The First Temptation

Our associate pastor has a page in the bulletin each week. Lately he has been using this page to offer a reflection on the Sunday Gospel. It's always worth a read, but I was particularly intrigued by Father H's comments on the three temptations that Christ faced when he encountered Satan in the desert.

The first temptation. The tempter says: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread. Jesus answers: One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Jesus’ hunger is the occasion for the first temptation. That word ‘bread’ refers to everything that is essential to live. It refers to that astounding array of possessions that feed, clothe, shelter, sustain, transport, and amuse us. But these very things can distract us from giving God His due. Jesus says that the full meaning of life cannot be reduced to what is visible, edible, tangible, or collectible. The core of being human lies elsewhere: in every Word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus says that God’s desires for humanity and not those of the tempter, will define His life and mission. We may ask: who are those who live by bread alone? We may also wonder if the story of how we may have lost touch with our sacred traditions, the great yet-to-be-told story of our Church? Lent may be a good time to recover the meaning of these sacred traditions.

What an excellent question to ask during Lent. Do I live by bread alone? For that matter, do I nourish my family by bread alone? Sure, I provide for physical needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. And then there's all the "stuff." But really, all that is bread alone. Have I nourished my family in other ways--not just the physical ways? Have I nourished myself and my family in spiritual ways?

Foiled Again

It's a good thing we only live a mile or so from Middle Sister's high school, because I use quite a bit of time (and gas) going back and forth.

On a typical day, she catches the bus in the morning, but misses the afternoon bus because of track practice. Sometime between 4:30 and 5:15 (depending on the length of the day's workout, which varies) she calls for a ride home. Then I have to have her (and sometimes Little Brother) back there at 6:30 for play practice. If he's done earlier than she is, I have to pick them up separately. That's three or four runs to the school on a daily basis.

And then you have her tendency to miss the school bus. Sometimes it's her fault, sometimes it isn't. While you could set a clock by the bus driver Big Brother had in high school, who retired earlier this year, this new driver is not so punctual. He and Middle Sister seem to be on opposite schedules. On the days when she's running a bit late, he's at the corner by 7:35. Today she was out there with time to spare--and I wound up picking her up at the corner at 7:47. The bus was nowhere in sight. That's almost a 15-minute window, which is a long time to stand on the corner when the weather's not fantastic.

Sure, I could make her walk to school if she misses the bus. But I don't do that in bad weather (it's threatening to pour rain any second now) and I won't do that if she misses the bus through no fault of her own. Today was not her fault.

So, today, I drove her to school for the third time this week. (Two of those were her fault.)

I joked yesterday that she had given up missing the bus for Lent. Apparently, though, the bus driver had other ideas.

Scrupulous Much?

This morning as I fixed Little Brother's hair, I sprayed some water on his head and said, "It's raining!" Then I began singing the refrain from "It's Raining Men."

"Mom, it's Lent! You're not supposed to say that word!" he scolded me.

Guess that means George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" is also out for the next 5 days. At least when Little Brother is around.

The Enforcer

Middle Sister decided today that she is giving up her hair straightener for the rest of Lent.

Good for her hair, although not for her mood. She hates that she has wavy hair that doesn't always behave as she wants it to.

But she handed me her straightener just now with the instructions that I am to hide it from her and not tell her where it is no matter how much she begs.

In other words, I have to be The Enforcer for her Lenten penance. I'm less than thrilled over this, because it's not teaching her much self-control if I have to be the one to keep saying she can't have what she wants. Plus, I have to be the Bad Guy, which I do enough of already, enforcing my own rules--never mind the ones she inflicts upon herself.

Secular Franciscan Thoughts on Lent

We're planning a discussion on Lent for our Secular Franciscan gathering later this week. But I don't want it to degenerate into reminiscing about what we used to give up for Lent as kids, or what we ate on Fridays for lunch. That happens sometimes when you have a group discussion. Keeping it (gently) on topic can be a challenge. So I want to have some good discussion ideas ready.

*Father H. is reminding us each day at Mass that the purpose of Lent is to ready us to renew our Baptismal promises at Easter. Will we know what it means to reject Satan and all his empty promises, and to believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

*Here's a passage from Reflections of a Secular Franciscan by Ruth Vogel, SFO.

