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Wednesday of this week is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the
season for prayer, fasting, and reconciliation. Much has been made in
the press recently about the Pope’s call for Ash Wednesday 2003 to be a
day of fasting and prayer for peace, which is surely important and
should not be overlooked.
However, the season of Lent is much more than one day of
fasting and prayer. The forty days of Lent provide an annual
opportunity for each of us to prepare ourselves to become more capable
of truly celebrating the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday
morning. As Catholics, we do this by taking an extended period of time¾forty
days¾to
meditate about our lives and our relationships, and not only our
relationships with one another but also, and more importantly, our
relationship with God.
The days of Lent provide the time we need to consider how sin
has infected our relationships and, then, to uproot from our souls anything and
everything that has distracted us from relating to one another and with
God like Christ related to others and his Father. With
souls reconciled with one another and with God, we will on Easter Sunday
morning be strengthened to build lives, families, and a world as well
that are characterized by selfless care
and compassion for others and their needs rather than a world driven by
the forces of greed and selfishness. This is not a Utopian dream
but the result of holiness of life.
This year, Pope John Paul II has offered Catholics throughout
the world a phrase from the Acts of the apostles to guide our Lenten
meditation: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts
20:35).
As the Pope reminds us, this phrase is not simply a command
coming to us from without. Instead, Pope John Paul II teaches us that
the inclination to give selflessly comes from deep within ourselves. We
are, as it were, “hotwired” to give of ourselves to one another, that
is, selflessness
is rooted in the depths of our souls. Perhaps the poet John Dunne
put it best when he penned his 1684 poem, “No Man is an Island.”
Each and every one of knows how deeply and sometimes
desperately we desire to interact with others. We also know the depth
of personal fulfillment we experience when we’ve freely give ourselves to others without expecting anything
in return.
We can make this season of Lent, the Pope reminds us, a
fruitful time for spiritual growth as we use these forty days to
re-orient ourselves to our fundamental nature, that is, to be reconciled
with ourselves.
But, giving rather than receiving is something more easily
said than done, especially living as we do in an age that is
particularly susceptible to the temptation toward selfishness. We all
have first-hand experience with how the spirit of the world tempts us to
put ourselves first and to satisfy our own interests rather than to put
others and their needs first. Succumbing to this temptation breeds
selfishness which, in turn, can swell in our souls to the point that it
suffocates the natural desire God has placed within us to give ourselves
unselfishly to others. This makes it all but impossible to be a person
who genuinely cares for others and their needs and who builds a culture
of care, even in one’s
own home!
Think about it. How
often do we see someone else who needs our assistance and know that we
should do something, but we glibly justify our unwillingness to give ourselves
unselfishly to them? We might simply dismiss or ignore them by turning
away. We might say, “Sorry, honey, but I’m already running late. Got
to go…” and there we are out the door. Or, we might say in a somewhat
hostile and defensive tone, “Aw, com’on, can’t you see that I’ve got
other things to do?”
The phrase Pope John Paul II wants us as Catholics to focus
upon each and every day of this Lent is the phrase from the Acts of the
Apostles: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
So, rather than focusing upon what we might “give up” this
year for Lent as is the traditional practice or, as today’s gospel says,
“putting new wine into old wineskins,” the Pope has challenged us to
consider how we might strengthen our ability to give ourselves
unselfishly for others during the forty days of the season of Lent.
Kids, for example, can help their parents with the household
chores, and not just by doing their assigned chores willingly and
without having to be asked. Kids can also learn what it means to give
of oneself unselfishly during this season of Lent by asking their
parents each and every day of Lent how they might be able to help around
the house in other ways. Another way that kids can give themselves
unselfishly during this season of Lent would be to donate one’s
allowance (or a substantial part of it) to charitable organizations,
like Catholic Charities, which provide services to some of the most
needy in our Archdiocese. These are two very practical ways that kids
can mature spiritually in the type of selflessness and attitude of
self-giving that Pope John Paul II wants us to consider.
Parents, too, can give themselves unselfishly by paying
attention more to their children during the season of Lent.
Undoubtedly, there are so many important matters that preoccupy parents
on any given day of the week. But, for each of the forty days of Lent,
parents could purposely take a chunk of time each day to do something
that expresses one’s genuine interest in and special love for that
child. Parents might also consider doing something a little extra
special for each child at some point during Lent, something you might
not have time for but that you make time for in order to mature in
parental holiness. These are some very practical ways that parents can
mature in the type of selflessness and attitude of self-giving that Pope
John Paul II wants us to consider.
For their part, spouses could¾for
each of the forty days of Lent¾compliment
each other for the many ways they express selflessness. There’s a
million ways this is exhibited yet gradually becomes something taken for
granted: cooking meals, cleaning house, being attentive to the other
after a long day at work, running errands, paying bills, completing the
tax return, fixing broken plumbing and electric, mowing the lawn and,
yes, even shoveling the snow. An unselfish attitude of looking each day
at one’s spouse each day of Lent with eyes that behold the special gift
God has placed into one’s life and, then, providing forty “Hallmark
moments” is a very practical way spouses can mature in the type of
selflessness and attitude of self-giving that Pope John Paul II wants us
to consider talking about.
