On the Temptation of Christ in the desert

As the 40 days of Lent commemorate the 40 day fast of Christ in the desert, the gospel of this 1st Sunday of Lent begins with the words: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert for 40 days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and when they were over, he was very hungry.” His physical weakness would have made the opportunity ripe for the devil to tempt the Lord for we have always presumed that an empty stomach would fall for anything. Isn’t this the basis of a present day pastoral strategy that we must first fill the stomach before we can fill the spirit? Thus, many pastoral programs today first concern themselves with the satisfaction of man’s material needs before we can even attempt to address the spiritual ones.

Actually, this is the strategy of the devil in tempting Jesus. First, he addresses the Lord’s immediate need, namely, his hunger: “Command this stone to become bread.” Then, he addresses human ambition: “I shall give you all this power and glory…if you worship me.” Then, he addresses our inclination towards vainglory: “Throw yourself down from (the parapet of the temple) for…He will command his angels …to guard you.” The presumption is that human need draws us away from God. To draw man closer to the Lord, we must first satisfy these needs.

But the Lord has responded to the temptation in an unexpected way: for his hunger may have weakened his body but it has strengthened his spirit. St. John Chrysostom says: “He fasts so that you may learn how efficacious fasting is, and what a weapon it is against the devil; and that after our baptism we should give ourselves, not to pleasures, not to drunkenness, not to the delights of the table, but to fasting. For this reason He fasted; not because He had need to fast, but to teach us. For before we were purified through baptism, the pleasures of the stomach led us to sin…For it was the intemperance of the stomach that drove Adam from paradise, and provoked the flood in the days of Noah, and sent thunderbolts against Sodom…Ezechias tells us: 'Behold this is the iniquity of Sodom thy sister, fullness of bread, and abundance, and they were lifted up, and committed abominations' (Ezechias xvi. 40). And the Jews also; it was when they were filled with the delights of food that they then fell into and committed their greatest sins.”

Isn’t this the movement of the modern world? Our inclination is to lower standards. Fasting is difficult? Then, reduce it to its barest minimum. Students have poor comprehension? Lower the passing average! We can’t keep people from gambling? Legalize it! Can’t keep people from being sexually promiscuous? Give them condoms! Giving too much credit to the overriding power of the human needs, we have reduced ourselves to the level of beasts who immediately subject themselves to instinct. St. John Chrysostom says, “There are those so foolish and dull that they long only for the things of the present; saying such senseless things as: ‘Let me enjoy now what I have, later I shall think about what is not certain. Let me indulge my appetite. I want to enjoy myself. Give me today, and you may keep tomorrow.’ What folly! They who say such things, in what way do they differ from goats and swine?”

We have forgotten that baptism has elevated our humanity for on account of it, we have become temples of the Holy Spirit. Though our Lord was weakened by hunger, he triumphed over the devil by the same Spirit who led Him to the desert to be tempted. We should not forget what our Lord told St. Paul who complained of the weakness of his flesh: “My grace is enough for you. It is in weakness that I am powerful.” That same Holy Spirit will help us in our temptations if we cooperate with him through the discipline of our bodies. “Christ fasts for 40 days,” says St. John Chrysostom, “pointing out to us the remedy for our salvation.”

St. Francis on the Priesthood

St. Francis in Prayer

Zurbaran

"Kissing your feet, I implore you all my brothers, and with the utmost affection I beseech you to show the greatest possible reverence and honor to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . Consider your dignity O Brothers who are priests, and be holy because He is holy . . . It is a great misfortune and a miserable fault to have Him thus near you, and to be thinking of anything else. Let the whole man be seized with dread; let the whole world tremble; let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is on the altar in the hands of the priest. O amazing splendor and astounding condescension! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Master of the universe, God Himself and Son of God humbles Himself so far as to hide Himself for our salvation under the feeble appearance of bread! See brothers the humility of God . . . keep nothing of yourselves for yourselves, so that He may possess you entirely, who has given Himself wholly for you."

St. Francis of Assisi

(Thanks to Savior.org)

On the absence of fasting in Lent

Christ in the desert

Moretto de Brescia

"...on that day, they will fast."

Lent is a season of fasting. Many today do not realize that fasting of essential to this season of penitence. However, the forty day preparation for Easter finds its origin with the desire of Christians to imitate Christ our Lord in his forty day fast in the desert. Thus, Lent has suffered much when the discipline of its fast has been relaxed and reduced to those of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. What is Lent without its fast? It is like a dog that barks but cannot bite. Ask around the impact of Lent on the lives of many ordinary Catholics. Sure, people came to church to receive ashes on their foreheads but that was all there was to it. Lent has simply become an occasion to sing "sad songs" in church, a time for priests to wear purple vestments and for us to engage in stations of the cross. But without the fast, would Lent truly be what it was intended to be: an imitation of Christ's forty day fast in the desert?

