Ash Wednesday – Homily 3/06/19

Imagine you are on a Space Station for Lent; it is 356 feet long, 240 feet wide and 7 feet high.  That is slightly bigger than a football field.

1.    You must conserve water & food

2.    Waste must be kept to a minimum

3.    3 meals per day

4.    2.5 hours of physical exercise a day

5.    You have 15 or 16 sunrises & sunsets each day

6.    Wake-up at 6:00 a.m.

7.    Sleep at 9:30 p.m.

8.    There are: meetings, science experiments, & some free time

9.    What can you do with your free time: listen to music, read, watch DVDs, gaze at the earth & the stars, once a week talk to your family or read the scriptures, contemplate God’s grandeur & love.

That existence would be confining, but you would have time to think about Big ?s:  Why did God create me?  Why am I here?  Where am I going?  Lent is a time like that for us to reflect on the Big ?s  In our 1^st Reading the prophet Joel told us “…Rend your hearts, not your garments.”  God is calling on us to focus on inside, our character, not externals, our clothes.

St. Paul instructs us to “… receive the grace of God ….”  Be open to God’s grace, be thankful for God’s grace & use God’s grace to grow in holiness.

Matthew in his Gospel reminds us to “… pray in our inner room.”  That means pray always but never to get attention.  That is the reason the Church gives us the Lenten Season each year, time to look at ourselves, to take stock on how we are living as disciples of Jesus Christ.

St. Francis de Sales gave us two prayers to help us do just that.  The Direction of Intention and the Day Is Ending.  They can help us focus our day as we start and review our day as it ends.

Listen to the Direction of Intention “My God, I give you this day.

I offer you, now, all of the good that I shall do and … I promise to accept, for love of you, all of the difficulty I shall meet.  Help me to conduct myself during this day in a manner pleasing to you.” 

Allow that part of the prayer to guide your Lent and then your life.

“Help me to conduct myself during this day IN a manner pleasing to You.” 

At the end of the day we have this prayer:  “Thank you for all the gifts of this day, for the place I spent it And for those with whom I spent it, for all its joys and all its sorrows, for the troubles overcome and for those that remain.

I offer you the silence of this night, its darkness and its solitude.  Whether you choose under the cover of this night to take away the problems of this day, or leave them for tomorrow, I will bless your name.  Thy will be done.”  Amen.

At the end of each day remember to “Thank you [God] for all the gifts of the day … its joys & its sorrows, the troubles overcome & those that remain …. Thy will be done.”  Doing that will not make us rich & famous, but will help us become All that God wants us to Be and in the long run that is most important!

Think of this Lent as your time in the Space Station Spiritual Growth, and now for a few minutes, in silence, think about how you can be a better disciple of Jesus on Easter Sunday, than you are today and focus on that during Lent. 

May God Be Praised!

Ash Wednesday

Selected verses from Psalm 73 and the Opening Prayer Mass for us to  reflect during Lent

…I was filled with envy of the proud when I saw how the wicked prosper.
 

….  They say: “How can God know?  Does the Most High take any notice?”
Look at them, such are the wicked, but untroubled, they grow in wealth.

Prayer for Ash Wednesday

Father in Heaven,
the light of your truth bestows sight
to the darkness of sinful eyes.
May this season of repentance
bring us the blessing of Your forgiveness
and the gift of Your light.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
[International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL)]

In our 1^st Reading the prophet Joel told us “…Rend your hearts, not your garments.”  This Lent Focus on the inside, and not externals.

St. Paul instructs us to “… receive the grace of God ….”

He wants us to be open to God’s grace, be thankful for God’s grace and to use God’s grace to grow in holiness.

Matthew in his Gospel reminds us to “… pray in our inner room.”  That means pray always but never to get attention.

The reason the Church gives us the Lenten Season each year, is to provide time for us to look at ourselves, to take stock on how we are living as disciples of Jesus Christ.

May God Be Praised!

 

 A few thoughts on giving up drinking beer for Lent!

 



Babe Ruth said, "Sometimes, when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed.  Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams.  If I did not drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered.  I think it is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true, than be selfish and worry about my liver.

Paul Horning said, "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading".


H. L. Mencken said, "24 hours in a day and 24 beers in a case.

Coincidence?  I think not".

St. Brigid said, “I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.

I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity”

George Bernard Shaw said, "When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep.  When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.  So, let's all get drunk and go to heaven".

       

On a more serious note as our Lenten Season is about to start, take a moment to reflect upon the spiritual insights provided by St. Ignatius and St. Isidore.  Let these two insights form the basis of your Lenten practices.

"Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God."  St. Ignatius of Loyola

"Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." 

St. Isidore of Seville

Homily Cycle C 3-03-19 - Sunday, March 3, 2019 Readings:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030319.cfm

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word’ of God, … the Word is incarnate & living’ [St. Bernard].  … Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, ‘open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures’”  [Christopher West, Word Made Flesh, Introduction, CCC  #108]

We need to accept God’s grace so His Living Word permeates our lives.  We must profess & live the Word of God.  God’s Word “…demands something of us…. that we grow up & become more like the one we say we follow.’”  [Hungary, And You Fed Me: Homilies & Reflections For Cycle C]

In today’s Gospel Luke builds his account on 3 things:

1.    Can a blind person guide a blind person?

2.    Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye & not the wooden beam in your own?

3.    A good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.

Can a blind person guide a blind person in a literal sense – NO!

