A Lenten Reflection

     East of Jericho, Palestine, in the Judean Desert, and not far from the Jordan River, there is a Greek Orthodox monastery built into the rock of the steep side of a high hill called the Mount of Temptation. The ancient monastery buildings lead into a number of caves, where it is believed our Lord Jesus Christ found refuge during His forty days in the desert.      

Eight years ago, when I first visited this site, the place was mostly stark, barren desert. When I returned last November, the area beneath the Mount was covered by irrigated farms and groves, even homes and apartment buildings. The city of Jericho had expanded into the area. There seemed to be some sort of resort built right beneath the monastery, with even cable cars going up the mountain. How time changes things. It seemed hard to believe that this place was a desolate, dry wilderness when Jesus spent His forty days there.      

On the First Sunday of Lent, the Gospel remembers this story. (Mt 4: 1-11) In previous years, this Gospel has led me to meditate on different things, like my memory of this place in Palestine, what it is like to survive in a desert, what nuts and edible plants Jesus ate to stay alive all those days, where He located mountain springs to get water, how He found shade, how He felt at different moments. Was He lonely? Did He miss His mother? What kind of mystical experiences was He having with His Heavenly Father? Did He experience spiritual dryness? And of course, those temptations!     

This Lent though, upon reading this passage, what struck me after all these years, were the actual WORDS of my Lord. It seemed as if He was personally talking to me, crystallizing my focus on what this new, long season of Lent can mean to me. Each statement led me to unexpected prayer with Him.    

 He tells me, “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4 : 4) I have been “fasting” since Ash Wednesday, at least trying to limit what I eat and trying to feel hungry for long periods of time. Normally I never feel hungry. I go to the Deli, or refrigerator, or the pantry, and satisfy my craving. I tend to overeat often. But lately, I am actually succeeding in getting these unexpected hunger pangs. I close my eyes and see in front of me a fat slice of Wonder Bread with butter, or Italian bread with olive oil, French bread with tuna fish, Indian naan with hummus, Cuban pastries, raisin bagels…..

Stop, please! I see my Lord, the Word of God, smiling before me, ready to fill me with His life-giving self (as if He doesn’t do that already!), and I find myself craving for Him: “Oh God, You are my God—for You I long, for You my body yearns; “ (Ps 63 : 2) I hear His Word: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied.” (MT 5: 6) Indeed, His Presence within me helps to “set me right.” Thank You Beloved, for reminding me through hunger, to pray with You.     Then He admonishes me : “You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test.” (Mt 4: 7) Yes, I feel so infinitely loved by Him; it is wonderful. I trust Him to forgive me and straighten me out every time, but this does not mean that I am to just forget about His Mercy. This does not mean that I am to engage in reckless behavior, playing with the fire of my sinful instincts, and glibly expect Him to catch me every time I fall, like a little child “testing” the love and patience of his parents. Such Divine Love deserves respect, honor, adoration, and great effort at self-improvement and penance.   

 Finally, He warns me : “The Lord your God, shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve.” (Mt 4: 10) I have been amassing a list of bad habits to give up, along with acts of giving and sacrifice for this Lent. I think I have already come up with about 20-plus items. It’s stacking up to be a little mountain of promises which are hard to keep. My Lord helps me to realize that my primary focus should not be on all these goals and acts, but on Him, the Divine One who enables me to accomplish any of them. Yes, He appreciates my attempts at charity and piety, but I must remember that every act of love, or sacrifice, or kindness is in the end His Grace working through each one of us. If I start giving myself spiritual medals for being such a “good boy” I get dangerously close to idolatry of self, and pride.    

 Frankly, I admit I am really ill-prepared for this season of Lent. Without His loving company and strength I cannot make it through this desert. I surrender to His love and invite Him to walk with me through it all. My hope in Him sprouts, and flowers tentatively, like those gardens and groves that dot the Palestinian desert before the Mount of Temptation. Prayer is always the first step, the most important aspect of Lent, and for that matter, the whole year.      Lord, help us to drink from the fountain of love which is You Holy Spirit. “Jesus, I trust in You.”
Orlando Hernández

Our Lenten weekday readings begin with the final judgment, when “all the nations” appear before Jesus Christ to be judged for the way they have treated “the least” , the hungry, the thirst, the naked, the sick, the prisoner. “Christ in disguise”, to use a term of Mother Teresa.

“When did we see you in them”, those judged ask?  (Monday)

The readings for the days that follow tell us the way to see– by prayer. On the mountain Jesus teaches his followers the Lord’s Prayer, the common prayer of all God’s children. God is our Father. We ask to be given our daily bread. We ask that we all be forgiven and not be tested beyond our strength.