[Christ's] words, "Let him take up his cross and follow me," is discipline and self-control, as he taught. Isn't this what it means to live the Gospel way?
Now, the only way in the world we can cultivate these virtues is by persistent and arduous training. It is sometimes a grueling, day-in-and-day-out forcing ourselves to practice these acts of self-denial.
Self-denial covers a multitude of things. It is not only fasting from something to eat, or denying ourselves some desirable entertainment or recreation. It includes saying no, no, a thousand times no, to ourselves in such pleasurable little goodies as giving someone a piece of our mind; talking behind someone's back; wanting our own way too much; ... making excuses for our own faults and having intolerance for other people's faults, etc., etc.--so many etceteras. Most of these are little failings, but some are bigger and some can be down right deadly. St. Paul said, "They who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires."
We, who are of the "Order of Penance," should examine our consciences daily, and if in addition, we reverently make use of the Sacrament of Penance, we will find ourselves strengthened in purpose and icreased in the holiness of the Holy Spirit. We say we are striving for perfection--all right then, we should soft-pedal our pride, our greed, our lust, our envy, our anger (in particular our revengeful anger) and our sloth or laziness in exerting ourselves to penance. We should show loud and clear what it means to be humble, patient, moderate, kind, meek, and poor in spirit.

More to come!

Taking Sundays Off

I know that there are two schools of thought on the idea of taking Sundays off during Lent, because it's a feast day, not a fast day.

I do celebrate Sundays as feast days, and enjoy that little break from fasting. I do NOT consider it a time to take a break from the "good" things I have resolved to do during Lent, such as reading The How-to Book of the Mass. A feast day is never an excuse to stop doing a good thing. But I do allow myself a chance to have that Milky Way I've denied myself all week long.

And then comes Palm Sunday, and this one just doesn't feel like so much of a feast. And I don't feel too much like eating that Milky Way.

From the Gospel Today: do we really want to change?

Today at Mass we heard this Gospel passage:

Gospel: Jn 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
"Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
"It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
He answered them, "The man who made me well told me,
'Take up your mat and walk.'"
They asked him,
"Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
"Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you."
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.

Father's homily today centered not on the fact that Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath, but on the fact that He healed someone who didn't necessarily consider himself ready to be healed.
Do we want to be changed? Certainly it is easier to keep things the same--even if things aren't great, at least they are familiar. That man in the Gospel who was ill for 38 years and then healed would now have to find a way to earn a living and find himself food and shelter. In some ways, it might have been easier for him to stay the way he was.
Lent is a time of healing. In my college chapel each Lent, banners were hung with the words: "Be reconciled to God through prayer, fasting and almsgiving." (I'm not much of a "banner" person but that reminder has stuck with me even after 22 years.)
Our Lenten actions of sacrifice and prayer are meant to heal us, to bring us closer to God, to change us.
So is giving up Milky Ways and designer coffee really going to help me to change? Will it bring me closer to God? Only if I let it. Only if I let those very small sacrifices remind me that it's not all about me. It's about letting go of something in favor of a greater good. It's about turning that sacrifice into an opportunity for almsgiving (that's what those little cardboard "rice bowls" are all about). It's about remembering that giving up a candy bar is really small in comparison to what Christ was willing to give up, and allowing that realization to lead me to a greater generosity of spirit.

The Pope's Message on Fasting

Read the Pope's message on fasting during Lent here.

Just a bit of the wisdom shared by the Holy Father:

Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lent

...can be found here at AggieCatholics.

Don't miss the answer to the question: Why do people give something up during Lent?

Hat tip to Domenico.

Father Recommends a Lenten Practice

This morning at Mass, Father observed that in today's first reading from the book of Sirach, the phrase "fear of the Lord" was repeated four times. And he explained that God is not someone we are to be terrified of, like something in a horror movie. That's not what fear of the Lord is all about.

He recommended that this Lent, we all practice growing in the virtue of fear of the Lord: wondering at the mystery of God and all that He created. He said that the more you grow in this virtue, the more awesome you understand God to be.

Read here what one of the early Church Fathers, Saint Hilary, wrote about fear of the Lord.

Take Up Your Cross

This morning Father preached on the line "Take up your cross" from today's Gospel.

His homily was a fascinating tribute to the early Church and the traditions they have handed down to us regarding the sign of the cross. Here are some of the things I learned today:

The reason we touch our LEFT shoulder before our RIGHT shoulder when we make the sign of the cross comes from the Gospel of Matthew, when we are urged to try to stay on the right side of God (with those who are living as God has asked them to) rather than on the left side (with those who have turned away from God). Father said that was we cross ourselves we should remember that we are to strive to stay not on God's left side, but on His right.

The triple-cross we make just before we hear the Gospel read at Mass is one of the oldest forms of the sign of the cross in our tradition.

In Baptism when we are signed with a cross, we are claimed for Christ. In Confirmation, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

In the early Church, the sign of the cross was made with three fingers of the right hand, held together--a symbol of the Trinity--three in one.

Take up your cross, and remember--keep right!

Turn Away from Sin, and Live the Gospel

I began Lent 2008 with Mass at my younger children's school. I think it's good for the school parents to attend these Masses when possible.

The Mass was, of course, open to all parishioners as well as the school children, but Father geared the homily toward the kids. It was nice to hear what he had to say to them.