Let us return to the this revered discipline of the Lenten fast. Ramadan continues to be the holiest time of the Islamic year because of its fast. Modernity has not at all affected their fast but we have allowed it to affect ours. And this is unfortunate. For what we have done has not only taken the tooth out of Lent, it has also lessened our anticipation of Easter.

On Lent and Confession

"Behold, now is the appointed time, in which you must confess your sins to God, and to the priest, and by prayer and by fasting, by tears and almsgiving, wipe them away. Why should a sinner be ashamed to make known his sins, since they are already known and manifest to God, and to His angels, and even to the blessed in heaven? Confession delivers the soul from death. Confession opens the door to heaven. Confession brings us hope of salvation. Because of this the Scripture says: First tell thy iniquities, that you may be justified (Is. xliii, 26). Here we are shown that the man will not be saved who, during his life, does not confess his sins. Neither will that confession deliver you which is made without true repentance. For true repentance is grief of heart and sorrow of soul because of the evils a man has committed. True repentance causes us to grieve over our offenses, and to grieve over them with the firm intention of never committing them again."

St. Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor

Ash Wednesday

from Google images

Lent is once again upon us: this grave season that is marked by penance and prayer. The post-modern man might find this season repulsive on account of the discipline, the mortification which characterize its gravity. However, in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul gives us a refreshing perspective on the season of Lent. He calls it the acceptable time and the day of salvation: In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation. Lent is called “the acceptable time” because, in the light of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, God is most disposed to accept us sinners once again into his bosom. This is the most opportune time to be reconciled with God. St. John Marie Vianney said, “It is not the sinner who comes back to God in order to ask him forgiveness, but rather, it is God who runs after the sinner and helps him come back to him.” And because he is most disposed to accept us back, he is most disposed to pour upon us all his graces and blessings to help us come back to him. Thus, this is “the day of salvation.”

On account of the superfluous grace and mercy of God to us during this season, St. Paul admonishes us: “we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” He invites us to take advantage of this season of grace, to do all we can to get as much grace as we can. Hence, the mortification, the fasting, the abstinence, the penance. It is like being in the middle of a long dry spell, at the sight of dark and heavy clouds in the horizon, we put out as many empty pails as we can so that we can catch as much rain water as we can. Of course, to get optimum results, the pails have to be empty and clean. If pails are filled with sand, or garbage, or murky water, we waste the opportunity to catch pure rain water. We cannot benefit from the graces which God intends to pour upon us during this season if we are so filled with ourselves. I remember once, I chanced upon this noontime variety show in which the contestant must gather as much coins as he can because the heavier the total weight of what he gathered, the higher the price money gets. The show had a heavily bosomed woman and on account of her massive breasts, the coins keep falling off into the ground. He gathered almost nothing. Fasting and other disciplines help empty us of our egoism so that we may be prepared to receive everything that comes from God. In his Lenten message this year, Pope Benedict writes: “With bitterness the Psalmist recognizes this: ‘Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me’ (Ps 51,7). Indeed, man is weakened by an intense influence, which wounds his capacity to enter into communion with the other…By nature, he is open to sharing freely, but he finds in his being a strange force of gravity that makes him turn in and affirm himself above and against others: this is egoism, the result of original sin… Conversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel, ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to discover and accept one’s own need – the need of others and God, the need of His forgiveness and His friendship. So we understand how faith is altogether different from a natural, good-feeling, obvious fact: humility is required to accept that I need Another to free me from ‘what is mine,’ to give me gratuitously ‘what is His.’" Fasting helps free me from “what is mine” so that I can receive in abundance “what is His.”

In a similar light, fasting also addresses the scandal of our times: the discrepancy of the abundance of our age and the widespread hunger of people. The scandal of hunger is so blaring that politicians jump into this issue with one candidate promising “masarap na pagkain sa bawa’t mesa” and another pledging “masustansyang pagkain sa bawat mesa.” The Church looks at fasting as the solution to the discrepancy of affluence and hunger. We empty our plates so that we may put food in the plates of the hungry. Receiving in abundance “what is God’s” I freely give up “what is mine” so that it may also be “theirs.” This charity does not only make up for a multitude of sins but also makes up to God the worship that I have failed to offer him. The Holy Father said: “giving to the poor (for the Israelite) is none other than restoring what is owed to God, who had pity on the misery of His people.”

Dominus Vobiscum

I get upset whenever I hear a priest greet the people: "The Lord is with you!" I even heard some priests complain that "Dominus vobiscum" is so archaic a greeting that it no longer is relevant to our modern use. With the new translations returning to "and with your spirit", many liberals object that this response does not mean anything more than the formula we use today: "and also with you." I came across this very enlightening article which I think would make us appreciate the return to the more literal translation of "et cum spiritu tuo."

Check out this link: Psallite Sapienter: Dominus Vobiscum

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes,

Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted,

pray for us!