God gives us a gift to pray that our eyes may see and our hearts be open. Like snow and rain, the gift of prayer falls on us all. God give us the gift to pray. (Tuesday)

Prayer is more than prayer for ourselves and our own needs. The story of Jonah points to a world bigger than our own. We’re children of the world and we must pray and work for its good. (Wednesday)

Never lose confidence in prayer and what it makes possible. “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find. Knock and the door with open” Jesus teaches. (Thursday)

Make sure as you approach the altar to pray that your heart is free from resentment, harsh judgment and anger. Otherwise, your prayer become weak and blind. You cannot see.  (Friday)

We must pray even for our enemies. For our Father causeS the sun to shine on the just and the unjust and the rain to fall on saints and sinners. (Saturday)

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For this week’s homily, please play the video below.

Our church was overflowing with people on Ash Wednesday; they came all day for ashes. The Ash Wednesday People.

Is Matthew, the tax collector, whose call is remembered so beautifully in today’s Lenten gospel, one of them? “I came to call sinners,” Jesus says, the people on the edges, the outsiders, the ones you don’t see much in church.

Does Mathew, the tax collector, whom Jesus called, represent them all? During Lent Jesus calls unlikely people besides the “just” to follow him. 

Great graces are given in Lent.

Besides individuals whole societies are called to be restored, our first reading today from Isaiah say that::

“Thus says the LORD:

If you remove from your midst oppression,

false accusation and malicious speech;

If you bestow your bread on the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted;

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,

and the gloom shall become for you like midday;

Then the LORD will guide you always

and give you plenty even on the parched land.

He will renew your strength,

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring whose water never fails.

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,

and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;

“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,

“Restorer of ruined homesteads.” (Isaiah 58.9-14)

On Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, ashes are bestowed in the form of a cross.  “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” A rite inspired by the Book of Genesis.

In the first creation account, Genesis I, God creates the world in 6 days. On the 6th day he  creates human beings in his image and likeness, giving them dominion over the earth and its creatures. On the 7th day God rests, finding everything very good. 

The second creation account, Genesis 2, offers another version of the creation story. Instead of  watery chaos, God creates from a dusty earth, enlivened by a stream of water. “Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. “ (Genesis 2, 7-8)

God, like a farmer, creates a world that’s a garden, with trees “delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Adam and Eve take fruit from that forbidden tree and begin to feel the consequences immediately.

Where are you?” God asks Adam, hiding naked in the garden. The question is asked, not in judgment or in anger, but from love and concern. “Where are you?” a merciful God asks..

 “Where are you?” The sentence for disobedience is already being  carried out. The two do not die physically immediately, they live on for hundreds of years, scripture says.  But forms of death and a new uneasiness disturb their relationship with each other, with the animal world, and with the earth itself. 

They blame each other. “The woman made me do it.” Their relationship with each other has changed. Their relationship with the animal world is broken; they’re betrayed by the wisest of animals, the snake. The earth that gave them abundant food and drink and a delightful beauty becomes hard and unyielding. The first physical death recorded in Genesis is the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Violence enters the world.

When God asks “Where are you?” death has already come. God is not leveling a sentence. God comes in loving kindness to the creature made in his image. A God of mercy comes.

God fashions garments of skin for Adam and Eve as they’re driven from the garden. God promises a woman, a new Eve, will be mother of all the living. 

The Jewish scribes who fashioned the ancient creation stories into the Book of Genesis end it with God’s call and promise to Abraham. A merciful God does not abandon the world he made . A new people will bring life to the world.

We symbolize the Genesis story in the ashes, placed on us in the form of a Cross. Jesus Christ comes to enliven all creation. God so loves the world he made. 

On Ash Wednesday ashes are placed on our foreheads in the form of a cross as simple words are said: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

A reminder we will die. Our physical life will end, the ashes say; the day and hour unknown.

But there’s more. The ashes are in the form of the cross, which means Jesus Christ changes death. “Dying, you destroyed our death. Rising, you restored our life.” Jesus Christ has made his risen life ours. He promises we will enter into his glory, though his promise is hidden now. We believe it is so..

St. Paul of the Cross once wrote in a letter about mystical death, something to think about today,.

“Life means dying every day as servants and friends of God. ‘We die daily; for you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God.’ We undergo a mystical death.

“I’m confident you’ll be reborn to new life in the sacred mysteries of Jesus Christ, as you die mystically in Christ more and more each day, in the depths of the Divinity. Let your life be hidden with Christ in God…

“What’s mystical death? It means concentrating on divine life, desiring God, accepting all God sends without worry. It means letting God work in your soul, in the sanctuary of your soul, where no creature, angelic or human, can go. Know that God is working there and being born in you as you mystically die.

“But I’m in a hurry, and this note is getting too mystical, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s hard to understand. “    (Letter, Dec 28, 1758)

Yes, God’s work is hard to understand. God works in unknown ways, hidden yet sure. We accept it, desire it, try to be attentive to it, but still we can only glimpse what God does in his mercy and love.

The saint has to hurry off, he says– like the rest of us. He’s going somewhere and has something to do, someone to see. He tells his correspondent we can’t think about deep things too long. No, we can’t.

