Midway through our Lenten journey, Holy Mother Church begins our Mass crying out in the words of Isaiah: Laetare Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam; Gaudete cum Laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, ut excultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her! Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.” Most churches (including our own) don’t sing the antiphons that are prescribed for each Mass, so you may not even be aware of this voice that reverberates today throughout the whole world, but this call to rejoice is a call to rally the troops in the middle of this campaign of fasting and penance. It is why today the priest is often in a rose-colored chasuble and why some flowers are permitted on the altar. Beyond all of the technical things I would love to say about how we celebrate our liturgies in order for every aspect to speak to us the way the Church intends, I want to speak to you clearly in this small
message what so many subtle changes are meant to do without even a word. And so I beg you: be joyful! Exult, be satisfied and consoled, be filled with joy, you are the New Jerusalem, God’s Holy Church, and you love her.
I know, I know, there are a million reasons not to be filled with joy, right? Money is tight, your kids aren’t doing well in school, you and your spouse haven’t gone on a date in a decade? Maybe it’s the in-laws or the loneliness is pressing upon you tightly. Legitimately, each of you likely has a number of reasons to not be filled with joy. But here, today? “Be joyful, all who were in mourning!” Today, in the midst of the desert of this world, in the silence and dryness you face, you have come to this place as an oasis, so rejoice. Here there is water flowing from the rock, here is the well of Jacob, here there is Living Water. Even if just for this moment, choose to rejoice, to see God’s love and His will in your life – see His gifts and give thanks.
One of my favorite scripture passages comes from the often-overlooked letter of St. James who writes to us: “Count it all joy, brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” All of this, he tells us matters because, “blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him.” For years of my life I have repeated those words in some of my most difficult moments: count it all joy…. Count it all joy…. Count it all joy…. Indeed these words of the Saint are the same exhortation that the Church brings to you today in Her entrance antiphon: though you were sad, be filled with Joy, because the cross
has set you free. Even our suffering can be for us a joy, because the cross is how we are united to Christ! It was through that wood of the tree, that Christ reversed the original sin of our parents from the tree in the garden, and so we find our joy in the deepest pain and sadness of all creation’s history. While we enter into this Lenten season with a fast, while we walk with Christ now to His Passion and death, we also enter to walk with Him to His Resurrection. Everything we do here leads us to Him and the joy of Eternal Life. While we might still be in the middle of the desert, while your cross may still be heavy, today take some time to rejoice in thegood news that Jesus has won. He has already won the victory, and when you are faithful to
Him, He will be victorious in your heart too.
Beloved,
Is it strange for you still to be called “beloved”? Is it difficult to be receive the effulgent praises of the Most High? YOU are His beloved child, in you He is well pleased. Yes, even now, even in your sin. You may be far from Him because of your sin. You may be cut off from His grace because you have not returned to Confession or to the Holy Communion that awaits you every single day, but He is still pleased in you. You see, God makes a difference between us and our sin, even though the devil does not. The Accuser (Satan) tricks us by telling us that our sin is no big deal (don’t worry you don’t have to get married in the Church, its not big deal!”// “its just one little beer you can have another!” // “no one will notice if you take $50, and you deserve it, just do it.” // “go ahead and eat another slice of cake, you can start a new diet next month, don’t worry about it, its no big deal”); but then, once we have fallen, he convinces us that our sin now defines us! He lies and he accuses, and we begin to believe that we are the sad and pitiful things that we have done. But don’t let him trick you. Don’t believe his lies! You are not your sin. You are beloved. It’s true that God hates our sin, and He detests all who would lead others into sin, but He does not detest you. No, He waits for you. Every day this Lent He has been waiting for you in the confessional, waiting to welcome you home, to remove the weight of your sin from your shoulders and to set you free!
Aren’t you tired of your sin? Aren’t you tired of the devil’s lies? You are worthy. Not because of your merits, no, we both know you haven’t earned His love or grace; you are worthy because He died for you. He made you worthy by His love! And the Son who took on flesh for you, who died for you, He still intercedes for you – begging the Father to see Himself in you. This Sunday we hear of the Lord who finds the Samaritan woman at the well – and like all the stories of the old testament when a man finds a woman at a well, a wedding is soon to follow. Moses, Jacob,
Isaiah, they all met their wives at a well, the sign of life and of joy, and so Christ invites you to the well today too. Here He invites us to the “living water,” to the spring that runs but does not go dry, and to the living water which prepared a woman for her wedding. The well of our baptism was indeed like a wedding for us as well, when our mortality was wedded to Christ’s immortality, when our humanity was wed to His divinity. This Eucharist is the “wedding feast of the Lamb,” we say each Mass. Do you not realize it is your wedding feast? This is where Jesus gives Himself to you! This is where the Bridegroom of our souls makes us one with Him.
Don’t listen to the enemy who says you are unworthy, listen to the Lord who tells you again today: my beloved, my beautiful one, come. You are weary and you are thirsty. You need rest and a drink, come to the well of grace, come to the Fount of life, here when you commune with your God, you will find rest. Beloved, today if you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts, He waits for you with a love unknown, with a love for which your heart was made.
