Homily for the First Sunday of Lent - Year A

glory and praise to You Lord Jesus Christ glory praise to You Lord Jesus Christ one does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God glory and praise to You Lord Jesus Christ the Lord be with you reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew at that time Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterwards he was hungry the tempter approached and said to him if you are the son of God command that these stones become loaves of bread he said in reply it is written one does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God then the devil took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the temple and he said to him if you are the son of God throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you lest you dash your foot against a stone jesus answered him again it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test then the devil took him up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their magnificent magnificent and he said to him all these I shall give to you if you will prostrate yourself and worship Me at this jesus said to him get away see he's written the Lord your God shall you worship and him alone shall you serve then the devil left him and behold angels came and ministered to him the gospel of the Lord [Music] celebrate this first Sunday and the season of Lent most of us as Catholics probably have at least what we think is a good idea of what lint is about we are going to you know fast and do some penance and we're getting ready for for Easter but the church tells us later in the liturgy in the prayers that really it is Christ's own temptation or experience in the desert that is our model for Holy Land and I think there's something about that can be quite shocking to us when we think about it and it comes in our first line from the gospel today at that time Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil at that time the season of Lent the church was lured into the desert to be tempted by the devil I think most of us are prepared to do some sort of amount of fasting or mortification in order to fulfill our obligations for the church in the season of land but are you and I really prepared to be tempted by the devil do we realize that this season of lent is a time for God himself wants that to happen to obtain a good now that can be a little confusing to us most of us know like oh wait a sec I'm supposed to avoid near occasions of sin I'm not supposed to not only supposed to not tempt the Lord God above but I should even place myself in occasions of sin but fasting pendants almsgiving these are not occasions of sin even though they are in fact occasions of temptation there's a difference here when you and I put ourselves in the occasion of sin that is where we in our pride and our presumption will not remove something from our lives that is pretty clear should be removed we have either through our own you can have natural intuition the grace of God perceived that this might be a dangerous thing for us perhaps we have plenty of experience from busting it regarding this occasion of sin and there should be no room in our minds to think that that doesn't need to go from our but fasting penance the season of Lent almsgiving these things be an occasion of temptation is a slightly different reality and it's one that I don't think I appreciate it until i came across of a homily of blessed john henry newman on this subject i had certainly bought into the truth by the way I grew up Protestant so I didn't grow up Catholic and we didn't really have an idea of fasting in my particular church that's not true of all Protestants but it just wasn't something that was taught to me and my first experience with fasting and pendants was probably a little improve it and so I would basically eat bread and water but i would eat wonder bread but eaten real bread and water it might have been fine but like you know that I be splitting headaches you know and all day and I just felt like okay a lot myself on my apartment not do anything and I'll be fine I'm get real grumpy and irritable and I felt like oh yeah I don't want to subject other people to this and it's true that when we choose penances we don't want to inflict them on other people we have to have a certain humility and prudence about what we're doing but I think I'd let that you know legitimate concern about not inflicting penances I was choosing on other people filming with a little bit of fear and John Paul a busted John Henry Newman kind of pierced through that in the shocking way he said like no the point of fasting real fasting by the way not this wimpy fast that you and I do on Ash Wednesday and on good friday which is a Wimpy fast but real fasting you are supposed to feel the pain the whole point is that you voluntarily for love of God subject yourself to an increased awareness of bodily weakness not so that you can give permission to yourself to snap and be grumpy at your neighbor and your coworker and your family but so that you can experience in a more real way how much you and I depend upon God's grace anyway to not snap at our family our friends our neighbor the actual weakness that is a natural part of fasting in its proper Lee understood way it is a mortification of the will we do well to dependences like not choosing our preference of food throughout the years but there is something to fasting proper that is a denial of the body for a period of time what it needs so that they can come to that deeper truth that we begin in a very intense way celebrating today and comes up a different points in the liturgy that it is not by bread alone that we live but by every word that comes from the mouth of God now one of the temptations that you see Satan trying to ensnare our Lord one of the tactics by which name is tried to ensnare our Lord and tempt him in this passage is getting the Lord now we don't know whether by the way Satan knew that this was the Eternal Word of God but he's trying to draw Jesus attention to specific words of God into tempting but we're God said this or you know why can't you do that and the Lord very simply and humbly is like well it is also written