The Joy of Lent

Homily for the Second Sunday In Lent

By Deacon Thomas Stephenson

March 01, 2015

Here we are, already the Second Sunday of Lent – how are you doing? You know, our parish theme for Lent is “Take up your Cross” and that is something we should be doing all year ‘round. This booklet has some good reflections on things that happen to many of us, on crosses large and small that we bear at times. And we are called not just to bear them, but to willingly take up our crosses. The back of the booklet says “taking up a cross is about self –denial and sacrifice” – and that is in order for us to focus on the Lord and grow in virtue.

With that in mind, I have what may seem like an odd question – is everyone enjoying Lent? We consider Lent to be so somber and sad, and this year even the cold weather has been a trial for many of us. But while Lent is a penitential season, it is that aspect of penance that should give us joy. Not a laughing, dancing, cheerful joy, but a deep, satisfying joy; the joy we can take from using this time to renew our relationship with God. Bishop Paul Loverde recently said “The fundamental purpose and goal of Lent is to be restored to the person God created us to be at our Baptism.” We are never as free from sin and its effects as we are at the moment of our Baptism, but we can use Lent to help us get a little closer to that state again. In order to do that, though, we need to ask ourselves a couple of questions, one of which is: “am I having a cultural or a religious Lent?”

It doesn’t have to be one or the other; we can have both a cultural and a religious Lent. However, we do need to recognize if we are emphasizing the cultural and not paying enough attention to the spiritual. We don’t need a show of hands, but how many of us have given up something for Lent? How many are doing something else penitential? How many are following Friday abstinence from meat? As a side note, during a meeting recently the topic of Friday abstinence came up. This time, you can raise your hands – how many here lived at the time when Catholics were supposed to not eat meat on Fridays? Actually, everyone should have their hands up – because we still live in that time. In the current liturgical calendar from the CCCB, it states: “Friday (and that means all Fridays) are days of abstinence from meat, but Catholics may substitute special acts of charity or piety on this day.” So we can eat meat on Friday, as long as we do something else to make up for it. Getting back to Lent, when we give up something, or give alms, or do something else for Lent; when we receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, when we avoid meat on Friday, when we come to the Stations of the Cross – why are we doing these things? Are we doing them because it is part of our culture, because these are ways of showing that we are observing Lent? That is fine; there is nothing wrong with that, these are things that all Catholics should be doing. They are part of our Catholic identity, and we should embrace them. We should be both culturally and religiously Catholic always, not only during Lent. But our Lenten practices must be done with a greater purpose in mind; they must be done in order to help us to focus on deepening and strengthening our relationship with God. And, please take advantage of the sacrament that the Lord gave us specifically to reconcile ourselves to Him, to restore our relationship – go to confession! One other thing that is required of us, but that isn’t mentioned as much now as it used to be, is what is called our “Easter Duty”, to go to confession and receive communion at least once a year. It is recommended that we do this during the Easter season (before Pentecost), and we must receive communion during this time. If we have a healthy relationship with God, we will naturally be doing far more than the minimum requirement.

Abraham had a strong and deep relationship with God. Today’s first reading is from Chapter 22 of Genesis, but the story of Abraham runs from near the end of Chapter 11 to the eighth verse of Chapter 25. As is so often the case, it helps to open our Bibles at home and read the rest of the story. In this case, it is critical in helping us to understand the situation of Abraham and Isaac. It has been suggested by some that Abraham was delusional, or perhaps psychotic, that God would never ask someone to kill their child. Yet, the first line of the reading is: God tested Abraham. God never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac, only to test his obedience. God knew Abraham’s faith without having to do this, but this incident confirmed it, more to Abraham and Isaac than to God. Abraham had experienced God’s presence and action in his life extensively, over many years the Lord had provided for Abraham and guided him. Abraham had even negotiated with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. So Abraham knew God, he knew when the Lord, or the angel of the Lord, was speaking to him; he had no doubts about the existence, the reality, of the one, the only, true God.

We can be fairly sure that, after the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John had no doubts about the reality of God, or of the divinity of Jesus. These three Apostles were picked by Jesus to accompany Him up the mountain, and allowed to see Jesus in His glory. This event must have had a great impact on them, and strengthened them, strengthened their faith, for the challenges they would eventually encounter. They were still human, we only have to look at the fear they all had after Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. But at that moment on the mountain, they see, they know, that Jesus is divine, even if they are not yet able to fully comprehend what they have experienced. We are told “they kept the matter to themselves”; they kept it, not simply as a secret, but also a something to remember, a memory to cherish and keep alive, to help them in times of trial.

What about us? We may not have seen Jesus in His glory, but if we have been paying attention, we can recognize times that we have seen His work in our lives. Earlier, I mentioned that in order to use Lent to help us get closer to the state we should be in, for us to get closer to God, we need to ask a couple of questions. The first is regarding a cultural vs. a religious Catholic Lent, and the second is even more fundamental, but crucial, not only to getting the most out of Lent, but to getting the most out of life, temporal and eternal. This question is so basic that we may take it for granted, we may not even consciously consider it, but especially during Lent, we should be asking ourselves: Do we really, deep down in our hearts, in our souls as well as in our minds, believe in God? Do we really, truly, believe everything about God that we declare in the Creed? Do we really believe that the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, the only Son of God, the Divine Word, is really present in the Eucharist? Is God present to us, or is He just a remote idea? Do we recognize that He actually does love us, each and every one of us, and that because of that love He has given us certain precepts to follow, and expects us to live according to those precepts? That our relationship with Him, His relationship with all of us, is so important that Jesus came down from Heaven, suffered an extremely painful, horrible, humiliating death in order to restore that relationship?

As we go through our daily lives, with all of the demands and distractions that compete for our attention, it can be easy for our thoughts of God to become fewer and more abstract, our idea of God to become more of a concept than a reality. Those distractions, our difficulties, our crosses, small and large, should make us draw closer to God, not forget about Him. Lent can give us that opportunity to focus once again on what is truly important; it can help us to examine what we believe, what we know, about God. It can help us to cleanse ourselves of our sins, to free ourselves from the things that separate us from God. It can help us to allow the Lord to be Lord of our lives.

This is the joy of Lent. This is the gift we are given every year, in the time leading up to our remembrance of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord, to renew and restore our relationship with the one, true, and only God. So let us pray for the grace to make this the best Lent of our lives.