topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
Second Sunday of Lent (A)
20 March 11
 


 

I’ve always enjoyed reading the story of Abraham, an 80+ year old man who God called to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house.”  Reflecting upon that image, it doesn’t matter much, does it, whether any of us is young or old?  It’s extremely difficult for just about all of to get up, cut our ties, and leave everything behind—even if it’s just bad habits.

Yet, that’s the image today’s scripture for the second Sunday of Lent challenges us to contemplate: getting up off of duffs, cutting our ties to the past, and leaving everything behind—especially sinful habits.

Especially considering Abraham’s advanced age, why did he leave everything behind and venture into unknown, alien territory?

Like all biblical truths, the answer is about as simple as it is straightforward: Abraham believed what God promised, that God would be with him and bless him and generations would follow after him.  Had Abraham not believed all of this, he would have died, and in all likelihood, quite comfortably, right where he had been for those 8+ decades.  Yet, Abraham would have left nothing truly valuable behind as a cultural inheritance and, like most human beings who follow that pathway, Abraham would have been discarded into the dust bin of history, another one of those countless, nameless, and faceless human beings whose lives were meaningless in terms of leaving behind a cultural legacy…just as all of Abraham’s kinfolk did who remained behind in the land of Ur.

But, when God called Abraham, he believed what God promised.  And, as a result, Abraham changed the course of cultural history and of the world as well, teaching every generation following after him that trusting God’s promise is risky: it requires both loyalty and commitment that transcends even family ties.  In the end, however, venturing into that place where God led Abraham will bring the blessing of a truly happy life, not only for Abraham but also for all of his descendents.

It would be simple to say—and to put a quick end to my homily—that Abraham listened attentively to God’s voice and did just as God asked.  It would also be simple to say—if only to extend my homily just a bit—that faith means taking God seriously as well as listening to His word and, then, doing as God asks, if only because God has promised to be with us, as God promised Abraham.  Then, too, it would be simple to say—to finish my homily off with a bit of a rhetorical flourish—“the reward is worth the risk.”

And yet, there’s more to this story than meets the eye because Abraham’s response marks the beginning of “salvation history,” that is, the birth of God’s overture to save His human creatures.  Because Abraham risked all by embracing the future God had planned for him, Abraham has exemplified for all of his progeny how they are to respond in each generation to God’s call to risk all and to embrace the future that God has planned for them.

Understood this way, Abraham’s story isn’t all that foreign to our experience.  Answering God’s call requires taking risk.  Yet, we oftentimes are very hesitant, if not rendered impotent by fear, to respond as Abraham did.  That paralyzing fear leads us to remain where we have rooted ourselves rather than to venture forth to that alien territory where God is leading us.

In his book, The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser has written about the many ways we experience God calling us to leave behind all of those things that provide our security and comfort—the land of Ur—and to embrace that pathway which will lead us to a new and transfigured life in the land God has promised.

There’s the death to our dreams, some that we’ve held onto for decades.  Yet, we don’t normally consider how unfulfilled and unhappy we feel as we clutch onto those dreams—planting ourselves firmly in the land of Ur—and will feel so until death, that is, until we let go of those dreams and migrate into that alien territory where God will transfigure us into that person, not of our dreams, but the person God has created us to be by leaving all of that behind.  It’s sure to be quite an adventure journeying from one place to the other without a map, requiring that we take quite a risk based solely upon our trust in God and what God has promised.

There’s also the death to youth.  Fr. John Hagen oftentimes tells me “Growing old is Hell.”  The simple truth is that too many middle-aged people today live in absolute fear of growing old.  They fear leaving their youth behind so much so that they will do just about anything and everything to appear youthful, willingly paying bucket loads of cash to defy the terrifying biological facts they view in the mirror each morning.  If these middle-agers don’t take the risk to leave behind the desire to be 20 or 30 years younger—irrationally hoping that they can remain in the land of Ur—and move into the alien territory where God will transfigure them into the people God has created them to be today, many middle-agers will never experience the new life and peace that comes in their middle and senior decades from trusting in and following God’s call today.  They will lament the wrong things—what is passing or has already passed—and never celebrate the right thingsGod’s blessings in the place where God is calling them!