it is also said you and I have to be very very attentive to the ways in which Satan wrongly tries to draw our attention to one aspect of God's Word while blinding us and tempting us to neglect another aspect by the way that is the root of every heresy formalized heresy or the little individuals that you and I toy with all the times as we try to do our own will is where we in a lack of humility refused to hold intention the entirety of the Word of God there has been revealed to us through the person of Jesus Christ and handed down to us faithfully in the teachings of the church we picked this and we emphasized that and we kinda rush that out of the side that is not Christ we must receive him whole and entire just like when I break this host in a few moments I'm not breaking Jesus in half he is whole and entire in each visible particle of the Blessed Sacrament and that is the only way he wants to give himself to us I used to be a formal carrot I'll say that it's not put click or a grudge and I didn't know I was a heretic but I grew up with a part of the faith but the truth of the matter was it wasn't really the full thing it wasn't what God had revealed for my salvation are those around me it wasn't through my own fault that I was ignorant of that but my inability to gain access to the fullness of Christ hurt me I didn't have the Eucharist I didn't have our lady I didn't had the sacrament of reconciliation I didn't have the infallible teaching of the church lo to you and I through our own fault through our own sin through our own giving into the deceptions and temptations of the evil one we separate ourselves from the real Christ as he has revealed himself to be in which he himself firmly promised to protect the church from error until he comes again in glory that's on the big level theological things that you and I need to be attentive to the way that the the evil one splits us and separates us and pulls us away from Christ and each other but on a smaller more subtle level level he does this to us all the time well there's nothing wrong with eating go ahead use your miraculous power to turn these stones into bread well with the word of God had commanded the spirit had driven the Lord out to be tempted and too fast he knows that food is good he provides it miraculously for his people later but that food the natural food that he's even willing to perform a miracle for later in the multiplication of the loaves is still only a sign of that real food that's heavenly bread from heaven the Word of God that becomes flesh and now gives himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine in order to prepare us for the heavenly banquet where we feast upon the divinity of Christ for all eternity there is a lot at stake in our willingness to enter into this season of land it's awfully seriously humbly honestly we must be attended to the way the Satan will try and rip us away from Christ and then be humble about the fact that in some ways he's already succeeded in some ways lent can be a time what we are willing to reexamine ourselves and say Lord where am I already separate where if i were to give an into temptation where am i not going to even perceive a fight because i gave it long ago with this lot with this deception with this bad attitude with this attitude that seems good but actually isn't holding intention something else about the scriptures that I know to be true we need not be afraid by the way of this reality Christ has conquered in us the only reason that you and I give in to temptation is because we don't trust God and in that moment we buy into the deceit and the lie of Satan whether it's like oh I really do need to spoon now God's not going to provide it i'll take it for myself whether it's like you know what i am going to harm myself i can potentially sin because god loves mean he'll protect me and the end whether it's the kingdoms of the world and by the way we can understand that in so many ways and i don't know about you but I've never actually desired to rule the world but I would be perfectly fine if nobody ever mess with me and i can do what i wanted and everybody leave me alone which left to its it's perfect in would be pretty disastrous for everyone you know so there's all kinds of ways that we desire to to rule and can be tempted by the kingdoms of this world and i think one of the things that you and I in a culture where we are basically comfortable is that we can establish little kingdoms of self-indulgence and consolation and comfort that are almost impenetrable to the light of god's grace not because he's not powerful love because we are lulled into a sleepy super whereby we don't even realize that it is not Christ who reigns in our heart but our cell and since we can't actually rent in our heart that means that somebody else is raining and in so many subtle ways we do bow down and worship the evil one because of what he promises us and what he can give us you and I as Catholics are so privileged to have the fullness of Christ not only given to us and the teachings of the church but the fullness of Christ given to us body blood soul and divinity in its entirety each week each day if we want it from the sacred altar we need not fear divides and deceits of the evil one but we do have to acknowledge that they're real that we have bought into them in varying ways that he will continue to tempt us to buy into them in various ways and we must allow the Holy Spirit to drive us to motivate us to enliven us to empower us at every moment of our life if we are going to experience the true freedom the fullness of freedom that Christ has willed from us as will for us from the beginning even before the fall God did not intend that Adam and Eve given to sin but he did intend that they be tempted because it is in temptation it is in trials that it is proven who we are who we want to be not that we can rely on our own strength but that we in humility rely upon the grace the strength the power that God has given us in His Son Jesus Christ

Channel: The Pittsburgh Oratory & Catholic Newman Center

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Id: qHwvY3t8RR8

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 05 2017