Our liturgical season of Lent comes almost exclusively from
our Gospel passage today. Jesus,
led by the Spirit, goes into the desert for forty days of prayer and
fasting. So, too, do we spend
forty days to be with Jesus in our own prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Again, Jesus didn’t go into the desert
willy-nilly, looking for a vacation and a tan. During this period he underwent a period of preparation for
two important tasks: his mission and his confrontation with the devil.
Lent
is the time for us to be purified and focus on what is truly important in our
lives. It is a time to rededicate
ourselves to coming to Mass each Sunday and Confession regularly. As I’ve told you before, my dream is
that all of our parishioners at St. John’s and St. Joe’s would come to Mass and
Confession often. In fact, if you
told me, “Fr. Ben, you can make a choice—you can have one million dollars, or
the assurance that the people you serve will be faithful in experiencing the
graces of Mass and Confession.”
Now I have a deer rifle to buy, a truck to payoff and loans to chip away
at. But I wouldn’t hesitate
choosing door number two. Seeing
your sparkling clean souls is worth infinitely more than any amount of money.
As
we start this Lenten season, I would like to challenge you to do three
things. First, I encourage you to
pray for ten minutes every day.
You deserve ten minutes to step out of the noise and busyness of our
culture to be with the Lord. And
so does He. Ten minutes—that’s one
third of one evening sitcom.
Actually, that’s the amount of time the commercials take in that
sitcom. Spend ten minutes in quiet
prayer, reading the Scriptures, journaling or simply resting in peace with the
Lord every day.
Second,
please pray for Pope Benedict. He
made the most difficult decision of his life by stepping down from the
papacy. This choice is nearly
unprecedented and has met with mixed reactions from Catholics and the
world. Yet I believe Benedict’s
choice to step away during Lent is intentional. Pope Benedict is now going into a life of solitude and
prayer—he is going into the desert to spend the rest of his life praying for
us. We need to pray for him too.
Finally,
I would ask that you read a book.
The parish has provided each of you with the book Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly. Both Fr. Rich and I are reading this book and it is great. It is well-written, easy to read,
filled with concrete and moving examples and stories and has the potential to
reignite your faith. Sadly, only
2% of Catholics read a spiritual book last year. Let’s not be in that number.
I
provide some of these thoughts with the overall point of Lent in mind. Like Jesus, this period is meant to
help us be prepared for the mission God has called us to. This mission is as unique as each of us
and we need to have periods of prayer in our lives to more fully grasp it. Additionally, in a world so full of
darkness and evil, we are to be prepared to stand up against sin, evil and the
devil himself. We can’t do this
without being united to God.
Don’t
let this Lent be wasted. Use these
forty days to rediscover your Catholic faith and spend time with Jesus in the
desert.
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