Those are some simple ways individual Catholics can take these
words of scripture and the Pope’s challenge to heart this Lent. But, if
we are to achieve these virtuous and holy outcomes, kids and parents and
spouses will have to decide to give of themselves more selflessly to
others for the only reason that “it is more blessed to give than to
receive.” Try it forty days. I guarantee that you will
experience yourself changing as you come to see people in a different
light.
What about us as
Catholic families? How might they take these words of scripture
and the Pope's challenge to heart this Lent?
Believe it or not, each family could use the forty days of
Lent to build a culture of care for others and their needs in their own
homes. Families can focus upon what God is calling them to be
collectively, especially in an age particularly susceptible to the
temptation toward selfishness. To overcome this temptation, believe it
or not, each family could use the season of Lent to build a culture of
care for others and their needs in their own homes.
One particular method family members might consider giving of
themselves unselfishly to the other members of their family is through
prayer. Statistics about divorce today prove old adage true,
“The family that prays together, stays together.” Sadly, though,
family prayer has fallen on hard times during recent decades and it
should not prove surprising that divorce is rampant in our society.
It must be asked: How can a family and the marriage it is built upon be
strong enough to endure if its bedrock is not God?
Perhaps one of the many stumbling blocks to family prayer is
that parents and kids feel uncomfortable praying out loud and with one
another. Feeling not quite sure what to say, how to say it, and the
judgments others might make about one’s prayer is, quite frankly,
selfish…totally focused upon oneself.
So, how might families grow in self-giving through prayer
this Lent?
One very practical way would be to recite the rosary each day
as a family. Assign a decade of the rosary to each family member who
also will pick an intention to pray for, perhaps for world peace, for
our service men and women who have been activated for a potential war
and are now readying themselves for harm’s way, or for any sick and
needy member of our family, our relatives, and our friends. The
intention may be for inspiration or guidance about a problem or troubled
relationship, it might also be about a hope or a fear. It really
doesn’t matter. What really counts is that family members as a group
are giving themselves to one another in prayer and inviting God to be
part of their family’s life as they gather together each day to pray the
rosary.
Why shouldn’t Catholic families not give themselves
unselfishly to one another by praying the rosary together for forty
days? Not only will families who do this grow in their willingness
and ability to pray together. These families will also discover
the spiritual strength and inner healing that comes when “two or three
are gathered in my name.”
A second way families might consider giving of themselves
unselfishly to one another through prayer is by daily reading of the
scripture.
Catholics, much more so than Protestants, feel ill at ease
reading scripture and discussing it with others. Perhaps we may feel
awkward approaching scripture, not familiar with its contents or
believing that we need some type of special training to understand the
Word of God. But, that’s the beauty of scripture: it is a book that
speaks not to “great minds” but to “generous souls.” To listen to the
Word of God, all we need to do is to give ourselves selflessly to
it and to allow the Word of God to take root in our souls and in our
families as well.
Families¾if
they really want to¾can
set aside fifteen minutes each day of Lent to listen to the voice of God
in scripture, to consider its application to our lives, and to
experience the bible not as a dusty book sitting on the shelf and
holding all of the family members’ baptismal, first communion, and
confirmation certificates but as a program for spiritual growth. By
giving ourselves unselfishly to one another through daily bible reading
and shared reflection upon it for the forty days of Lent, we can invite
God to be a part of our family and to dwell within our home. Moms and
dads and brothers and sisters can become a family community that is
attentive to the Word of God and which supports its members as they try
to lead good and holy lives based upon what scripture teaches.
As a family, try praying the rosary or reading scripture for
forty days. I guarantee that you will find your life and the lives
of the members of your family changing as you learn to talk and to read
about God and godly things in place of much of the drivel that
constitutes our normal conversation. At a minimum, you will begin
to appreciate the depth of goodness present in one another and yourself
that you may have never really appreciated before.
We all know the
profound interior satisfaction and strength of character that we
experience when we respond to the natural inner impulse to give
ourselves to others without expecting anything in return.
Paradoxically, this is the same satisfaction and strength of character
that filled Jesus’ soul as he gave himself selflessly to his Father
when, in perfect obedience to the will of the Father, Jesus emptied
himself (cf. Phil 2:6ff), and humbly gave himself to us in an act of
selfless and total love, death on a cross.
To boys and girls, to teenagers and young adults, to all
women and men who oftentimes find themselves dissatisfied
with a shallow, routine, boring, and ephemeral existence and who are searching for
authentic community in their daily lives, Christ offers his example and
issues the invitation to follow him by giving of oneself selflessly to
others.
Pope John Paul II reminds us that the forty days of this
Lenten season provide us both individually and collectively as families
the opportunity to root out any selfishness that has crept into our
souls. If we but allow the selflessness that God has breathed into
our souls to flourish through our Lenten practices, we will be able to
appreciate others and others will be able to appreciate us on Easter
Sunday because our Lenten practices have opened our eyes to see one
another in a different light, the light of the Resurrection.
I know that many of you may be thinking, “Gosh, you're
killing me! I rather just give something up.” Well, then, my
friends, why not pour some new wine into old wineskins? How about
giving up television for Lent?
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HOMILY