1. Many of you remember Harry Reese, the long time principal of our parish school.  He and I are golfing buddies, many years ago; we were playing golf at the Center Valley Club, late in the afternoon [twilight rates were more affordable].

After we finished 9 holes of golf, there was still some light left, so we decided to continue with golf bags in hand, attempting to play a few more holes of golf on the back nine.  This was before the Promenade Shopping Center was built; on the 13^th or 14^th hole it was dark.

As we headed back to the clubhouse it became pitch black we couldn’t see anything.  We were experiencing the blind leading the blind; fortunately neither of us got hurt [except our pride].

We need to follow Jesus; He is the light of the world.

2.  This wooden beam blocks my view; I need to deal with it first.

We must examine ourselves in terms of how we are living the FAITH!

3. A good tree bears good fruit.

“… Jesus reminds his followers [us] of the dangers of hypocrisy.”

Originally hypocrisy was a theatre term that meant an actor skilled in mimicry.  [America Magazine 2-28-19]  

Jesus wants our deeds to reveal Hour character, as His disciples, He wants us to follow Him.  We are called to believe and to live the Gospel amid the ever-increasing noise, distractions and paganism in our culture.

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, when once again we will hear the stark reminder:  “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”  A reminder that we are on a solemn journey, a journey to eternity.

April 30, 1863, President Lincoln

proclaimed, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven.  We have grown in numbers, wealth & power ….  BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD.

… we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom & virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success … too proud to pray to God ….  [Sermons.Com, Ash Wednesday, Lincoln’s Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer]

May each of us here today renew our response as disciples of Jesus devote more time and effort to our prayer life, so we can follow God’s Will more faithfully.

For a few minutes, in silence, with Lent fast approaching think about how you can be a better disciple on Easter Sunday than on Ash Wednesday.

May God Be Praised!

Begin your Lenten preparation today, and Lent will be a more spiritually rewarding season for you.

3 Suggestions to Grow Spiritually During Lent

1. Spend time in silent prayer

2. Reflect on the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist

3. Let the joy of humility be the foundation of your Lent

 

1. St. Jane Frances de Chantal said, “In prayer, more is accomplished by listening than by talking.”

“Be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10)

2. Thomas Merton said, “We will never fully appreciate the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist until we see the intimate connection that exists between the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ.”

3. Fr. Lewis Fiorelli, O.S.F.S. wrote, “ Humility recognizes the supremacy of God and thus of the divine will in our lives, while gentleness embodies our deep respect, even reverence, for the dignity and goodness of every person as made in God’s holy image.”

May your Lenten spiritual exercises bring you an Easter Season that deepens your love and trust in Jesus Christ, true God, true Man.

May God Be Praised! 

Ponder for a few minutes today the glory and utter majesty of God, and reflect on the fact that God created you for a specific purpose that only you can fulfill in this world.



To know what your specific purpose is while you are here on earth is not important, what is important is living the Will of the one Who created you, God will take care of the rest.
You will learn your purpose when you move to “the land of the living”.

No eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him;
– these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, who searches everything, even the depths of God.  [1 Corinthians 2:9-10]


Man stands bewildered before the mystery of all God’s works.
– These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, who searches everything, even the depths of God.  [Ecclesiastes 8:17]

May God Be Praised!

A Story to read and reflect upon as Lent approaches about a famous monastery that has fallen on hard times. Once a great order, its many buildings had been filled with young monks, but now it was nearly deserted.

Visitors no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised God with heavy hearts. It was just a matter of time until their community would die out. 

On the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. No one ever spoke with him, but the monks felt somehow assured by his prayerful presence.

As the leader, the Abbot of the monastery agonized over the future, it occurred to him to go visit the rabbi. Perhaps he could offer some word of advice. So one day after morning prayers, the Abbot set out to visit the rabbi.

As he approached the hut, the Abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. And the rabbi motioned the Abbot to enter.

They sat there for a moment in silence, until finally the rabbi said: “You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts. You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you this teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that no one must say it aloud again.”

The rabbi looked straight at the rabbi and said, “One among you is the Lord.”  For a while all was silent. Then the rabbi said, “ Now you must go.” The abbot left without a word.

The next morning, the abbot called his monks together in the chapter room. He told them he had received a teaching from “ the rabbi who walks in the woods”, and that after he told it his teaching was never again to be spoken aloud. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, “ The rabbi said that the one among us is the Lord!”

In the days, and weeks, and months that followed, the monks pondered this riddle, and wondered what it could mean. The Lord is among US? Could he have possibly have meant one of us here at the monastery? If that is the case then which one of us is it? Do you suppose that he meant the Abbot? If he meant anyone then he must have meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.

On the other hand he might have meant brother Thomas. Certainly brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows and respects brother Thomas’ keen spirituality and insight.

Certainly he could not have meant brother Elred. Elred gets very crotchety at times. But, when you look back on it, Elred is almost always right, often VERY right. Maybe the rabbi did mean brother Elred.

But surely not brother Phillip, Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. Maybe Phillip is the Lord.

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect; on the off chance that one of them might actually be the Lord.

As time went by there was a gentle, whole-hearted, human quality about them which was hard to describe but easy to notice. They lived with each other as people who had finally found something. But they prayed and read the Scriptures together as people who were always looking for something.

The monks looked for the good in each other and we are called to do the same.  Look for the good that God has put in each person, and the world will be a better place.  Lent will allow God’s light to shine brighter in the world through you.

May God Be Praised!