jesus does not change into something he was not before. He has always been and will always be the Son of God. What changed was the apostles’ perception of Jesus. They saw him in a new light as the fulfillment of God’s long plodding history with the chosen people dating back to Abram on that starry night.

Peter offered to build three tents. The experience was so profound that they wanted to stay there and savor the moment, fully grasping the relationship between Jesus and his guests but before Jesus could reply, a cloud overshadowed them and the apostles heard a voice, “This is my Son, my chosen one, listen to him!” Putting up three tents was not meant to be. Moses and Elijah had left, leaving Jesus alone with them.

Like the apostles, we are urged to listen to Jesus, who often told his apostles to seek reconciliation, which begins with listening to one another. Listening isn’t easy. For one thing, listening isn’t the same as hearing. To listen is to totally give yourself to the other person, putting yourself in that person’s mind and heart, just as Steve Covey did with the distraught father on the subway. Listening is being willing to put aside your mindset, like Peter did, and endeavor to see where the other person is coming from to fathom what happened.

True listening enables us to see the situation in a new light. Really listening, especially when the need to reconcile is there, is an act of love. Listening involves being present with our whole being just as Steve Covey did.

How readily do we listen to Jesus and all that he challenges us to be and do?  When God said to listen, he in effect is saying, “Obey him if you truly want to follow him.” To listen to Jesus is to be his disciple and do your part in building his kingdom here on earth. Too often we think of God’s kingdom as being out of this world but it becomes real here and now when we repent and strive to follow God’s will, summarized for us in the Ten Commandments and the corporal works of mercy.

Lent is our time to be transformed so ask yourself, “What transformation do I need?” Some of our opinions and attitudes are difficult to change and yet we may need to change them if we are to build God’s kingdom and transform our world. Taking time to gaze at God by staring at the stars as Abram did or at Jesus as the apostles did provides the moments we need to listen and be transformed. Listening enables Jesus to enter our being and transform us, so what part of “listen to him” don’t you yet understand?

We find Jesus alone and hungry in the desert. With perfect timing, the devil arrives with three attractive propositions. He tried to use his power to tempt Jesus with sensual pleasure and comfort, then worldly recognition and pride, and finally, despair and vanity.  In each case, Jesus withstood the devil’s efforts to seduce him.

What we all have in common is being seduced by certain temptations that lead to sin. Consider the three temptations that Jesus dealt with. He had been fasting for forty days, not like you and I did on Ash Wednesday, but literally fasting during all that time. In an effort to turn him away from God’s plan of redemption, the devil tempts Jesus to use his power to turn stone into bread, putting his comfort ahead of his Father’s will. Food or any other want is good but it won’t satisfy us for long or fill our hearts.

The devil then takes Jesus to a mountaintop and shows him the whole world. I have been to the place that tradition says was the spot and it was breathtaking. The devil tells him, “I will give you all this and more if you bow down and worship me.” Success is good but it too is fleeting and won’t last forever or fill our hearts.

Then the devil suggests that Jesus throw himself off the temple because the angels would save him. Imagine how this would have really impressed onlookers, launching his public ministry with such a daring stunt. The esteem of onlookers is good but that too could be short-lived and would not fill our hearts.

Each time Jesus told the devil, “None of these things, comfort, pride, or vanity, makes a person truly happy. I will choose my Father’s will above all else.”

We think of temptation as a path to sin but for many early Christians, temptation was also a time of testing if one would choose to be faithful or unfaithful to God. In the gospel, we find Jesus passing the test with flying colors. Lent is a season for us to test our faithfulness to God as well.

The devil, whose name in Greek means “the deceiver,” has a bottomless sack of tricks available for his use including the notion that he doesn’t even exist! His approach and method vary from person to person but his motive and strategy remain the same. Each time the devil succeeds in luring us away from God, the next temptation becomes a bit stronger and the next fall becomes a bit easier. Before long, we become hooked and possibly oblivious to the gravity of our own sins. The first sin may be trite such as telling a white lie and be considered venial but before long the sin of lying can become mortal, for example, leading to perjury or malicious gossip, harmful to our relationship with God and others.

Our temptations are similar to what Jesus experienced; the lure of comfort, power, and pride can and do distract us from growing in our relationship with God.

Consider the impact that the pandemic has had on your faith and your relationship with Christ. Attendance at Mass is a fraction of what we had before we were compelled to limit seating and require reservations. In due time, we were allowed to do away with reservations and increase the seating but many continue to stay away, tempted to stay home. For months we were not obligated to attend Mass but now anyone in good health and younger than 65 is obliged to. This temptation is a test of our faith, which we face every weekend. Do I remain comfortable in my home or worship God at Mass with my faith community? 

My fear as time goes on is that many will continue to be tempted by the devil to forego attending Mass and being nurtured by the graces they once received from worshiping God. For good reason, we are obliged to feed our spiritual hunger regularly just as we feed our physical hunger. Lent is an opportune time to fall back into the habit of worshipping God if you have been away.

We need not be afraid of the devil and his temptations. St. Augustine compares the devil to a dog tied to post. He can only harm us if we get within his range. In our often-recited prayer, one composed by Jesus himself, we ask our Father to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” I cannot picture God ever leading us into temptation but God endeavors to deliver us from evil. He sent his son into our lives to save us from the evil one.

If we are inclined to dismiss the notion of church authority or believe we can be good Christians without the sacraments or the moral guidance of the Church, then we are being tempted to ignore the very tools we need for staying clear of evil and out of trouble that could imperil our relationships with God and others.

Lent is a time to look beyond this world to our eternal home. During Lent we are encouraged to do things that will bring us closer to Christ or give up doing something that keeps us from serving Christ more wholeheartedly. Whenever I decide to do something special for Lent, after a couple of weeks I discover that 40 days is a long time, and I begin to let my good intentions slip to the wayside. I imagine that is your experience as well. You will be greatly blessed if you persevere through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. By resisting temptations that lure you away from deepening your faith, this season can draw you closer to Christ.