Until Heaven we possess,
Fr. Ivan
Blessed 2 nd Sunday of Lent! I struggled quite a bit this week to write this letter to you all, not feeling particularly inspired nor any particular problem that need be discussed… I know that is how it often feels for you as well when you fulfill your role as spouse or parent, doesn’t it? Cooking another dinner without much energy or joy, without a recipe you’re dying to try or a strong request from anyone in the family? Maybe it is listening to your spouse or responding to their overtures for love – each of us is called to “deny ourselves” each day. After all, isn’t that what the cross taught us love is? To die for the other, to pour oneself out for their good, even if we don’t really want to do it. This weekend we hear the Gospel of the Transfiguration which
reminds us as we begin Lent that self-denial is really worth it. That cross and death Jesus is always announcing? It is only a moment in time, a part of the journey, what we are really made for is that glory He showed Peter, James, and John. And that’s pretty incredible, isn’t it? It makes the crazy Lenten fast, the difficult days of serving our family, and the many times we must deny ourselves all worth it – because the glory awaiting us is unlike anything we’ve known or seen.
One message I’d like to share though, besides our shared experiences in serving our respective families and the hopeful note that awaits us, rests on that wonderful sacrament we’re all invited to this Lent: Confession. And aren’t most of us usually feeling a bit uninspired to confess? A bit reluctant, without a strong desire or joy in going to the confessional? Like the other ways we are called to love our family despite our own “wants”, is the love we show when we humble ourselves before the Lord and beg His mercy in the Confessional. Sometimes we should do it most of all when we don’t want too – that’s what love is, after all. Our confession can be a bit like the cross, a way in which we now pour our hearts out to God, giving Him everything we have – after all, all of the good things we do begin with His inspiration, and all we truly have of our own are our sins. When I go to confession it is, thankfully, not usually because
I have some urgent and dire sin, but because it is where I remember who I really am and who God really is to me. We have spoken so much about rediscovering our identity this Lenten Season: “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” In the confessional I don’t have to be your spiritual father, I don’t have to be the teacher or the doctor, I don’t have to pretend even to myself, but I remember how often I fall short. Of the impatience, the lack of discipline, the wandering eyes or thoughts,
my lack of prayer or my idolization of the world or my work. And I can go on my knees before God and admit honestly and fully who I am and who I have been. The more incredible thing though? The more important aspect? Is that there I am invited to remember that though I am impatient, He is patient with me; though I am unfaithful, He never fails to love. I remember what love the Father has bestowed on me, and I am lifted up again by His grace. I remember I am His.
Come back to confession. Don’t let your fears, your sins or your pride keep you from recovering your true identity: sinful, but redeemed. Let God transfigure you through His grace and absolution, and even if you don’t really want to do it, show Him how much you love Him by offering Him your heart, humble and contrite. The Father never ceases to wait for you there.
We have buried the Alleluia, we have begun our Lenten fast and are preparing to offer
alms again to those in need. Today as we begin this journey in the desert with Christ we are reminded of how important these practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving really are. The readings today bring forth a couple of figures that some Catholics unfortunately do not believe in: Adam, Eve, and the Devil. While the Church has not (and likely will never) comment on how we came to be here on a biological perspective, she has stated definitively that there were an original Adam and Eve, that all of humanity began from one man and one woman. (Interestingly enough, the more science evolves the clearer this seems to be!) These two figures are not simply a nice story, but they tell the true story of our fall from grace and of the great love of God for mankind. The other figure that we find with our first parents in the garden, and who
makes an appearance again in the Gospel with Christ, is an often equally diminished
figure/person. The Catechism asserts that “behind the disobedient voice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called Satan or the devil.” (CCC 391). Created good by God, the devil refused to submit to God and His plans for creation and the salvation of the human race. In his jealousy at the Incarnation, Satan led a number of angels to rebel against God and continues in his hatred to try and lead mankind away from God and to put them under his own dominion.
Before baptism, and during the Easter Season often in place of the Creed the faithful arestill asked: “do you reject Satan? And all his works? And all his empty promises?” This question is asked and it has in fact been answered by all of you, because he is real and we must make that rejection every day. If Satan tempted our first parents in the garden, if he tempted Our Lord in the desert, he will certainly tempt us in this world. The devil knows that we are weak and vulnerable, but he uses the same tactics every time, and so we can learn from Christ and be on guard! He tempted Adam and Eve with a “triple concupiscence” as it is called: to the flesh (the good food of the apple), eyes (possession of that which they wanted), and of pride (a self exaltation). The devil used these same three temptations with Our Lord today in the Gospel,
tempting Him to make bread from a rock, to take possession of the whole world, and to command the angels to come and prove who He truly is. The devil, for as scary as he can be, for as much damage as he can afflict, is really not so scary after all: he becomes like a horror film you’ve seen 20 times! You know the jump scenes and you know the gore, and you know the ending. This Lenten season while we rediscover our identity in Christ, we ought not forget about the real identity of Satan. We must be “sober and alert for our opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pt. 5:8). We must draw near to the sacraments which offer our protection and avoid mortal sins which can give the devil a foothold. Seek God this Lent, because when He is the center of our life, no enemy can enter! And let us enter into our Lenten practices with greater zeal because they are the remedy for the three temptations of the devil. We can combat this triple concupiscence with these acts
that we are given in the Church this Lent: fasting (giving up the goods our flesh desires so they cannot control us, nor the devil tempt us), almsgiving (the sharing of what we possess rather than seeking to possess more for ourselves), and prayer (to confess that there is a God, we are in need of Him, and to grow in love of Him). God has come to defeat the enemy through you, and invites you to take up these weapons seriously to work alongside Him in this work.