“O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?….Thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ( 1 Corinthians, 15, 55,57)

“In you, Lord, is our hope. ..We shall dance and rejoice in your mercy.” (Evening Prayer, Office of the Dead)

Last night ABC News reported on the secret war in the Amazon, as that region is being plundered by timber merchants, ranchers and other third parties. Pope Francis in his exhortation “Querida Amazonia” recently said the world should be outraged by what’s happening there. It’s an ecological and human disaster.

The loss of the Amazon region and great land forests in the Congo and Borneo will impoverish the earth and humanity, the pope writes. Already, the majority of the population of the Amazon have been driven away from their ancestral home to live in big cities where they experience exploitation, xenophobia, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. (10)

We’re losing a treasure of the natural world. The pope bemoans the “disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right” (54)

The pope calls the Amazon “a theological locus”, a place that awakens the sense of God, now so weakened by our technological world. “ Its loss diminishes our contemplative sense. “Let us remember that ‘if someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple’. On the other hand, if we enter into communion with the forest, our voices will easily blend with its own and become a prayer: “as we rest in the shade of an ancient eucalyptus, our prayer for light joins in the song of the eternal foliage’”

“Jesus said: ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight’ (Lk 12:6). God our Father, created each being in the universe with infinite love, …Jesus himself cries out to us from their midst, “because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence”.

An “indigenous wisdom” and “indigenous holiness” is being lost, the pope says. “The aboriginal peoples give us the example of a joyful sobriety and in this sense, “they have much to teach us”.[101] They know how to be content with little; they enjoy God’s little gifts without accumulating great possessions; they do not destroy things needlessly; they care for ecosystems and they recognize that the earth, while serving as a generous source of support for their life, also has a maternal dimension that evokes respect and tender love.”  (71)

Teach us to number our days aright, O Lord, that we may gain wisdom of heart.

I was preaching a retreat to my community in Pittsburgh all last week. My community, the Passionists, was founded 300 years ago in Italy by St. Paul of the Cross– before the United States. And last week we were thanking God for those 300 years.

During the retreat we were reflecting on three questions. Where are we in this world of ours? Where are we in this church of ours? And where are we in this community of ours. Big questions.

I went to Pittsburgh and came back by train. A 9 hour trip. You can do a number of things on a 9 hour trip, read a book or look at your iPad, close your eyes and sleep, talk to someone next to you, or look out the window.  I spent most of the time looking out the window. 

You see a lot of our history on that route looking out the window. The train from New York to Pittsburgh follows the old roads, that follow the rivers and the old Indian trails that were the first pathways westward through our country. At Trenton, you go over the Delaware River, that George Washington crossed, Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed, You pass through the beautiful farmlands in the Lehigh Valley, then climb into the mountains after Harrisburg till you get to Pittsburgh.

We live in a beautiful country.  

But you can also see challenges our country’s facing as you look out the  train window. The rivers are still beautiful, but some, like the Passaic, the Hackensack, parts of the Susquehanna, Juanita, Ohio and Monongahela are spoiled from human waste. Some of the beautiful mountains are gashed from abandoned strip mines. 

From the railroad you can also see parts of our country that aren’t doing well either Abandoned factories and steel mills and empty stores are frequent sights along the railroad tracks, especially as you  pass through cities like Altona and Johnstown and Greensburg and on the outskirts of Pittsburgh itself. A gigantic empty factory stands near the train station at Johnstown. How many people did that put our of work?

I was thinking at the end of my trip, “Wouldn’t it be good if all those involved in our national political campaign would ride the train from New York to Pittsburgh and tell what they see from the window and what they would do. 

Last week Pope Francis delivered his response to a meeting on the Amazon region that he called recently, “Querida Amazonia”. He’s  looking out the window. The Amazon region is “a multinational and interconnected whole, a great biome shared by nine countries:” During the meeting the question about married priests and the ordination of women came up, but the pope obviously didn’t want to address these questions at this time. He wants to emphasize the care of the environment and care of the people who live in the Amazon. 

The issues facing the Amazon are issues facing the whole world, the pope says. Before him, Pope Benedict condemned “the devastation of the environment and the Amazon basin, and the threats against the human dignity of the peoples living in that region”. Francis is passionate about the Amazon.

“The equilibrium of our planet also depends on the health of the Amazon region. Together with the biome of the Congo and Borneo, it contains a dazzling diversity of woodlands on which rain cycles, climate balance, and a great variety of living beings also depend. It serves as a great filter of carbon dioxide, which helps avoid the warming of the earth.” (48)

Powerful industries are exploiting the area, looking at it as a resource instead of a home, the pope says, but the interest of a few powerful industries should not be considered more important than the good of the Amazon region and of humanity as a whole.

The pope keeps calling the church and the world itself to “an ecological conversion”, but we’re slow to grasp what’s happening. We seem to think technology will save us; and we don’t like changing our lives.

 Obviously, the pope’s looking out the window at the world. So should we.