“This season of Lent is a time in the desert. In the Old Testament when God saved the Israelites fro the Egyptians they spent 40 years in the desert from slavery to the desert and then ultimately to the promised land and Jesus in today’s Gospel spends 40 days in the desert in kind of reenactment, but the Spirit sends him out into the desert. They key thing is that before he starts his public ministry, he spends 40 days in the desert and for us as we mature in our spiritual life we need time in the desert to really kinda shed ourselves from our own self will, our own egos, to let go and to grow in a deeper trust in God and so this is the season of Lent for you to intentionally go into the desert with the Lord these 40 days to free you from the bondage of your life whatever it might be the bondage of the sins of your life and to grow in a deeper relationship with Christ and so the Church gives us these three practices: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Now have you decided what you are doing this Lent? Not what you’re just giving up, but have you decided what you’re doing this Lent in terms of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I’m going to speak about all three to stir your mind of what you might do this Lent.
They call us to prayer, to grow in a deeper sense of prayer. Prayer is a lifting of our mind and hearts up to God to have conscious contact with God in our daily life. Do we do that? Oftentimes in our lives we go through our lives day by day it becomes the same thing especially during the pandemic. We couldn’t differentiate the days from the days, but we stir our minds but here it’s would you lift up your mind and your heart up to God? And that’s what prayer is. Ultimately it’s a relationship. It’s not just rattling off prayers, but will you let those prayers touch your heart to change it? Just like any relationship to grow closer you have to spend time, so how do you pray you might say? Well make time. Make time to pray and especially during this season of Lent make time to pray. Do you make time to pray in your daily life, your weekly life, your monthly life? Here in the yearly life of the Church this is a time designated very intensely to prayer, so some ideas: if you don’t go to Mass every weekend, then during this 40 days of Lent make it a point to come to Mass every Sunday. Maybe you do go to every Sunday Mass, then maybe try weekday Masses, add a day or two in your schedule to grow in that deeper relationship. Have you signed up for an hour in the adoration chapel just to spend that quiet time with the Lord. There’s the Rosary. There’s many ways to pray. Choose one, but intentionally make time for it. We like to schedule things because we forget and we know we forget so that’s why we schedule, well schedule it in, an appointment with Christ. I have to do that as a priest. We have appointments, we have things to do and sometimes we have to make it and I have to write it down as it’s an appointment because I always make my appointments, but sometimes I let my prayer go, so sometimes even I have to make it an appointment in my schedule book that that’s the time that I sit and pray, so during this season of Lent spend time with the Lord so as to grow in deeper relationship with him just like any other relationship in your life, so prayer.
Now fasting- sometimes people might think that, it’s kind of a dualistic way of thinking that the body is bad and so we fast so as to build up our souls, but that’s not the point of fasting. There’s a point of fasting not just for pain’s sake, but for something else and that’s what the fasting during the season of Lent is for. We fast from hunger and thirst, so food and thirst and in the Church we have designated days for that so we have Ash Wednesday and Fridays of Lent to fast from meat and also just to abstain, abstain from meat and to fast on that day, but to fast it’s in some sense kind of like disciplining your kids. When you have kids you don’t indulge them in every desire that they have or else they would be eating chocolate and french fries all day, but you discipline them so that they’re not controlled by their innate desires and so too with us during this season of Lent we fast from certain things so as to gain freedom to choose them once again to not have them control our lives. The basic things of life, they’re good it’s food, thirst and sex. We need food and thirst to survive and we need sex to continue our species. They’re good things, but when they control our lives, they’re no longer good then we become slaves to them and so during this season of Lent we choose to fast so as to bring something deeper a hunger and thirst for something deeper. In the Beatitudes they say, ‘Blest are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake for they will see God.’ To hunger and thirst for righteousness, righteousness meaning right relationship. Do you hunger and thirst for right relationship not only with God, but with yourself and with others? When we fast from those innate desires in our life a deeper desire emerges, a deeper desire for God, a deep desire from our heart and soul emerges and so that is why we fast, so what are you fasting from this Lent? If you haven’t’ chosen anything then observe the days the Church has for fasting and abstinence on Fridays, but if not what else are you fasting from? Maybe it’s alcohol? Maybe you have one or too many drinks, then maybe try to give it up this whole Lent. Maybe there’s sweets or you indulge in snacks, maybe try not to snack this Lent. Maybe it’s even fasting from screen time? The creators of social media created it to be addictive on purpose, so maybe fast certain times of the day from your screen. It’s not meant to be easy, it’s meant to be hard, but it’s meant to bring out a deeper desire from your heart and your soul ultimately for God, so fast.
The last is almsgiving, to give alms, really it’s to share your love, charity and love is willing the good of the other as other, really to love the poor. We’re called in this time to love the poor, poor yes maybe financially, but also in your lives you have people you are in contact with. You have your area of influence, maybe they’re poor in spirit, maybe they’re poor in loneliness, maybe spend time with them. During this season of Lent is to give alms to spend time with the poor, to give to the poor, but also to give alms is to tithe. In the Church to tithe is to give 10% and in some ways it’s hard. During the Mass, we don’t do it now because of the pandemic, but sometimes people might think that there’s a part of the Mass where we play some music and we pass the baskets around and we collect money and it’s kind of like let’s take a break from Mass, collect money and then let’s start again, but it’s actually an integral part of the Mass. It’s a giving alms. In other cultures they don’t give money, but they actually bring up live animals, anything they can give. In doing so it’s supposed to be an act of sacrifice that we’re contributing to the sacrifice of the Mass that what we’re giving we’re giving to the Lord to do as he wishes and so to give alms is to give yourself and it’s supposed to be a sacrifice to conform your life sacrifice to the Lord, so how are you going to give alms this Lent? How are you going to help the poor? Some ideas: maybe during the season of these 40 days, whatever you make in these 40 days, give 10% to whatever charity you can think of, to give it away. Maybe it’s, we always get these mails soliciting us, maybe it’s in these 40 days whoever asks me for money I will just give with trust just to give.
If you do these three things and you do it with an honesty of heart and be open to the grace of God within it, you will be transformed in these 40 days, not only that it’s just like Christ today, after his 40 days of temptation he was ready to start his ministry, to repent and believe the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and so too with us during this season of Lent is for us to intentionally go into the desert so that we can be transformed and see the Kingdom of God is at hand, so as you come before the Lord today where Christ is truly present before you in the Eucharist let us have the strength and the courage to find things we want to do this Lent, see where we’re going to improve in our prayer, our fasting and our almsgiving so that we can be open to the grace of God and to really grow in the Kingdom of God. Amen.”