In the same vein, think of the many people in our congregation who are just like Abraham, all of those 80+ year olds.  With advanced years and perhaps dealing with some healthcare issues, God is calling many of them to migrate out of the comfort of their homes and routine—the land of Ur—and into a new home and routine—an alien land—where they can live the life that God is calling them to live today.  It’s hard to believe what some otherwise very pleasant and amiable elderly people will do or say to their children if they bring up the idea of moving out of the house!  But, let me assure you through personal experience, they do.

Consider, too, death to marriage.  For a variety of understandable but not Godly-reasons, many young people today fear following where God is leading them by entering into the alien territory of the sacrament of marriage.  Rather than permanently committing themselves to each other and entrusting themselves to each other full of unconditional faith, hope, and love, all too many young adults today leave one foot planted squarely in the land of Ur while barely even allowing one toe of the other foot to test the waters of that alien land where God has called them to migrate to “not as male or female, but as one body united in God.”  “What if this relationship doesn’t work out?”, young adults wonder today, even as God keeps speaking to their hearts: “Wait until you see what I have planned for you in the sacrament of marriage.”

Then, too, there’s death to honeymoons. A lot of married couples have difficulty accepting how, as they grow older, their marital relationship changes.  As both spouses inevitably change in a variety of ways, their relationship inevitably changes in a quite a number of significant ways. Unless the couple takes the risk to die to the relationship they experienced 5, 10, 20, or even 50 years ago—the comfortable land of Ur—by venturing forth into the alien territory of building what their marriage relationship can be today, both of them as well as their marriage will not be transfigured into the new life that God has promised both spouses in this new and alien territory.

Answering God’s call is never easy in any generation. Yet, as Abraham’s progeny, he exemplifies how we must also say “Yes” to God’s call, full of trust that God will be with us, that God will guide and protect us, and that God would never have called to venture forth into that new and alien territory unless God was already prepared to provide everything we need to fulfill the mission God is entrusting to us in that land.  Like Abraham—our father in faith—answering God’s call is how we accept God’s invitation to be full and active participants in the story of salvation history, even when that place isn’t part of our dreams, is found in an assisted care facility, or exists only in a sacramental marriage.

But, more importantly, and as today’s gospel teaches, this is also how the power of God’s love transfigures each of us here in Norristown, Pennsylvania, just as the power of God’s love transfigured Moses on Mount Sinai and Jesus on Mount Tabor.  As we respond to God’s call by conversing with Moses (who represents God’s Law), Elijah (who represents God’s prophetic word), and Jesus (the Word of God made flesh), God says of us: “This is my beloved…with whom I am well pleased.”

During this Season of Lent, the scriptures continue to remind us that spiritual growth is all about dying—today, to our dreams and plans—and rising to a new and transfigured life—in the place where God is leading us.  We recall Abraham risking to leave everything behind in the land of Ur and Jesus being transfigured on Mount Tabor.  When we were baptized, became participants in the story of salvation history and it is during this season of Lent that we endeavor to live out more fully that baptism.  We do so as we learn to die to sin so that we can live in the new life and freedom of God’s children to place where God is leading us, Easter Sunday.

Yet, let us not forget what Jesus said to Peter, James, and John, something that Jesus is likely saying to all of us, “Arise and do not fear.”  Leave everything behind, trust in God, and establish yourselves in that place where God will transfigure us into His beloved sons and daughters.  Of course, the transfiguration is not simple of “place” but, more significantly, of morals, of the death that leads through faith to the resurrection.

Last Sunday, the “Sunday of the Temptations” reminded us of the power of evil and how it seeks to distract us from focusing upon love of God by seeking happiness in things rather than in God.  Today, the “Sunday of the Transfiguration” reminds us of how the power of evil seeks to distract us from focusing upon love of God by living in the comfort and security of the past when God is calling us to migrate to a new place.

