By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski shared this reflection with Pastoral Center employees during their traditional Lenten morning of reflection, held March 8, 2024.
When began the 40 days of our Lenten journey, we heard again the words with which Jesus began his public ministry: “Repent and be faithful to the Gospel.” This repentance, this conversion of heart and mind, is a necessary prelude for us to experience the Easter joy of Jesus’ resurrection, when we will all renew our baptismal promises to reject Satan, turn away from sin and live as children of God.
To renew our baptismal promises as we will do on Easter Sunday, then, means to recommit ourselves to that seeking for holiness which should be what our life in Christ means for us as Christians, as Catholics. If we seek holiness, as Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us, then “it would be a contradiction for us to settle for a life of mediocrity marked by a minimalist ethic and a superficial religiosity.”
Through the special tasks of our Lenten observance, that is through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we are to work on resolving “those contradictions” in our life that divert us from the pursuit of holiness. Like the Hebrews who were slaves in Egypt, we are called to “exodus” – to come out and leave behind the fleshpots of Egypt, to leave behind habits of sin, those attitudes that harden our hearts to God and to our neighbor. This “exodus” is necessary if we are to “pass over” from death to life, from sin to forgiveness, from slavery to vice to freedom.
Of course, the Hebrews wandered in the desert for 40 years- they didn’t make a straight path to the Promised Land. Along the way, they fell into temptations and sinned. (You all remember the story of the Golden Calf.) And as we make our “exodus” from this life to “pass over” to the Life to come, we are also subject to various temptations.
How many times have we prayed the Lord’s Prayer? Every time we pray the Our Father we say, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Some other translations have it “and subject us not to the trial.” It might sound like we’re saying that God is setting us up to fail by sending temptations our way. But that’s not what the Lord’s Prayer is really saying.
So, what is it that we are praying for? We pray that God will protect us in the time of temptation and deliver us from the time of trial. We are asking God to be with us when we face the devil himself.
So, we pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” There are all sorts of temptations — of varying kinds and intensities.
Some temptations are of the flesh; others of the spirit; but all involve a “testing” or “trial.” And what is tested is our spiritual resolve — our spiritual muscles if you will. We are always to resolve to do good and to avoid evil. But if our willpower is weak and flabby, if our mind or intellect is clouded or confused so that it doesn’t recognize what is good, then we will be a pushover for the devil.
We must remember that the devil always comes to us in disguise — he is always disguised as something or someone that is good. That’s the way the devil works, he takes something good and corrupts it; he takes goodness and then devalues it, debases it, corrupts it.
The Hebrews spent 40 years in the desert – and Jesus spent 40 days fasting and praying in the desert. Our Lent is supposed to evoke both experiences.
Out in the desert the temptations that the devil put to Jesus were temptations that called him to corrupt the good, to compromise his mission and thereby subvert his Father’s purposes. And aren’t these the temptations that we confront in our lives? No, the devil doesn’t whisper into our ears. He doesn’t have to try to seduce us; the culture that surrounds us does the job for him.
What is the culture — what is the world — saying to us? It suggests that we can compromise with evil: follow the easy way, take the path of least resistance. “Everybody is doing it” — whatever the “it” may be, so why can’t we? we whine. The devil wants us to feel sorry for ourselves, to think of ourselves as victims of an autocratic authority and to scream about their unfairness, because “everybody is doing it.” Why should we, Catholics, be so backward so different. But compromising with evil is a slippery, slippery slope.
Another ruse of the devil — and this is going full steam today — is to redefine sin. We are led to believe that we can change the definition of something that is wrong into something that appears to be okay.
Jesus was tempted — he was like us in all things but sin. He experienced being alone and abandoned — so do we; he had his desert experience, and we have ours. He knew temptations and trials just as we know them.
It is important for us to remember that being tempted is not a sin, giving in to the temptation is what the sin is. One might have a disposition, a tendency — we might even call it an “orientation” — to be prideful, or gluttonous, or impatient. We must struggle with those dispositions, those tendencies, and those “orientations” so as not to sin, to maintain our resolve to do good and avoid evil. Life is a struggle; we are on a battlefield and the stakes are high. And so, when we pray: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” we are asking God to be with us when we face the devil himself.
The first words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel according to St. Mark: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” When we received ashes on Ash Wednesday, we heard those very words. Repent and believe the Gospel.
Repent means to stay in the company of the one who loves us. Keep walking with Jesus! But to walk with Jesus might mean we have to make a U-turn.