“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God are Holy… be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” These are the words of God for us on this last Sunday before we enter into the Lenten Season this year, and they are words that set a truly high bar for us and offer a perfect entrance into the season which we are entering into. The whole of our Christian life is summed up into this call, into the call to holiness, to be like God. Too often I hear people tell me, “oh no padre, I can never be a saint.” There is a great humility in this, for sure, and it is a part of the humility which will drive the Lenten Season we will live together, but it is a false humility – one that denies who we are. We were created in the image and likeness of God, we were created to know, love and serve Him in this life so that we can live with Him forever in heaven. A saint is one who lives with God in heaven, a saint is someone who is in heaven. If we are called to live with God, if we want to be in heaven, we are called to be saints, we should want to be saints.
This desire is necessary for our Christian life. We must know these words with which we are called by God to be like Him, and we must strive to conform our lives to Him and to His perfection. Yet, we know our sin so well, don’t we? We know how hard it is to do the little things each and every day, to love our enemies and to put God above all things. This is why we begin every Mass confessing our sinfulness and begging God His mercy, and it is why we are invited to enter into Lent each year for 40 days. God invites us into the desert like He invited Christ after the Baptism in the Jordan. We enter into a period of fasting, penance, and prayer so that we might humble ourselves and know our true identity. One called to holiness, but one that cannot be holy with God! We were made for something incredible, but we cannot live that perfection on our own – without Him or His help we will be unfulfilled!
This Lent, I beg you to take God’s invitation seriously. Take up the practice of fasting and abstinence not just on Fridays but on Wednesdays; find something to give up that would daily remind you of your poverty and your need for help. Take up an added aspect of prayer: go to daily Mass once a week, add a rosary into your daily or weekly habits, read one of the Gospels or commit to going to confession. The Lord is waiting for you and He is inviting you into the desert this Lent so that you might hear His invitation to holiness and discover that true worth for which you were made. Mass will be celebrated Mon. – Thur. at 5:30pm, Fri at 7am. Confessions Mon – Thur. 5 – 5:30pm and Wed. 6 – 7pm as well as Sat. 4 – 5pm. Stations of the Cross Fridays out at Rincon at 5pm.
My dear family,
As we continue hearing the words of Our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount, He speaks to us today of some of the biggest vices and sins that we fall into: anger, lust, divorce and remarriage, and the swearing of oaths. In this section of His Sermon, Christ begins what are known as the “antitheses,” the section in which he compares and seemingly contradicts the law of Moses and the Old Testament to what He offers. While some might try to use this passage like the ancient Marcien Heretics, to deny the need for the Old Testament, Christ is rather clear here that He came to fulfill, to complete the Old Testament, not to destroy or supersede it. One of the most important things we have to know in order to read the Bible and understand it, is
that Christ is indeed the key. In order to understand the story of Noah and the flood we must know Christ. In order to understand Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, we must know Christ. In order to understand Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, we must know Christ! Not because those events did not truly happen, they did, but because He is what brings light to ALL things, and to all Revelation. This is why we hear today that Jesus did not come to abolish “one iota,” not one letter or the smallest part of one letter of the law. He gave us each letter, each law, and He did so to prepare us for Him and for the fullness of revelation that He would give to
us once He had come. What does all of this mean? It means that everything matters. All of it! That time you fell off of your bike and scraped your knee, the time you got the best birthday present ever, the time you learned how to cook, it all matters. Most of the time, we forget what has happened to us, we forget the bad and most especially we forget the good, but every iota, every little aspect of our life is taken up by God. Whether you make your bed in the morning or brush your teeth, whether you respond with love to your spouse or say hello to your neighbor, it all matters. We certainly know this from a psychological point of view, that to be successful in big things we
must be constant in small matters, but it is also true in our spiritual life. God wants all of it! He created you, and He holds you in being, and if He allows anything to happen to you, it is so that it can lead to a greater good, so that it can bring glory to God and salvation to man. It’s hard to see the big picture, it’s hard to understand why anything happens the way it does, but once we are in heaven everything is made clear. Once we are in heaven all things will make sense and we will see how Jesus did not destroy even the tiniest part of our life, but He brought it to its fullness. Let us try more this week to pay attention to the “little things.” Let us pay attention to the little ways we love each other, and the little things God and His Church ask of us – after all, it all matters in the end!