Yes, selling one’s home and parting with many of one’s cherished possessions is difficult.  Yes, trusting in another human being completely and without reservation is not a decision that is easily made.  But, Abraham’s migration and Jesus’ transfiguration remind us that if we trust in God to lead us, then we will come to new life.

Like Abraham, God has also invited us to leave everything we have built for ourselves which gives us security and, once again, to place our trust in God so that, like Jesus Christ, we also will become “beloved of God” in whom God is well pleased.  This is how we exemplify to others that it is possible to respond to God’s call and discover true happiness in their lives.  “Listen to him,” God said of Jesus but also wants to says of all of us.

 

 

And, now, the Annual Top 10 Lenten Penances:
The 2011 edition..
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These penances are arranged in order from those fellow parishioners have identified as “least demanding” to those they’ve identified as “most demanding.”  Those who want to practice a more “muscular” form of Catholicism during the season of Lent should try performing as many penances from the most difficult (“easier”) penances to the least difficult (“very difficult”) penances as is possible.
 

(easier penances)

   10.  Immediately upon waking up, begin each day by making a very slow and thoughtful Sign of the Cross.  Be sure to press you hand against your forehead (mind), your stomach (source of emotions), and shoulders (heart and lungs) so that you feel your body as you say the words.  And, before going to bed, do the same.

    9.  Abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays during Lent and give up something you enjoy—like second helpings, candy, or desserts—for forty days.

    8.  Attend daily Mass and participate in the Stations of the Cross on the Fridays of Lent.

    7.  Each day, pick out and offer to complete an undesirable chore assigned to someone else at home, school, or at work.

 

(more difficult penances)

    6.  Abstain from all foul language, lewd jokes, gossip, and sarcastic or demeaning language each day of Lent.

    5.  Turn off the computer except for absolutely essential work.  That means: no Internet chatrooms, IMs (instant messaging), non-essential emails, and absolutely no websurfing for forty days.

    4.  (a choice) [especially for retired persons] Spend one hour each week of Lent in Eucharistic adoration.  Don’t bring anything but yourself.  Sit there in silence and contemplate the gift of the Eucharist.  [especially for married couples] Spend one hour one night each week looking at your wedding albums and discuss what your hopes and dreams were.  Ask each other: What do I need to do so that we can fulfill our hopes and desires?  [especially for kids] Ask you Mom or Dad what one thing you need to do to improve yourself during Lent and do it.

 

(very difficult penances)

    3.  Say the rosary every day.  But, do so by offering the rosary sincerely from your heart for someone you are having difficulties with, like your in-laws, brother or sister, etc.  Or, in a private space each day, stand up, stretch out your arms as if you are placing yourself on the Cross, and envision your sins nailing Jesus to the Cross.  Feel the pain that sin causes and offer this pain up for those you are having difficulties with.

    2.  Turn off the television, radio, IPod, Playstation, etc., for forty days.  “What am I going to do?” you may wonder.  (especially for single adults and older couples) Try reading the Sunday Scriptures each day of the week or a section from the Catechism of the Catholic Church each day.  (especially for teenagers) Along with your parents, read Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, On The Family (Familiaris Consortio).  It’s free and available on the web.  Read one section each day and discuss it after dinner as a family.  If you don’t understand something, ask your parents to explain what the Pope means. Or, alternatively, take one hour after dinner each evening to engage in spiritual reading and discussion together in the living room or family room.  Take 20 minutes to read a selection.  Take 10 minutes to write down what that selection indicates you need to change in your life to be a more spiritual person.  Take the next 20 minutes to share these insights with one another.  Use the last 10 minutes to invoke God's Holy Spirit to help each member of the family build one another up in doing these things.

    1.  Each day, sit down in absolute silence.  Think about yourself and your life for about five minutes.  Then, write down a sin or character flaw you know you need to improve upon.  When you think you’ve completed your list, go to Church and make a good confession.  Then, repeat as necessary.

 

 

 

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