To do that, the Gospel challenges us to change our minds about the way we think, to change our hearts about those Gospel teachings we might prefer to ignore and to change our ways about those habits of sin that hobble us along the Way that Jesus points out. Lent reminds us that we must begin again to confront the enemy within us.
As Catholic Christians, our life’s task is not to change the Gospel to accommodate it to our easy compromises with the culture around us. Our life’s task is to allow the Gospel to change us. I like to say that we call ourselves practicing Catholics because this life is our one-time chance to keep practicing the faith until we get it right. And so, during Lent, we seek healing and mercy. We ask God to forgive our sins, not to bless them.
Lent is a time to strengthen our spiritual muscles, to deny ourselves, to say “no” to ourselves — but not just for the sake of denying ourselves. This is not about some kind of spiritual masochism; rather it is about spiritual liberation. We say “no” to ourselves so that we can be free to say “yes” to God and to neighbor.
Repent means to stay in the company of the one who loves us. Keep walking with Jesus! But to walk with Jesus might mean we have to make a U-turn.
To do that, the Gospel challenges us to change our minds about the way we think, to change our hearts about those Gospel teachings we might prefer to ignore and to change our ways about those habits of sin that hobble us along the Way that Jesus points out. Lent reminds us that we must begin again to confront the enemy within us.
I am sure that most of you have seen those TV shows whose premise is to give a participant a “Make-Over.”
For example, the Today Show from time-to-time features what they call an “Ambush Make-Over.” A plain person is given a new hairdo, new clothes, sometimes new body parts – and this is done for our entertainment. The Make-Over is at most skin deep – and it is not really apparent whether the make-over “reveals” or “hides” the person’s real self.
Quizás algo parecido sería la telenovela, Betty la fea, pero al revés. En realidad, Betty no fue fea y luego el mundo descubrió su verdadera belleza.
On his way to Jerusalem to die, Jesus stopped at Mount Tabor where he was “transfigured”. The gospel of the transfiguration is always read the second Sunday of Lent. Jesus undergoes a sort of make-over. His face becomes radiant, his clothes as bright as the sun. However, his “make-over” is not just on the surface. It comes from within himself – and this is not done for our entertainment like those TV “make-overs” but rather for our edification. And Jesus’ make-over answers some real questions about who this Jesus really is – we hear God’s voice say: This is my chosen son, listen to him.
And, of course, what happened here to Jesus would not be really understood until after his death and resurrection – for this happens on Mount Tabor, a stopover during Jesus’ journey or “exodus” towards Jerusalem where he will suffer, die and rise again.
Jesus is going to Calvary, to the Cross. But his “make-over” on Mount Tabor tells us something about who Jesus is and what his mission was – he is the Son of Man, who has come into the world to redeem the world through his death and resurrection.
Moses and Elijah are there – to explain that all what they had spoken and written in the Old Testament was to prepare for the coming of Jesus and for what he would do.
And why would Jesus suffer and die? To make possible our own “make-over,” and not just a superficial one, one on the outside, but one in the inside, one that changes us and makes us over into sons and daughters of God.
And who would not want such a “make-over” – and who doesn’t need one? How can we transform ourselves? How can we transform the world? Too often, in our attempts to “make over” ourselves and our world, we do violence to ourselves and to the world. Look what happens to those politicians that promise people a “heaven on earth.” They usually end up delivering not a Paradise but a hell on earth.
Even today, people trust too much in love of power – to try to make over themselves and others. Yet Jesus tells us that the way to a true make-over is not through the love of power, but through the power of love – and the power of his grace.
The power of love is shown in his gift of himself – by his dying on the cross. This is how Jesus will accomplish his ultimate make-over; and this is the way for us, and our being made over into the image of Christ.
Peter would have like to have stayed on Mount Tabor – and sometimes we have had similar “mountain-top experiences” that we wish would never end – a time perhaps when God seemed particularly close to us or like the time we first fell in love. But then life calls us back to reality. Peter didn’t know what he was saying. He – like all of us must do – had to come down the mountain. For Jesus, for Peter, and for each one of us, the road to glory – that final make-over that awaits us in heaven – passes along the Way of the Cross.
The Mass makes the cross present to us. Each Mass is a re-presentation – albeit an un-bloody one – of Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary. The Eucharist – as a Memorial of His Passion and Death – reminds us that the power of Christ’s love can make us over – and our communion in His Body and Blood renews us. The Mass anticipates that final make-over – because we eat the spiritual food of His Body and Blood, not to turn it into ourselves, but that it might make us over into him whom we receive.
