Homily By Fr. Louie Punzalan, SVD- March 3 2022 Thursday After Ash Wednesday

today is the second day of the lenten season the vatican ii missile says [Music] the ashes are scarcely washed clean from our foreheads in this second lantern mass we get down to work on our spiritual program my dear brothers and sisters we have exactly 39 days to go before good friday we have enough time to meditate on the 40 days and 40 nights that our lord spent in the garden of gethsemane before his death by crucifixion yesterday the whole christendom he started the 40-day journey of penitence yesterday we started our 40-day lenten retreat or 40-day lenten pilgrimage a deep review of our life to help us in this effort the church points out to us a path that can be summarized in three powerful words number one is prayer number two is fasting and number three is arms giving whoever takes this message seriously must also make the commitment to a new life inspired by the gospel values [Music] it is a matter of moving from a superficial life to a deeper interiority from selfishness to charity of striving to live according to the model of christ himself and this is our assignment for all of us including myself as we enter more seriously into the and spirit the gospel reading today reminds us how jesus informed the disciples about his approaching passion death and resurrection our lord knew he must actually die to this world in order to obtain eternal redemption for us our lord instructed the disciples about the meaning of the cross and the cross that he talks about here is our cross your cross my cross not somebody else's cross not the cross of jesus but our cross he instructed us about the significance of the cross and why it is necessary for the disciples to carry up or to take up the cross in the gospel reading on the second part of it today our lord lays down the conditions of discipleship the price or the cost of discipleship our lord describes the area of concentration and the dimensions of our lenten journey or program the liturgy today teaches us that it is the life of the soul that we are concerned with during these days i have three little points number one a person must learn to deny himself a person must learn to deny himself self-denial is a form of self-sacrifice it is not easy to deny anything to oneself thus self-denial is like dying to oneself to deny oneself is to say to myself i do not know myself i will say no to myself it is to ignore the very existence of oneself by dying to this world and it is to treat the self as if the self is not important and usually we treat ourselves as if our self is far and away the most important thing in the world but if we are to follow the lord we must slowly learn to forget the self he must deny himself say no to yourself so that we can say yes to god the second point a person must take up his cross daily a person must take up his cross daily our lord jesus knew what crucifixion meant to take up our cross daily underlying daily not weekly not monthly not yearly but daily it means to be prepared to endure the worst that man can do to us for the sake of being true to the lord that is why when the lord says take up your cross daily it wants to teach us that christianity is not easy christianity is not for the weak christianity is for the strong christianity is for the brave third and last point a person must spend his life not hoard his life what does this mean the whole commandment of the world standards must be changed the questions are not how much can i get but how much can i give not what is the safe thing to do but what is the right thing to do not what is the minimum permissible in the way of work but what is the maximum possible the christian must realize that he is given life not to keep for himself but to share with others not to husband it's plain but to burn it out for christ and for others my dear friends let us continue to persevere in our lenten pilgrimage amen all right please our lord calls us

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Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2022