Genesis 2:7-9;3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
I have a reoccurring dream. I’m back in school and it’s test day. But I am not ready. I failed to study. I’m unprepared.
Panic. Distress.
Terror. All these feelings overwhelm me.
To add insult to injury -- and I apologize in
advance for planting this image in your brain-- but I’ve showed up for my test
wearing only my underwear. No clothes at
all.
And I’m trying desperately to hide before anyone notices
a fellow student traipsing around clad only in his skivvies.
Now, my feelings are amplified with embarrassment
and shame.
I am always so relieved when I wake up from this
horrible, horrible nightmare.
I’ve been told by many they’ve had similar anxiety
dreams.
Not sure what it all means. It’d probably take some
serious couch time with a psychologist for me to understand its origins.
Maybe it comes from a deep, dark place in our collective
memory. Maybe it’s rooted in humanity’s subconscious; planted there by our
experiences in the garden with our creator and our shame for failing the test.
We are all on our Lenten journey.
On Ash Wednesday, we were reminded that we are dust,
and to dust we shall return. We were
asked to repent and believe in the Gospel.
In essence, we are being told to WAKE UP!
Wake up to what we’re doing wrong in our lives. Wake up to our own sinfulness. Wake up to the things that distance us from
God, the things we do we don’t want God to see, the things we do in our lives
that bring us shame.
Shame is such a strong emotion. When we let down
God, when we sin, we experience shame, regret, embarrassment and sorrow.
Sometimes, to escape these feelings, we like to
convince ourselves a sin is not a sin.
It’s a game we play with ourselves.
We try to be smarter than God.
We are tempted and fail the test, over and over
again. After all, we’re only human.
Thank God for the Lenten season. Thank God for these
40 days to focus on getting it right in God’s eyes.
20th Century Catholic mystic and writer
Thomas Merton once said, “Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious
accounts, but for realizing what we had perhaps not seen before. The light of Lent is given us to help us with
this realization.”
Pope Francis calls Lent a time to “shed lazy,
un-Christian habits and snap out of (our) apathy” as we prepare for the joy of Christ’s
Resurrection at Easter.
The Pope says, “All of us need to improve. Lent helps us… get out of our tired routine
and the lazy addiction to evil that tempts us.”
Lent is a personal journey. And like Christ, we
should be making this journey alone with our Creator.
Jesus shows us today a perfect example how to love
God with all our heart, with all our mind. This is one half of the Greatest Commandment.
The devil dangles self-reliance, wealth and power,
and fame before the Son of God and he doesn’t blink. Jesus aces the test.
As Pope Francis recently said , “The world tells us
to seek success,
power and money; God tells us to seek
humility, service and love.” Jesus in a
nutshell, right?
When we face the same tests, the same temptations, do
we pass? Or fail?
Let me ask a question, do we strive to be wealthy;
to be abundantly financially secure by the work of our hands? To build up fortunes for ourselves and our
family?
Or do we realize it’s all a gift from God designed
to be shared abundantly with others? And
do we share enough with our brothers and sisters in need by offering up alms?
Do we hunger for power? How many of us try to control people and
situations in our lives? How many of us
fail to let the Holy Spirit take control and instead try to take matters into
our own hands; in our families, in our work setting, in our Church?
Do we hunger for fame? Is it always about “me” or others?
Do we fast to break through our hungers? Do we feed ourselves sufficiently with the word
of God and the body of Christ to know ourselves better?
Do we pray enough?
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans today wants us
to focus on the Big Picture: Jesus
remained obedient to God throughout his entire life, all the way to the cross.
Jesus turned humanity’s disobedience to God’s will in the garden into obedience
in the desert when tested by the devil.
Sadly, we humans fall short time and time
again. We fail the test.
That’s why we need Lent. That’s why we must make our own personal
journey into the desert every year, take a long, hard look in the mirror and
hold ourselves accountable to God.
In
Matthew’s Gospel today, we see Jesus tested by the devil. We see him dispatch the devil with these simple
words, “Get away, Satan.”
If only we remember to do the same every time we
are led into temptation.
Thankfully, we Catholics have the Sacrament of
Reconciliation to seek God’s tender mercy, compassion, love and forgiveness
when we mess up.
As a Catholic who struggled for years with a
misunderstanding of the Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation, my eyes are now
open to a need to confess my sins.
None of us is perfect. But all of us have the
ability to ask God for forgiveness when we stumble and fall. All of us can open ourselves up to the light
of God’s love.
As we enter our Lenten journey, my prayer is for
each of us is to feel the freedom and the release only found in the
confessional.
During Lent, we Catholics also usually give up
something as a reminder of our focus on penance and prayer. Perhaps it’s chocolate or Starbuck’s lattes or Facebook
or some other little habit.
As we look for something to give
up for Lent, I recommend we:
-
Give up resentment
and become more forgiving
-
Give up hatred
and return good for evil
-
Give up complaining
and be more grateful
-
Give up pessimism
and become more hopeful
-
Give up worry
and become more trusting
-
Give up anger
and become more patient
-
Give up pettiness
and gossip and become more noble
-
Give up gloom
and become more joyful
-
Give up doubt
and turn to God
May the
peace of Christ invade our very being this Lenten season. May we WAKE UP and get to work on our
relationship with God so when the time comes to stand naked before our creator we
may pass the test.