He spoke about Original Sin, about Adam and Eve, and about how all of us, when we are old enough to know right from wrong, sin sometimes. He reminded everyone that sin separates us from God, because it is not doing what God wants us to do. He also reminded them that God loves us--very much--so much that he was willing to give his only Son to die for our sins. And finally, Father prepared them for the sacramental that took place right after the homily, when he would trace a cross on each of their foreheads with a smudge of ashes, and recite the words that would be their "assignment" in Lent and beyond: Turn away from sin, and live the Gospel.

I liked that Father was not afraid to talk with the children about sin and our human nature, and that he was not afraid to challenge them to try to do better, letting them know that living the Gospel would bring them closer to God.

Dread vs. Hope

Why is Lent something we seem to dread?

It's only been three days so far, and I've lost count of the people who have expressed to me how much they "hate Lent."

This morning a fellow church musician mentioned that she finds Lenten music to be full of Gloom and Doom.

Granted, this is not a cheerful time, in the sense that Christmas and Easter are cheerful. But it is certainly a hopeful time. It is a time to look forward to the holiest Three Days that we celebrate as a Church. As we remind ourselves each week as we recite the Memorial Acclamation, "Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world."

At Mass today our choir will sing this song by Dan Schutte:

Let us ever glory in the cross of Christ,
Our salvation and our hope.
Let us bow in homage to the Lord of life,
Who was broken to make us whole.
There is no greater love, as blessed as this,
To lay down one's life for a friend.
Let us ever glory in the cross of Christ
And the triumph of God's great love.

Let us tell the story of the cross of Christ
As we share this heavenly feast.
We become one body in the blood of Christ
From the great to the very least.
When we eat of this bread and drink of this cup
We honor the death of the Lord.
Let us ever glory in the cross of Christ
And the triumph of God's great love.

(copyright 2000, OCP)

During this season of Lent, may we remember that it's not All About Us. It's not about whether we can abide giving up chocolate, or soda, or colored sprinkles. These sacrifices are small potatoes indeed when we meditate on what Christ was willing to do for our sakes.
May we walk through this Lent with a joyful spirit.

Saint Bernardine of Siena wrote that Saint Francis once said:
May the fiery and honey-sweet power of your love, O Lord, wean me from all things under heaven, so that I may die for love of your love, who deigned to die for love of my love.

Friday Fast--Not Fast Enough!

It kind of grosses me out that my kids enjoy the occasional can of Chef Boy-ar-dee ravioli. I make my own spaghetti sauce which they happily eat. So I'm not sure what it is with their craving for the canned stuff.

But when it's on sale, I pick up a couple of cans and keep them in the pantry for days when they're extra hungry after school.

Days like--today.

I wasn't paying much attention when Middle Sister used the microwave. There weren't any screams or anything, and Big Brother was in the middle of a long story about something that happened in his history class today. But Big Brother saw what she was cooking.

"Ooo, Chef Boy-ar-dee! If there's any left over, it's mine."

That got my attention. "Who's having Chef Boy-ar-dee?"

Middle Sister said, "Me!"

"You're not supposed to eat that today! It's got meat in it!"

Big Brother thought about that for a second. "I doubt if there's any real meat in there, Mom."

All these years of Catholic school, plus what we do at home, and the idea of Meatless Friday appears to be a new concept. I think it's time to get the kids more involved in the menu planning!

Quite the Sacrifice...

...when you're almost 5.

Little Brother has decided that for Lent he will give up his favorite ice-cream embellishment: colored sprinkles.

Chocolate sprinkles will still be expected, however.

Lenten Penitential Meals

As the penitential season of Lent approaches, and I make my menu plans, I start thinking about what constitutes a "penitential" meal for my family.

My dad expressed it well when we were kids: "If pizza or fish is a treat, how can it be a penance?"

Maybe it's a penance only for the one who has to budget around the extra expense of eating fish instead of less-expensive meats, or ordering a pizza?

I wouldn't want to serve my family foods they don't like, and call it a penance. All I'd achieve would be rebellion and wastefulness.

No one has really noticed that I've been serving them meatless dinners every Friday for months now. It's pretty much become routine. Growing up, I was taught that only Fridays in Lent were supposed to be meatless (and Ash Wednesday, of course!) but I have learned lately that all Fridays are penitential days. I haven't mentioned it--it's just been happening here. But I bet the issue will be on the table, so to speak, the first Friday after Easter.

It's been more of a stretch for me than for them. They eat what I put on the table. (Sometimes someone moans and groans about it, but my family generally consists of good eaters--even adventurous ones. Middle Sister likes sushi, for example.) I am the one who thinks about what to serve on which day, and I can shuffle the meal plan as events warrant, but Friday's dinner is Friday's dinner because that is Meatless Night.

But anyway, the issue at hand really is: if they really LIKE shrimp marinara over linguine, or Spanish Garlic Shrimp, or sauteed tilapia, or even pizza, where's the sacrifice?

Maybe it's time to lay this on the table with my family and see what ideas everyone comes up with.